# Getting slow NVME write speeds



## lexarflash8g (Nov 12, 2020)

I have a Samsung 980 Pro PCI 4 drive and I did a benchmark, and Im getting good read speeds, but very slow write speeds at 1,100 mb. 
The drive is only 1/3 full, and its running on the PCI x4 mode as listed in the bios. I tested other NVMEs and they are working fine.
SATA mode is in the BIOS, only thing I can think of is might be throttling since the temps are a bit high. 

Its unusual what could be causing this? Is this a defect with the drive... just got it so its a bit frustrating..


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## Deleted member 193596 (Nov 12, 2020)

some info would be nice...


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## Ahhzz (Nov 12, 2020)

lexarflash8g said:


> I have a Samsung 980 Pro PCI 4 drive and I did a benchmark, and Im getting good read speeds, but very slow write speeds at 1,100 mb.
> The drive is only 1/3 full, and its running on the PCI x4 mode as listed in the bios. I tested other NVMEs and they are working fine.
> SATA mode is in the BIOS, only thing I can think of is might be throttling since the temps are a bit high.
> 
> Its unusual what could be causing this? Is this a defect with the drive... just got it so its a bit frustrating..


Throw CrystalMark at it, and let's see the data. 






						Download
					

[2022/12/03] CrystalDiskInfo 8.17.13 – Manual / History Standard Edition 4 themes / 5MB ZIP (XP-) INSTALLER (Vista-) Source Code Alert Tone Pack Shizuku Edition 26 themes / 200MB ZIP (XP-) INSTALLER (Vista-) Kurei Kei Edition 23 themes / 120MB ZIP (XP-) INSTALLER (Vista-) [2022/10/30] CrystalD...



					crystalmark.info


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## lexarflash8g (Nov 13, 2020)

Same thing with CrystalDiskMark... 6700 reads... 1100 mb writes.. I can send a screenshot 

Im using an x570 system of course with PCI 4 support and running on the top NVME slot.. I tried with other NVME slots but get same slow speeds... my other NVME drives bench fine..


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## Zach_01 (Nov 13, 2020)

What is the drive's temp? idle/load

Try Samsung Magician software. From it you can see if the drive needs a firmware update and also what NVMe driver you are using.
You can run benchmark too...




This is HWiNFO sensors mode


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## ratirt (Nov 13, 2020)

lexarflash8g said:


> Same thing with CrystalDiskMark... 6700 reads... 1100 mb writes.. I can send a screenshot
> 
> Im using an x570 system of course with PCI 4 support and running on the top NVME slot.. I tried with other NVME slots but get same slow speeds... my other NVME drives bench fine..


You need to be more specific with your hardware spec. Bord, CPU, PSU etc.


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## oobymach (Nov 13, 2020)

Your write speed should definitely be higher, something is wrong with the drive, are you using newest driver? Only other thing I can think of is incorrect bios setting (if using msi board in settings/advanced/pci sub system should be auto or gen4).

Get driver here, scroll down to driver and hit plus, download and install, reboot and test.









						Samsung Magician & SSD Tools & Software Update | Samsung Semiconductor Global
					

Download Samsung Magician, tools & software for Samsung SSDs, Data Migration Software, Firmware, Driver, Data Center Toolkit, Activation Software.




					www.samsung.com


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## Vya Domus (Nov 13, 2020)

lexarflash8g said:


> I can send a screenshot



Oh good to know ...

Please post one ?


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## puma99dk| (Nov 13, 2020)

lexarflash8g said:


> I have a Samsung 980 Pro PCI 4 drive and I did a benchmark, and Im getting good read speeds, but very slow write speeds at 1,100 mb.
> The drive is only 1/3 full, and its running on the PCI x4 mode as listed in the bios. I tested other NVMEs and they are working fine.
> SATA mode is in the BIOS, only thing I can think of is might be throttling since the temps are a bit high.
> 
> Its unusual what could be causing this? Is this a defect with the drive... just got it so its a bit frustrating..



Please fill out System Specs it's easier to help you out.

Because what motherboard and have you installed Samsung's own NVME driver for your drive? I noticed installing Windows 10 on my own 970 EVO a while back before version 1909 it was a bit weird without it.


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## lexarflash8g (Nov 13, 2020)

There is no driver for the Samsung 980, only the 970. The temp is about 51.. and sometimes in Samsung Magician it says too high. I can't open it now its crashing for some reason. 
And In my gigabyte BIOS settings It shows the setting as PCI 4x and shows up under NVME. And I put in the top most slot. Not sure whats going on.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 13, 2020)

Yes it's not right


Open HWiNFO "sensors mode only" and leave it open for as long as you use your system. After few hours check the temps. And you can see them during benchmarks also.





Know that every time you run benchmarks on your SSD drives you're loading/increasing the "Total Host Writes" by a lot. I know 980Pro 500GB should have a high TBW limit (300TB total), but just saying.


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## Vya Domus (Nov 13, 2020)

Install the latest chipset driver from AMD. Usually these things are related to that.


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## Zach_01 (Nov 13, 2020)

Vya Domus said:


> Install the latest chipset driver from AMD. Usually these things are related to that.


Could be... but only from AMD website and not vendor site.



			https://www.amd.com/en/support


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## plat (Nov 13, 2020)

I just installed the 980 Pro last weekend  and never had to install any Samsung firmware, driver, controller etc. or update any chipset or BIOS.  No settings needed to be adjusted in the BIOS.  It's running in a Z390 board so the speeds are not as high as if it was the latest 4.0.  

I mean, if one can rule out dirty or broken slots or contacts one might start thinking about contacting Samsung customer service and/or returning it for a replacement.   It's not worth the aggravation, imo. 



Spoiler











Spoiler





/


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## theonek (Nov 13, 2020)

hmm that's what i wanted to see and the conclusion is 980pro works just like 970 evo plus on the older boards with no pci-e 4.0, so it's not worth it to change ssd's without the whole system...


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## plat (Nov 13, 2020)

Exactly.  In fact, that's what the 980 Pro replaced on here:  the 970 EVO plus.  Things went from "decently fast" to virtually instant in many cases. The temperatures dropped from high 30s/low 40s to what you see here, depending on use of course.  It was an actual, appreciable upgrade you could see and sense.  It was worth it, even though it's running in PCI-e 3.0 and will not fully see the read/write potential.


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## magnomickey (Nov 13, 2020)

Im having a very similar problem... the drive had good speeds at first (4,500 mbps aprox) and suddenly it dropped a lot... I use win10 with the latest updates. I attach crystalmark. Anyone has solved this problem?


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## Selaya (Nov 13, 2020)

sounds a lot like a drive not properly TRIMming ...


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## magnomickey (Nov 13, 2020)

I did optimize the drive with windows tool; is there any tool that can help diagnose if drive not properly TRIMing ?


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## theonek (Nov 13, 2020)

use the latest version of Samsung magician software to see if any problems will report for your drive or it could have a new firmware for it for fixing this issue....


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## magnomickey (Nov 13, 2020)

no errors or new firmware


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## plat (Nov 13, 2020)

Just retested w/CDM and there's no write degradation like that with mine.  Might it be related to the PCI-e 4.0 interface?  I wonder if Samsung has other reports like that.  In that case, I spoke too soon re: returning it.  But maybe watch out for further reports.  

I found a post on the Samsung community thread.  It's not helpful so far....






						Samsung account
					






					us.community.samsung.com


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## magnomickey (Nov 13, 2020)

i also ran a health chcekc and looks like drive is ok.





found this too... guess we will have to wait for driver to see if it fixes it..


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## lexarflash8g (Nov 13, 2020)

I also have the latest AMD driver for the chipset.
Is it a defect with the drive, or something else with my system? If other users are reporting issues.. it might be a bad batch of drives.

Doubt my system because my ADATA xpg NVME drive gets 3300 write speeds.. even my 970 is faster. Ill try the HWinfo sensors while its benchmarking to see if its throttling.

Please let me know what Samsung says Im trying to RMA but dont want to get the same drive if it continues to happen.


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## puma99dk| (Nov 15, 2020)

@lexarflash8g Have you enabled write caching in Windows 10?

After watching Nada from Techtesters she actually says Samsung dropped the driver for the 980 Pro that really does everything for you to make your drive just works.

The part you are seeking is starting around 3:30 mins in.


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## magnomickey (Nov 15, 2020)

Thanks, I did have that enabled tho. I really hope samsung releases driver soon and it fixes issues. 

I saw this tho... could it be related? Since I have a 500GB drive, i dont have 324 gb free space but 269 GB... my speed goes to around the 1,000 stated tho... any thoughts? Is there any tool i can try to tune performance of the drive?


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## lexarflash8g (Nov 17, 2020)

YEs when I go to Device Manager and right click.. Write caching is enabled.. ill send a screenshot make sure its correct


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## heartog (Nov 27, 2020)

Same issue here with the writes with the 500GB 980 Pro w/ Asus Prime X570-Pro, I currently have around 40% of the drive filled and getting 6xxx MB/s read 1xxx MB/s write. I tested the disk when it was brand new and empty on a B550 board and it was running at full speeds. I suspect it might have to do with X570 or some kind of program/service writing to the disk causing it to not clear the SLC cache properly?


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## Amby (Dec 2, 2020)

Same here with a _ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS_ . Dissapointing


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## theonek (Dec 2, 2020)

apprentely amd chipset driver issue, wait for fixing it, that's only thing for now.... intels don't have this as they still use gen 3.0 pcie for nvme drives.


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## mhb (Dec 4, 2020)

I have built PC with following specs and  have same slow write speed with my 980 Pro 500GB Model









ASUS Rog Strix X570-E Gaming
AMD Ryzen 5950X
AMD Radeon 6800 XT


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## acegutta1 (Dec 8, 2020)

I got a x570 and a 5900 X rise and processor and I'm getting 6700 read and 2500 write I migrated all my info on the drive I was going to wipe the drive clean and start over but if you're saying they need to have a new update I might just wait


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## Hardcore Games (Dec 8, 2020)

Samsung claims 7000 read, 5000 write so it should be close to that

wipe the SSD clean before installing windows fresh


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## heartog (Dec 9, 2020)

reinstalling and secure erasing the drive will help temporarily, but after a few benchmark tests/few days, it would be slow all again



theonek said:


> apprentely amd chipset driver issue, wait for fixing it, that's only thing for now.... intels don't have this as they still use gen 3.0 pcie for nvme drives.


I tested it on a intel board, same issue


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## hardkod (Dec 12, 2020)

Same issue with 2x980Pro Raid0 on Gigabyte x570 Aorus Pro. Reinstalling chipset drivers helps sometimes but not for long. Gigabyte support tell me - "its not our problem. We use amd unchanged code."


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## igorp (Dec 13, 2020)

I am running Ryzen Threadripper 3990X on Asrock TRX40D8-2N2T featuring 2 x Corsair Force MP600 in raid 0. I would also expect better speed then this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=testALT.img bs=100M count=11 conv=fdatasync
1153433600 bytes (1,2 GB, 1,1 GiB) copied, 1,68589 s, 684 MB/s

Single Samsung 970 nvme 2tb on a Pentium D NAS:
1153433600 bytes (1,2 GB, 1,1 GiB) copied, 1,65157 s, 698 MB/s

Running Ubuntu 20.04 with stock kernel 5.4.0-56-generic. Tried also most recent kernels and no change ... but sometimes it boots up in high speed mode. Strange.


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## bakabek (Dec 14, 2020)

Hello.
Faced the same shit. After a week of use the speed dropped to 1000.

MB: Asus Rog Strix B550-F (Wifi)


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## L3XANDR0 (Dec 15, 2020)

I'm having the same exact write issue. Can't go over 2100MB/s in sequenital. I have an Asus Dark Hero x570 mobo, Ryzen 5900X CPU, BIOS 3003 (latest), and latest chipset installed. The 980 Pro SSD drivers are also up-to-date. What the heck is going on?


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## heartog (Dec 15, 2020)

L3XANDR0 said:


> I'm having the same exact write issue. Can't go over 2100MB/s in sequenital. I have an Asus Dark Hero x570 mobo, Ryzen 5900X CPU, BIOS 3003 (latest), and latest chipset installed. The 980 Pro SSD drivers are also up-to-date. What the heck is going on?


but 980 pro doesn't have their own "drivers" tho


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## Vya Domus (Dec 15, 2020)

I've noticed something when using CrystalDiskMark, if I set the benchmark to run just 1 loop the write speeds are really low but if run the benchmark for multiple loops, like say 5, I get the expected speeds. When I copy files around manually I also get the right kind of speeds for my drive. So I wonder if there is something in particular about how these benchmarks run.

If I look at what happens in task manager when CrystalDiskMark runs indeed it never actually reaches the peak speeds in the first loop but it does in subsequent ones, I bet there is either some kind of caching involved or some timing issue that causes this.

These NVME drives are so fast that they can now move multiple GB/s of data, I think these benchmarks either move too little data to accurately measure write speeds or the intervals are too small to account for the time it takes for them to reach their peak speeds. Because the thing is writing always has a much bigger latency that reading from memory.


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## pierce3215 (Dec 28, 2020)

I have noticed the same issue with no resolution. Coincidentally, I captured a video recording of the performance right after I purchased it, and now have posted a video with the performance loss.
The time in between the advertised speeds and now much slower write speeds is about 2.5 months.

*Initial Release - Advertised Speeds Screen Capture*










*12/28/2020 - Performance Drop in Write Speeds*










One major thing I noticed when running CrystalDiskMark today was the huge response time differential in write speeds vs. read speeds. You can see this in the second video at the bottom left of the screen capture (task manager).


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Dec 29, 2020)

Created a new account to chime in.

Exactly the same problem with my 980 Pro 500GB as the OS drive. However, my 980 Pro 1TB and WD Black SN850 have no such issues. They're all on the onboard M2 slots.

I've also seen a massive drop on my Sabrent Rocket 2TB, running off an M2 Expander card. However, my Samsung 970 1TB on the same M2 Expander card has no problems and is consistent with prior checks.

I'm running an MSI MEG Godlike 570 mobo, with PCI gen settings set.

Whatever is causing this, if it is software related, appears to be targeting specific models only rather than a blanket issue across all NVMEs. I'm about to reformat the Sabrent and see how that looks after.

Edit: Regards the Sabrent, it was a about 60gb off its cap when the above issue was found. I've since cleared it back and its now back to running normal speeds. Might be coincidence but I'm loading it back up now to see how it goes. 




However, the 980 is way off its cap, at 329gb free.




Cant seem to edit my prior post but I've now gone through a secure erase of the 980 and redeployed an image, its no different. 

So either the hardware itself is failing or there's a chipset driver issue that's only affecting the 980 500GB model.


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## Zach_01 (Dec 30, 2020)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> Cant seem to edit my prior post but I've now gone through a secure erase of the 980 and redeployed an image, its no different.
> 
> So either the hardware itself is failing or there's a chipset driver issue that's only affecting the 980 500GB model.


You know, if there is a software (OS, driver) issue, applying an image will not erase it. Maybe you need a clean install of windows. Unless the image was made when SSD was fast.


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Dec 30, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> You know, if there is a software (OS, driver) issue, applying an image will not erase it. Maybe you need a clean install of windows. Unless the image was made when SSD was fast.



Yeah, I realise that but I'm working through potential issues. Secure erase gets the drive back as close to factory as possible, at the hardware level, so I wanted to see if that could make a difference.

Next steps are a new 980 arriving tomorrow. I'll swap out, reimage and see what that looks like. If that's no different, it's an OS reinstall as a last ditch. 

I do suspect its the drive that's at fault though, because I also have a 980 1TB as a secondary and that's consistently performant. Windows is flagging the driver used for both the 980s as identical.


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## yotano211 (Dec 30, 2020)

Just return it, the ssd is broken.


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Dec 30, 2020)

Zach_01 said:


> You know, if there is a software (OS, driver) issue, applying an image will not erase it. Maybe you need a clean install of windows. Unless the image was made when SSD was fast.



Interestingly, I just checked back through my backups and I do have an image of the drive when it was working properly (8th December). So before the drive swap and OS reinstall, I'll be trying that too.



Zach_01 said:


> You know, if there is a software (OS, driver) issue, applying an image will not erase it. Maybe you need a clean install of windows. Unless the image was made when SSD was fast.



Well, well, well!

Without any further changes made beyond a secure erase, reimage and then just leaving the PC running for a while, its now back to normal. It didn't work immediately after the reimage (no history, as I cancelled the test before it ended).





Edit: Ran a couple more and grabbed the temp data from the run too. I did have the side off the case at the point when it started to run correctly but put it back on for the subsequent two runs, to ensure it wasn't a temperature issue (and it seemingly is all fine going by hwinfo).


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## pierce3215 (Dec 31, 2020)

@5950xSlowNvme

So you solely performed a secure erase and all is now back to factory performance. I have no idea what the culprit would be then...


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## yotano211 (Dec 31, 2020)

Just return the piece of junk back to the reseller, no need to waste more time on this.


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## ThrashZone (Dec 31, 2020)

Hi,
Yep those sammy's are toasty aren't they
Too toasty for me frankly I added a blower heatsink on mine now a lot better


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Jan 1, 2021)

pierce3215 said:


> @5950xSlowNvme
> 
> So you solely performed a secure erase and all is now back to factory performance. I have no idea what the culprit would be then...



Yep but I think there's more to it than that, also.

Earlier today, after installing a load of content to the 980 1TB drive, gaming felt sluggish. I checked it and lo and behold, it too had dropped in write speed, as per the 500gb unit. However, shortly after that, it was fine again. See attached.





So it's not just the 500gb 980 that I've now had the write issue with. Looking further into it, I found this 980 review...









						Samsung 980 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Redefining Gen4 Performance (Updated)
					

Powered by a new 8nm NVMe SSD controller and the company’s V6 V-NAND.




					www.tomshardware.com
				




And found this...

_Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery
Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

You have to be careful when filling up the 980 Pro because it will do so quicker than you might expect. *Samsung's 980 Pro sustained 100GB of writes to its TurboWrite cache at a rate of 4.5 GBps before performance degraded. Once its cache filled, write speed averaged 1 GBps* until full, outwriting the competition. *Cache recovery is on the slower side, however. While the static 6GB cache recovered immediately, the 'Intelligent' dynamic cache did not recover within a half-hour idle window*._

See bolded areas, particularly.

This is pretty consistent with what I've seen today, with the 980 1TB. I spent about 2 hours downloading a bunch of games to it, about 400gb worth, which then saw the write performance drop. After quitting the games and leaving the PC for 5 mins or so, writes were back to normal.

With the 980 500gb (OS), a lot of what I've tried to date has revolved around reformatting and reimaging the drive, which showed no difference. I went through a regular format, a few times, and then a secure erase and format, which showed no improvement after the PC was back up and running.  Obviously this all involved a bucketload of write activity, to the tune of about 350gb each time. However, leaving the PC idle for about 2 hours or so after the secure erase and reformat/reimage, saw the write performance back to normal (see my post above).

I believe that after a sustained amount of write activity to the drive, the cache becomes full which reduces write speeds down to about 1/3 or 1/4 of expected, until the cache is cleared. If you look back through this thread, you'll see that someone else mentioned they had the problem and then it mysteriously fixed itself after a while.

I'm going to test this again tomorrow and see if I can replicate the behaviour but if you have the problem currently, I'd suggest just leaving your PC on and idle for a while, give it a couple of hours and see what it looks like.

More to follow.

Edit: No further instances of write speeds dropping today. No major writes performed, just reboots and playing a few games.


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Jan 2, 2021)

Final update from me, all's well with the 980s now. PC has been quiet for a couple of days, no downloading or file transfers and both 980s remain operating at their expected write speeds.


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## blastdoub1e (Jan 3, 2021)

Made a new account here after researching this problem with my drive. I originally posted a thread over at Tom's Hardware regarding this, but this thread seems to be further along in the troubleshooting, so I'll share my process here.

I too am seeing 1.2k-2.2k write speeds on my drive. Here is an example benchmark result, which is fairly consistent with the other benchmarks I've ran. I'm running a Gigabyte Aorus Elite x570. Here are the list of things I've tried:

 Verified write cache is on for the drive
 Verified drive is using AHCPI controllers (not RAID)
 Verified consistent results on various M2 slots on my motherboard
 The drive has a heatsink installed
 Over provisioned both the drive using Samsung Magician's recommended setting (10%)
 Ran chkdsk on the drive, no errors
 Ran trim optimizations
 Verified latest firmware via Samsung Magician
 Even checked using a M2 -> PCIe4 adapter (no significant difference in performance results)

Aside from that, I'm not really sure what else to do. This seems like a fatal flaw with this model of hardware.


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Jan 4, 2021)

blastdoub1e said:


> Made a new account here after researching this problem with my drive. I originally posted a thread over at Tom's Hardware regarding this, but this thread seems to be further along in the troubleshooting, so I'll share my process here.
> 
> I too am seeing 1.2k-2.2k write speeds on my drive. Here is an example benchmark result, which is fairly consistent with the other benchmarks I've ran. I'm running a Gigabyte Aorus Elite x570. Here are the list of things I've tried:
> 
> ...



Have you seen my recent posts here?

Consistently, I've seen write performance impacted after a period of heavy writes. This has been seen on a 980 500GB and 980 1TB unit, in the same system. What fixed it was simply allowing the cache to clear, which takes time.

For my 980 1TB it took around 6 mins, after downloading (so writing) about 400gb.






For my 980 500GB it took anywhere from 0-4 hours (caveat, after a secure erase and reformat, reimage) but it's now consistently good. I just left the PC idle before trying again.









Nothing I've tried to proactively do has fixed or addressed this, because it's not an OS, driver, config, settings issue. It's just how the hardware works.

There may be a problem with that, in that it takes too long to clear the cache for unknown reasons but time and time alone have been the only things that brought the write speeds back up to where they should be.


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## sedrik (Jan 8, 2021)

using my samsung 980 pro since few days , on a aorus b550 pro and a ryzen 5900x , i only have this  nvme (no other ssd/disk) on the gen 4 16x cpu m2 slot 





but impossible to change the inferface to 4x4 (i try many things on the bios without success)


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## dirtyferret (Jan 8, 2021)

Vya Domus said:


> Oh good to know ...
> 
> Please post one ?


Come one Vya Domus, put on your Carnac turban!


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## Ahhzz (Jan 8, 2021)

Alright, slide back to the topic


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Jan 8, 2021)

sedrik said:


> using my samsung 980 pro since few days , on a aorus b550 pro and a ryzen 5900x , i only have this  nvme (no other ssd/disk) on the gen 4 16x cpu m2 slot
> 
> View attachment 183023
> 
> but impossible to change the inferface to 4x4 (i try many things on the bios without success)



That's a BIOS issue of some kind, the PCIE lane is being restricted.

What other devices do you have installed into PCIE, like soundcards, networkcards, SATA expansions, GPUs, etc?


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## sedrik (Jan 8, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> That's a BIOS issue of some kind, the PCIE lane is being restricted.
> 
> What other devices do you have installed into PCIE, like soundcards, networkcards, SATA expansions, GPUs, etc?



i only have gpu (rtx 2060), nothing more.


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## 5950xSlowNvme (Jan 9, 2021)

sedrik said:


> i only have gpu (rtx 2060), nothing more.



OK, have you performed a BIOS reset to default and then without any further changes, checked Samsung Magician again? That's your starting point.


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## sedrik (Jan 9, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> OK, have you performed a BIOS reset to default and then without any further changes, checked Samsung Magician again? That's your starting poiyesnt.



problem solved, after removing the nvme and then putting it back (the best possible), probably a bad contact during the initial installation. everything works normally now.


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## Dimokto (Jan 22, 2021)

Plz HELP!


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## Deleted member 205776 (Jan 22, 2021)

Same here.






Honestly I don't care as I see literally no difference (I don't use my PC for heavy writes or workstation work - don't ask why I got a workstation NVMe as my first NVMe), but it would still be nice to get the actual speed I paid for... Seeing way too many 980 Pro users having this issue, doubt it's something I did.


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## evernessince (Jan 22, 2021)

plat said:


> Just retested w/CDM and there's no write degradation like that with mine.  Might it be related to the PCI-e 4.0 interface?  I wonder if Samsung has other reports like that.  In that case, I spoke too soon re: returning it.  But maybe watch out for further reports.
> 
> I found a post on the Samsung community thread.  It's not helpful so far....
> 
> ...



It wouldn't be the first time.  Samsung had to release a firmware update for the 850 and 840 evos for the exact same issue.


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## Pwablo (Jan 22, 2021)

Hi Gonna jump onto here, as I have the exact same issue with a 980 Pro 500GB NvME on a Rog Strix x570-F & AMD 5600x cpu. All purchased at the start of January, tested 3 times and speeds were fine.

3 weeks of daily light desktop activity, and one transfer of 120GB a week ago which was deleted soon after.
Write speeds are now rubbish....


The Drive has 275GB of free space with 46GB OP. Latest Drivers etc. Tried everything to correct it, but speeds remain slow on all the speed tests, Crystaldiskmark, Magician and Userbenchmark etc.

I also left PC running at idle for 6 hours. made no difference.
This is not a temperature issue either, the drive even during testing never goes above 40 Deg C and sits at 33 Deg C offload.

Samsung need to get this sorted..
..


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## ThrashZone (Jan 22, 2021)

Hi,
No new driver that I've seen so far which is very weird of sammy.









						Samsung Magician & SSD Tools & Software Update | Samsung Semiconductor Global
					

Download Samsung Magician, tools & software for Samsung SSDs, Data Migration Software, Firmware, Driver, Data Center Toolkit, Activation Software.




					www.samsung.com


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## Pwablo (Jan 22, 2021)

So looking into this a bit further, it appears that these 980 Pro NvMe Drives use 3 bit TLC Flash Memory with 94GB SLC Cache allocated to Turbowrite 2.0. Once the SLC Cache is full the direct to TLC Cache speeds drop to 1000MB/sec (for the 500GB model) and 2000MB/sec (for the 1TB Model).
Clearly the drive controller will determine what stays and what goes from the SLC cache, so if the drive is being used as a boot device, any number of OS files could be held in cache for some time before they are deemed to be suitable for "housekeeping" to remove them. When and how frequently the controller conducts this task is anyone's guess, but given other users experiences with the larger capacity 1TB drive, the 500GB seems to take way way much longer to get the sweeping brush and dust pan out of the VNAND cupboard !!

I have left my machine idle for a considerable time today with no change, so I am now under the belief that the only way this drive is going to reproduce the original 5000MB/sec write speeds during a test going forward, is if it is secure erased and the OS image reapplied, however it looks like it will only be a matter of time thereafter (weeks at most with light use it seems) before the SLC Cache is once again filled up, and the write speed goes back to the direct to TLC rate.
Its hard to say if the drive is intended to function this way, or if there is actually some issue with the controller decision making processes with regard to the cached file retention and/or durations. If the former, I have to say i'm very disappointed that any manufacturer can sell a product with a claimed performance level, and fail to make buyers aware that it will only meet these speeds initially, and if used as a system drive will spend much of its time with the cache full and experience greatly reduced rates?
If the latter is true and this brutal speed reduction is not intended to be experienced most of the time by design, then Samsung really need to address this issue urgently.

I have ordered a WD SN850 1TB to swap out as a System drive. I will secure erase and reformat the 980 Pro 500GB once I have that installed, and do some further tests, but as it stands...my opinion of the 980 Pro is a bit meh....

Anyone suffering from this slow write speed issue needs to get onto Samsung's case. There is clearly something going on with the 500GB model which is possibly related to the cache policy in the FW, as it should not take hours, days and or weeks to clear data from the SLC in order to get the burst operation speeds restored., and if it does its huge fail for Samsung.
I'm away to email their support operation to get the ball rolling. I would strongly suggest that others do this also, so that they are aware of how widespread this issue is.

Contact details below..

(+31) 0031-493-326-633, or sending them an email - samsungmemory@hanaro.eu.


Quick EDIT to this post 23/1/21 02:30am.
I just noticed that my 980 Pro 500GB has had a rediculous amount of data written to it in just 3 weeks since the drive was installed from NEW ! I have had this as a System Boot Drive in a fresh build configuration with Win 10 64bit Home and Office 2010 plus official updates for both. Other than the usual AV, Tools etc, the drive has had a game of 120GB copied to it then deleted afterwards, and a page file of 4.6GB (Default for a 32GB Ram System I believe) on it until yesterday. Other than that the drive has been used for light surfing, no rendering, no games, nothing with big data volumes or transfers that I am aware of. I have run Userbenchmark on it maybe 5 or 6 times over the past 3 weeks, and maybe 6 or 7 runs on Samsung Magician performance suit. How can it be that this drive has currently had 2.8 TB of data written too it in its short life. Am I missing something here? Anyone give me any insight? or is there an issue with the drive that causes it to write data to its self which constantly saturates the SLC cache?





TIA

Additional EDIT 23/01/2021 14:35pm - So PC has been left running on idle overnight and all morning in SAFE MODE at the log in screen. A single Performance test was performed with Samsung Magic with the following results, clearly showing that after 12 hours of inactivity, resulted in practically nothing to rectify the issue. Also worthy to note that during this idle time the Drive saw a staggering 200GB of data written too it, despite it being in this state? As a measure I sat for a while looking at the drive activity in Win Performance monitor and there is nothing obvious to suggest that the OS would be writing heavily to the drive when idle, certainly not to accumulate 200GB of writes in 12 hours. With this in mind, I am beginning to now suspect that these drives without doubt have an issue, which results in 1) the SLC Cache becoming saturated as a result of some sort of internal function of the drive controller, be it the encryption process or inefficient cache housekeeping or, 2) an internal issue that causes the SLC cache or Turbowriter fuction to stall or freeze resulting in all write transactions being sent directly to TLC.





TIA


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## Pwablo (Jan 24, 2021)

Another 12 Hours of the PC sitting idle overnight at the log in screen in safe mode, and another 100GB of data registered as being written to the drive. A single Samsung Magician Performance Test was performed again immediatly after a normal reboot. Results showing a marginal increase in performance over the previous test... I intend to do this for a few more days and see if there is any recovery of the SLC cache. I will update this thread accordingly....


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## Deleted member 205776 (Jan 24, 2021)

I'm just glad the write speeds didn't go down to like 100 mb/s, that would be disastruous. Right now mine are between 1200-1500, not what I paid for but still fast and cannot notice it.

I'll keep using the drive like this until Samsung does anything about it, if they do anything about it.

Learned my lesson not to go all out on things. Bet a 970 Evo would've been better.


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## Pwablo (Jan 24, 2021)

Yeah m8, my pal has a 970 evo Plus 1TB Gen 3 and he sent me this screenshot the other day, its much quicker than the write speed that we currently have, and far more consistant when used as an OS drive......
Like you I will wait and see if Samsung do something about it or not. The drive is still very new so there should be something before long from them in the way of a FW update or a driver....Until i swap out my drive for the WD SN850 I will keep leaving it on idle over night and test in morning to see if it gradually restores the write speed or not.


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## kvnkim (Jan 25, 2021)

Chiming in, as I have found this thread to be the top hit on google for slow write speeds on the 980 Pro. Emailed Samsung support and got this response:


> Thank you for contacting Samsung memory Support and for your inquiry.
> We are sorry to learn that you are having issues with your SSD.
> 
> Please attempt the following:
> ...




Can confirm I have done all this on my end. Will be returning the 980 Pro until this problem is fixed.


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## Pwablo (Jan 25, 2021)

Thank you for sharing your response from Samsung. I received an identical email this morning from Samsung CS in the Netherlands. I have also tried everything listed on their email with no success. So I intend to contact my seller today to ascertain their position on it.
I left the PC idling again last night for approx 10 hours at the Safe Mode login screen. Another mysterious 100GB registered as written to the drive during this time, and no improvement of the write speed upon performing a single test in Samsung Magician.


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## kvnkim (Jan 25, 2021)

Welp friends, I decided to reformat and install Windows on the C:\ Drive (Where the 980 Pro is installed) just to make sure before I began the return process... and low and behold...

I made sure the list of settings were applied per the Samsung Support e-mail (Over Provisioning, TRIM, Write Cache, Power Performance settings etc as instructed).









Write speeds are back to normal. I'll keep checking throughout the week after installing more games and apps to see if it keeps up the speed. Worth a shot for those who don't mind a re-install of Windows.


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## Pwablo (Jan 25, 2021)

Hi mate. Thanks for sharing your results. Others have found this also, however atm I suspect the reappearance of the write speed performance may be short lived. I will also be following this process sometime this week, so I will post back again when I have some answers. Please keep us updated, as this thread could be valuable info for others who run into this widespread issue.

ATB


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## Dimokto (Jan 25, 2021)

kvnkim said:


> Welp friends, I decided to reformat and install Windows on the C:\ Drive (Where the 980 Pro is installed) just to make sure before I began the return process... and low and behold...
> 
> I made sure the list of settings were applied per the Samsung Support e-mail (Over Provisioning, TRIM, Write Cache, Power Performance settings etc as instructed).
> 
> ...





kvnkim said:


> Welp friends, I decided to reformat and install Windows on the C:\ Drive (Where the 980 Pro is installed) just to make sure before I began the return process... and low and behold...
> 
> I made sure the list of settings were applied per the Samsung Support e-mail (Over Provisioning, TRIM, Write Cache, Power Performance settings etc as instructed).
> 
> ...


Hello friend! You are not exactly ok! Your random IOPS are still low just like me (mine are lower). Samsung promised us random IOPS much more than we are currently re hitting


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## Pwablo (Jan 25, 2021)

Bit of an update from my side on this issue.....I stuck a new SN850 1TB into the PC, cloned the OS image and extended the partition. Swapped the M2 slots over so the 980 Pro was in M2._2 and  WD SN850 Boot Drive in M2._1. 
After a secure erase of the 980 Pro I ran 2 tests......




Looked quite promising on the last test or so I thought, so I proceeded to move a few games over to it (90 GB worth) and ran the test again....





Oh dear....seems that as soon as the drive gets some data written too it, the speeds go $h1t shaped. I cannot accept that the drive has been designed to perform in this way !.... 
I shall now leave it for a few days and try to forget about it, and look at a retest at the end of the week, perhaps it will of cleaned its act (Cache) up. Time will tell.
If not, its coming out and getting returned to the seller. 

I have to say I am very disappointed with this drive from Samsung, and with the volume of people all reporting the same issue, I am sure I am not alone in my dissatisfaction.

The WD SN850 1TB in comparison seems much better all round....Think this is the way forward for me....





ATB


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## kvnkim (Feb 5, 2021)

Returned 980 Pro and grabbed a WD SN850 1TB and a heatsink to go with it because I read about hotter temps ... @Pwablo thanks for the tip. Much better. Moving on from 980 Pro, farewell! 

WD SN850 Speeds are definitely much more consistent.











Good luck to others here with the 980 Pro still hoping for samsung to do something about the slower speeds/inconsistencies


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 5, 2021)

My SN850 1TB speeds are pretty crappy compared to yours, did you optimise settings somewhere ? Any special driver needed ?


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## kvnkim (Feb 5, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> My SN850 1TB speeds are pretty crappy compared to yours, did you optimise settings somewhere ? Any special driver needed ?
> 
> 
> View attachment 187095


Hi
Did you make sure you're in pcie gen 4 x4 mode and make sure your pc is power performance mode? No special nvme driver needed. Did you get a heatsink for the drive? How full is the drive/ did you just install it (age and writes low?)

I will keep this thread updated or create a new thread regarding slow speeds if I see them happening.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 5, 2021)

kvnkim said:


> Hi
> Did you make sure you're in pcie gen 4 x4 mode and make sure your pc is power performance mode? No special nvme driver needed. Did you get a heatsink for the drive? How full is the drive/ did you just install it (age and writes low?)
> 
> I will keep this thread updated or create a new thread regarding slow speeds if I see them happening.


Yep, Gen 4 @x4 is configured correctly:





What is your write policy in device manager ?

Is it the same as mine :


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## kvnkim (Feb 5, 2021)

It's indeed the exact same. Have you installed the dashboard software and upgraded firmware as well? Optimized with TRIM?


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 5, 2021)

First thing I did was update firmware, didn't optimize anything yet, its brand new.
I'm thinking maybe the lack of a heatsink could be the cause or bug with the motherboard.


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## kvnkim (Feb 5, 2021)

Let's keep this thread focused on the 980 Pro and make a new thread for the wd SN 850 problems if you continue to need help. as to not hijack this thread!


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## Pwablo (Feb 5, 2021)

@monkeyboy46800 Check the drive information in Samsung Magician for your SN850 and ensure it says 4x4 and not 4x2. If you have a B550 chipset with two M.2 slots only the M.2 Slot nearest the CPU is Gen 4.0, and the other is Gen 3.0, however both slots are run by the same interface controller which is reported as being Gen 4.0.





Hope this helps

ATB


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 6, 2021)

Pwablo said:


> @monkeyboy46800 Check the drive information in Samsung Magician for your SN850 and ensure it says 4x4 and not 4x2. If you have a B550 chipset with two M.2 slots only the M.2 Slot nearest the CPU is Gen 4.0, and the other is Gen 3.0, however both slots are run by the same interface controller which is reported as being Gen 4.0.
> 
> View attachment 187204
> 
> ...



I have a Asrock X570 ITX/TB3 + 5950x, it only has one Nvme slot , just fitted a heatsink to the ssd and im getting max temps of 55c but still hitting a wall when comparing to:  https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/wd-black-sn850-1tb-ssd-review/5/

*My Benchmark:*





*Kit Guru Benchmark:*


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## Dimokto (Feb 6, 2021)

IF ANYONE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT THE LOW WRITE & READ 4K ?


----------



## Coldblackice (Feb 9, 2021)

I'm also getting horrendous 4K/random speeds despite being in Safe mode + updated firmware + properly TRIMmed. 

What BIOS settings might affect this? How much free space is necessary for it to not have an effect? My drive is 89% full... could that really put my RND4K Q1T1 write speed at 14 MB/S? Read is at 54 MB/s.

Temps are 40-50, closest NVMe slot to CPU, and in Gen-3 4x mode (I'm on a Gigabyte Z390)


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## kapone32 (Feb 9, 2021)

So here we go. I was smiling to myself with all of the complaints about the write speeds on the 980 and some others. Well lo and behold my Seagate 520 1TB is my boot drive and hit 26% used. I ran Crystal Disk Mark 8.0 and saw my sequential writes at 1080 mb/s. That is a far cry from the 4800 I am used to seeing. It would seem that the achilles heel of PCIe 4.0 is capacity. It must have to do with the way the drive's cache is configured so at 25% you run out of the SLC or RAM cache that the drives have. I also have a Sx8200 Pro 2TB in the system and at 40% full I only see a 200 mb/s drop in sequential writes. Hopefully we can have some extended testing on this. I for one do not want to kill my (expensive as a MB) NVME drive to find out though.


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## mittar (Feb 10, 2021)

Something is wrong with my disk  It is getting even slower ... I moved some games on the disk few hours back and try second bench (first was on empty drive) and the result is sad. Asus WS X570 ACE. Why IOPS are so low? PCIE is 4x4 , I tried more tests to be sure that this is not anomaly. Even the first one on empty disk has lower IOPS than they are on your screenshots. Temperature was max 67.


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## OCD Guy (Feb 11, 2021)

I've been following this thread since the beginning. I blindly bought a 980 Pro after assuming they were still the "best".

You can imagine my disappointment when I came across the slow speeds.

After trying what many on this thread tried with no real improvements I decided to set up an exchange for the SN850.

However I recently updated my Chipset drivers (latest for X570) and here are my speeds now (I've screenshooted next to @kvnkim  who posted their SN850 results: My benchmark is on the right.







As you can see I've not done any trickery like benchmark a drive that's nearly empty or anything, my drive is actually nearly full lol.

So I'm now considering cancelling the exchange for the Sn850 as to be honest it's a massive inconvenience having to re-install windows and download my games again.

For anyone with issues, maybe try installing the latest chipset drivers, AMD released some this month.

If anyone is wondering why my drive shows only 847gb I've enabled over-provisioning in Samsung Magician


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## ThrashZone (Feb 11, 2021)

Hi,
Not a good example that thing is nearly full at 89% lol


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## OCD Guy (Feb 11, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Not a good example that thing is nearly full at 89% lol



I thought it would be as the speeds are meant to get worse the less free space there is right?

So the fact I'm getting "normal" speeds when I'm close to full is a good thing I thought.

I noticed the SN850 is still faster in some aspects so I think I'm still going to exchange the 980 pro.


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## Pwablo (Feb 11, 2021)

OCD Guy said:


> I've been following this thread since the beginning. I blindly bought a 980 Pro after assuming they were still the "best".
> 
> You can imagine my disappointment when I came across the slow speeds.
> 
> ...



You dont have to reinstall windows and your games m8. Jayz Two Cents has a video on YT showing how to image the entire drive (980 Pro) onto another NVME, all you need is both drives installed. Once installed the partition can be expanded on the new drive if the capacity is larger than the original source drive. The only thing that could stop you doing this is if your motherboard only has one M.2 slot. Or ofc, you have to return the old drive to get a new one. 








Works a treat, I do this all the time when I need too.

Good Luck


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## OCD Guy (Feb 11, 2021)

Pwablo said:


> You dont have to reinstall windows and your games m8. Jayz Two Cents has a video on YT showing how to image the entire drive (980 Pro) onto another NVME, all you need is both drives installed. Once installed the partition can be expanded on the new drive if the capacity is larger than the original source drive. The only thing that could stop you doing this is if your motherboard only has one M.2 slot. Or ofc, you have to return the old drive to get a new one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks I think I'll do that then.

Luckily my motherboard has 3 m.2 slots so it won't be a problem to do.

Even though my 980 pro speeds are "normal" the SN850 still seems like an allround better drive so I'm going to stick with the exchange (when it ever arrives!)


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## Pwablo (Feb 19, 2021)

Well folks, I would like to think that Samsung have taken on board all of the issues that users have been experiencing with the 980 Pro, as they have just released a firmware update for it. I have not installed it yet, but hopefully this is the fix for the write speed issues we have been waiting for.


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## ThrashZone (Feb 19, 2021)

OCD Guy said:


> Thanks I think I'll do that then.
> 
> Luckily my motherboard has 3 m.2 slots so it won't be a problem to do.
> 
> Even though my 980 pro speeds are "normal" the SN850 still seems like an allround better drive so I'm going to stick with the exchange (when it ever arrives!)


Hi,
System images you should already have and are more reliable than cloning.


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## OCD Guy (Feb 19, 2021)

Pwablo said:


> Well folks, I would like to think that Samsung have taken on board all of the issues that users have been experiencing with the 980 Pro, as they have just released a firmware update for it. I have not installed it yet, but hopefully this is the fix for the write speed issues we have been waiting for.
> View attachment 189030


Unfortunately that firmware has changed nothing.

The performance we are seeing is normal.

It's been picked up by recent reviews, even tech power up have a section on it https://www.techpowerup.com/review/samsung-980-pro-1-tb-ssd/6.html

Essentially when the cache get's full "TurboWrite" stops and we are left with slower speeds. Samsung state:

*The sequential write performances after Intelligent TurboWrite region are: up to 500MB/s(250GB), 1,000MB/s(500GB) and 2,000MB/s(1TB and 2TB).*

Which is inline with what we are seeing.

EVERY single TLC NVMe has the same issue, however drives like the SN850 have a larger cache and faster speeds in other areas.

Samsung just haven't been transparent about this, it's great focusing on peak speeds but the reality is no 980 pro owner will see them 90% of the time.

One thing that is interesting is that normally NVMe drives get slower as they fill up right? Well the 980 Pro get's faster and has the fastest sustained write speed when nearly full.


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## Pwablo (Feb 20, 2021)

The SLC cache does indeed become full and Turbowriter 2.0 does indeed begin to write to the MLC at the reduced rates, however the SLC Cache should not stay full, unless the data held in cache is frequently written to the drive. The SLC Cache is subject to "garbage collection" algorithms which should remove files that have met a certain criteria, hence why some people experience an improvement of speed after periods of idle. Waiting for weeks for the SLC to be house cleaned and speeds to improve, even when the drive has only been written too once with data only slightly exceeding the SLC cache capacity is not normal. The SLC cache should not act like a small bucket inside a barrel that fills first and empties last.


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## Mon (Feb 20, 2021)

Hi,
I have a Samsung 980 PRO 500 GB and the same problem. However, after the recent 2B2QGXA7 firmware update and over provisioning (I remember that previously it could not be done) with recommended maximum 27 GB it seems that the cache is cleared somewhat and from time to time it returns to the original values although not always . But it comes out of the blockade. It could be the beginning of the solution on Samsung's part.
Happens to you?


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## OCD Guy (Feb 20, 2021)

Pwablo said:


> Waiting for weeks for the SLC to be house cleaned and speeds to improve, even when the drive has only been written too once with data only slightly exceeding the SLC cache capacity is not normal. The SLC cache should not act like a small bucket inside a barrel that fills first and empties last.


I agree with you.

But what do you think the issue is? Hardware or software?

It would be great if it could be fixed with software, whether that be an actual driver, or firmware but I just have a feeling it's a physical limitation and the way Samsung have designed it.

Everything around this drive is so weird, like why have Samsung suddenly stopped putting a driver out for their latest flagship drive? 

No other Gen 4 drive has this issue, the cache seems to clear as you'd expect. Can't believe Samsung have got this so wrong....


----------



## Mon (Feb 20, 2021)

I correct. My 980 PRO 500 GB returns to low performance and does not come out of there. Although it has 27 GB of over provisioning. There is no cause-effect relationship.
OCD guy, I don't know what's going on in there. I don't have enough information. We only have to wait for Samsung to investigate and give us a solution.

I complained to samsungmemory@hanaro.eu for a driver but they replied that it was not necessary. My 980 PRO works under Windows 10 with a Microsoft driver from 2006! Amazing but I can't say anything about it!

I hope a samsung driver was the solution!

But it seems a bad internal management


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## Mike B (Feb 20, 2021)

Hello All


I have the same issue with my Samsung 980 PRO 500 GB, my other SDD works fine, it’s the Samsung 980 PRO 1TB.

I only noticed the slow write performance after the recent Firmware upgrade to 2B2QGXA7 which was applied yesterday, 19th Feb

Over-provisioning in the Samsung SW and running disk optimise in Windows 10 has had no effect.

For info this drive used to work fine, as the screenshot below shows, write speeds were +5,000 MB/sec

My Setup. ASUS Prime-Pro X570, 32GB RAM, 2xSSD as above, Windows 10, everything checked for latest drivers + FW as of 20th Feb 2021.


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## fun2k (Feb 21, 2021)

I just removed the samsung magician software and amd chipset drivers and my write speed are slowly creeping back up. I suspect its the magicial software causing the cache to not recover.


If you are on intel platform with the same issue just remove the magican software and let the drive idle even after 10min you can see the difference.




Hope this helps everyone.

Update

So after removing both amd chipset drivers and samsung magicial software(this was after i updated the firmware recently) , i downloaded the latest magician software and also (amd chipsets drivers from asus) , reinstalled and it seems to be working fine for now. write cache seems to be recovering if let idle on windows (normal login, no safe mode etc required).


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## ThrashZone (Feb 21, 2021)

Hi,
Did you try just taking SM off starting with windows first ?


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## fun2k (Feb 21, 2021)

Yeah just uninstalled samsung magician again because write speeds have gone back to 11xx mb/s.
Now after removing sm its up 22xx in a short time.

Conclusion: Samsung magician is causing write speed to not recover at all. So just uninstall SM for now.

*Update : its not working anymore, it only worked for some time after I uninstalled SM but again the write speeds are stuck at 11xx mb/s even after 1 hours idle time. I hope samsung fixes this issue soon, its annoying.*

Ok so I again uninstalled amd chipset drivers this time and my write speed has shot back up to 2250 mb/s for the time being.
I'm Going to keep chipset and sm drivers uninstalled for a while and see if things improves. At least it cant get any worse.


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## dtkling (Feb 28, 2021)

Same problem. I have two identical 980 Pro 500GB. One has degraded write speeds one doesn't. The OS M.2 has write speeds less than my 4 drive SDD Raid. It is in the #1 slot above to the Graphics card on a TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI). Both drives started out with the same performance.


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## fun2k (Feb 28, 2021)

I found this from 1 of the review on the 1 tb drives 

" the Intelligent TurboWrite region uses idle capacity: if the SSD has less than 324GB remaining free space (1TB model), intelligent TurboWrite will not fully operate, so for best performance, be sure to leave a little wiggle room in the drive"

Could it be possible that just by filing the drive more than a certain percentage say around 95 - 100gb reduces the effectiveness of the cache algorithms on the 500gb drives? 

Ive tried everything enable/disable write caching(funny it reduces the write speeds to around 320mb/s) ,uninstalling amd chipset drivers and sm software(temporarily boosted the write speeds somehow).

My last ditch effort to try and reduce used space to less than 100gb and enable thunderbolt on the motherboard options. If that doesn't recover write speeds i am returning this for a sabrent rocket or an sn850. Hopefully those dont have huge performance drops like the 980 pro.


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## Pwablo (Mar 1, 2021)

fun2k said:


> Could it be possible that just by filing the drive more than a certain percentage say around 95 - 100gb reduces the effectiveness of the cache algorithms on the 500gb drives?


This certainly seems to be the case in my experience. If you look back through my posts on this thread you will see what my story was with this device. I used the drive as an OS drive initially (around 90GB used), and the drive speed was fine for a few weeks. At one point I copied around 120GB to the drive as temp storage of binaries, and deleted them shortly after. The drive immediately went into slow write speed mode, and stayed that way with around 90GB used on it. Over a period of a week, the PC was left at idle at the safe-mode login screen, yet the drive still apparently continued to log over 300GB of data being written too itself over 2 days, which I can only assume was the drives internal algorithms shuffling data about. Very weird imo.
I eventually replaced the OS drive with a 1TB WD SN850, did a secure erased on the Samsung 500GB, and now use that as a storage drive. The Secure erase restored the write speeds, and the drive is currently sitting with 162GB used and 313GB free space with stable write speed results.
My conclusion is that when the drive is used as an OS drive, after a period of time the SLC cache becomes saturated with data, possibly due to the "garbage collection" algorithms not working efficiently for some reason (I also tried this with DiskCaching disabled in Win 10 in case this was causing problems, but with no improvement). However when used as a data drive, which is only written too infrequently (e.g. Installing the occasional game), it seems to hold up much better. I have kind of washed my hands of it now...for me the SN850 series NvME's are a whole lot easier to live with and consistently faster all round too.


----------



## belmirp (Mar 5, 2021)

I have recently purchased new system: AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master (F12 BIOS) and Trident Z Neo 3600 CL16 2x16 GB. My system was working fine for 3 weeks, XMP enabled, until I purchased Samsung 980 Pro 1TB. After that, the BIOS started to reset itself, memory was unstable, it was impossible to keep XMP enabled. I've tried everything that I found on the net: adjusting voltage of DDR, enabling/disabling ErP in BIOS, changing Windows power settings, etc. Nothing helped. When I first installed the 980 Pro, right after I installed fresh Windows, I benchmarked it, and as you can see on the screenshot, speeds were a lot lower than claimed (5700/2700). Last thing I did is to disable Gen 4 in the BIOS, and guess what: everything went back to normal, XMP was working, no more resets, and 980 Pro is working consistently but at Gen 3 speeds. As you can see, it easily manages 3500 write, and random read/write is also better. I believe that AMD's implementation of Gen 4 is one horrible mess, and that is affecting the performance of the 980 Pro, in addition to all other problems that many have (like USB disconnecting, BIOS reset, and who knows what else). I still don't have GPU that supports Gen 4, but combination of GPU + NVMe Gen 4 will probably be even worse.

I wish that someone tests 980 Pro on Intel's new chipset that supports Gen 4, I believe it will work as claimed or at least better than AMD. 

I had 3 Intel systems before, this is my first AMD system, and last for sure. I only went with AMD because of Gen 4 and future-proofing, but I regret it now, it is not worth. Great hardware without great software is not great.


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## SonicMojo (Mar 15, 2021)

Wanted to pop into this thread with my scenario - which is not using the 980 but the 970 EVO Plus and I have just as poor (if not worse) performance - let me know what you think of this:

New PC build this past weekend - featuring


ASUS ProArt z490-Creator MOBO
Intel Core™i5 10600K (LGA1200)
32GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16)

For drives - I have:

C:\ - Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M2 SSD (500GB) in M2 slot M2_1 on this board
M:\ - Samsung 860 EVO (SSD) (500GB) in SATA6G_1 (AHCI)
S:\ - Seagate Firecuda (HDD) 1 TB in SATA6G_2 (AHCI)
Z:\ - ASUS DVD ROM on SATA6G_6 (AHCI)

Per the ProArt manual :

M2 slot M2_1 on this board runs natively at *PCIe x4 - *with a compliant M2 (single notch) (NVMe) drive attached. If a SATA keyed (two notch) drive is attached (SATA mode) - port SATA6G_2 will be disabled.

This port is NOT using a SATA M2 devices. By all accounts - my 970 should be running a normal PCIex4 speed (Magician says it is below) and the 860 should be running in normal AHCI (SATA) mode and it is.

I have installed the Samsung NMVe 3.3 driver and the recommended AHCI/SATA driver for this board (v18.31.5.1038 WHQL)

However - after the build - this thing is horrific to use. The PC is choppy, pokey and takes easily 2 minutes to both shutdown and restart.

Samsung Magician is reporting that both drives are running at the right speeds with the right drivers. Here is the NMVe (C:\):





And the 860 (my M:\ (Media) drive:





But CrystalDiskMark is telling me a whole different negative story:

The 970 (C Drive) is brutal





This should be averaging around 3000?

and the 860 (M Drive) feels like it is almost stopped





And to add insult to injury - How's this for a comparison: 

Just before I popped into this thread - I ran a Magician performance benchmark on the machine I am typing this on - which is a circa 2015 ASUS Z97-A-USB31 (LGA1150) with an Intel Core i7-4790K and a  2019 era Samsung 860 EVO Series SSD (250GB) - check out these numbers for this machine compared to my "should be super computer Circa 2021":





It's embarrassing. This 2019 EVO on this broken down 6 year old board is running 300% faster than a brand new M2 in a brand new z490 board? Makes no sense.

I am truly drawing a blank and do not know what I am missing here. Everything seems to be connected and set right. Unless the resource sharing is 100% wrong in the manual

Appreciate any tips from the field.

Cheers!

Sonic.


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Mar 15, 2021)

fun2k said:


> I found this from 1 of the review on the 1 tb drives
> 
> " the Intelligent TurboWrite region uses idle capacity: if the SSD has less than 324GB remaining free space (1TB model), intelligent TurboWrite will not fully operate, so for best performance, be sure to leave a little wiggle room in the drive"
> 
> ...



Not from what I've seen. 

My 980 1TB is currently at 185GB free and reports full speed. My 980 500GB last month was also reporting full speed but now is back reporting 1/4 or so write speed at 328GB free. The percentage difference in free space between the two is massive, yet the lower free space drive is fine...

Between when it was fine last month and now, there's been a firmware update. The only change to the software/system.


----------



## belmirp (Mar 15, 2021)

@SonicMojo Samsung 860 Evo is SATA3 drive, the speeds that you were seeing were not actual speeds of the drive probably because you turned RAPID mode. When RAPID mode is turned on, I get these speeds on Samsung 850 Pro, and they should be around 550 MB:








However, 970 Evo is Gen 3 drive, and it should max out at 3500/2500 MB/s.


----------



## SonicMojo (Mar 15, 2021)

This issue has been solved (sort of). Realized after about 2 days that I still had Driver Verifier turned on. 

After shutting that down - I am getting psuedo normal speeds for the 970 - but the 860 is still acting strange (and slow).

Back to the drawing board.

Cheers

Sonic.


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Mar 16, 2021)

I sent in an email to Samsung support and this was the hilarious reply...

_"Thank you for contacting Samsung Memory Support._​_Please note that to achieve the full performance of the 980 PRO, you need a PC with a PCIe 4.0 interface_​_Refer to the Samsung website for detailed specification for this model:_​_https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/980pro/_​_Powered by Samsung custom Elpis Controller for PCIe 4.0 SSD, the 980 PRO is optimized for speed. It delivers read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s, making it 2 times faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs and 12.7 times faster than SATA SSDs. The 980 PRO achieves max speeds on PCIe 4.0 and may vary in other environments._​_Unfortunately we cannot confirm whether your mainboard fully supports drives with a PCIe 4.0 interface._​_Please contact MSI Support to confirm._​_Please note, however, that the 980 PRO is backwards compatible with PCIe 3.0 - for a wide range of uses._​_However, we cannot guarantee that it will work properly on any system without a PCie 4.0 interface. Of course, the hard drive speed will also be much worse._​_If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us."_​
Of course, I had clearly stated my hardware and of course, it's PCIe x4. I've gone back with more detail, so hopefully they won't kneejerk a bot reply out again. Will keep this updated.


----------



## belmirp (Mar 16, 2021)

I don't know if they choose the most stupid people for support at each company or it is something else. I am contacting Gigabyte support for almost a month, and they are super retarded. I clearly say in the ticket: "I have ram that is on my motherboard QVL", and the first they reply (after 10 days) they ask: "Did you check whether your ram is on QVL list?". And Samsung isn't any better, I know it because I tried to contact support once because of an issue with Galaxy S7/Android.


----------



## belmirp (Mar 18, 2021)

This morning Samsung pushed 6.3.0 version of Magician, and it has a new option Full Power Mode:




It works wonders:


----------



## Ahhzz (Mar 18, 2021)

belmirp said:


> This morning Samsung pushed 6.3.0 version of Magician, and it has a new option Full Power Mode:
> ...
> 
> It works wonders:
> ...



Sound good, I'll have to give it a try


----------



## spykeer (Mar 18, 2021)

Same problem Here...

CrossHair VIII Hero > Gen 4 Supported
5950x > Gen 4 Supported
AMD Drivers Up to Date via AMD Website
BIOS Up To Date Last Version
Gen 4 Forced On M2 Slot
980 Pro 500GB Used As System Drive
Samsung Magician Up to date
SSD Firmware Up to Date


40% Full Of Data So Empty Room.
Over Provisioning Enabled

If I enable the new Full power Mode, i got a 300mb/S drop.. (The 2nd test on my Screenshot)

I mean... Why the fuck this 'Intelligent' Cache TurboWrite can't clear his data, to work as expected?
I don't want to re-install windows/apps, with a secure erase just to recover the expected speeds...

Is there any way to wipe only this shitty cache ? Because, i let my PC Idle 24 hours, and still no change on speeds.

PLS Samsung, just do something about that, buying this thing at this price... When my fresh 870 Evo can do theses things (Ok RAPID Mode shit, but ...)


----------



## Ahhzz (Mar 18, 2021)

Well, my 860 Eve doesn't support the "Full Power" mode, but I did the upgrade anyway. Thought I had a bench from before, but couldn't locate it after I updated heheh. Oh well, running ok for the model it is, I guess.


----------



## John Naylor (Mar 18, 2021)

Curious as to what impact that the slower write speed has had with regard to any observed impacts on application performance ? 

The reason I ask is that had a call from one of our users who was looking at his backup logs, who observed that "doing the math" his incremental backups each night while just a few seconds up to maybe 2 minutes at times, looking at the amount of data he backed up, it was at a rate much lower than advertised speeds.  I explained that the software has to make  alog of all the files , check the dates, determine what's changed, make a "shadow copy", replace the changed files, cretae  alog and then go back and test to see whether the file copy was accurate.... there's a lot more going on than justbafile copy.  But also, as these backups were being performed while he was sleeping, not that it's perhaps not worth concerning ones self about.

When I observe such performance issues, I like to categorize them into:

a) It's impacting my work efficiency or user experience
b) It's not doing the above but I still wanna know why.
c)  It's isolated and evident only in benchmarks or 0 impact activities, and therefore don't care.

If it's a) solving the issue is given high priority ... If it's b) ... it's kind a back burner thing saved for a rainy day  ... if it's c) everyone once and a while I will search for topics more out of curiosity then a desire to solve a problem that has 0 impact.  The backup thing while sleeping would be a c)



belmirp said:


> I don't know if they choose the most stupid people for support at each company or it is something else. I am contacting Gigabyte support for almost a month, and they are super retarded. I clearly say in the ticket: "I have ram that is on my motherboard QVL", and the first they reply (after 10 days) they ask: "Did you check whether your ram is on QVL list?". And Samsung isn't any better, I know it because I tried to contact support once because of an issue with Galaxy S7/Android.



Is it a real person ?

I keep getting personal responses from Asus regarding my router.   Note:  This strats with an e-mail report where I teall them that I am having an issue with the USB ports on the router that are supposed to let you turn any printer into a network printer.

a)  All PCs are wired ethernet connections to the router
b)  All Printers are wired ethernet connections to the router, (2) Ethernet (MFP and Large format plotter) and (1) USB photo printer connected to USB Printer ports on router

The illustrations and descriptions in the MFP and printer manuals bear only a vague resemblance to what is on the screen.  I can sometimes get this to work  from 1 PC, but never a 2nd, 3rd etc.

Every email response starts with the respondent identifying themselves as say Bob, James, Bill..etc.  The rest of the responses has slight chnages mostky in order of sencentez but all say the same thing.   Just liek the scripts you get from telemarketers, and email scammers.

They all then say that if i follow the instructions below, they will be able to get me "on the internet"

1.  One would think that since they rec'd an email, Im already on the internet.
2.  One would think that if they read the email, they would have read one of the 12

****** "Remember again, I have no issues getting on the internet*****

..... statements I type after every 2 sentence paragraphs.

And yet, evey email closes with instructions as to how to get on the internet and not a word about network printing.


----------



## belmirp (Mar 19, 2021)

John Naylor said:


> Is it a real person ?



They can't make bug-free drivers or any piece of software, you think they would have time and brain to make a support bot? I don't think so.


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Mar 20, 2021)

So Samsungs support was useless. Utterly useless. Several bot responses, nothing worthwhile. The last point they made was to return the hardware under RMA, which I instigated but now even that is in question because to return it, I have to Secure Erase it and if I Secure Erase it, that might fix the write speed problem. They'll test it, see no issue and send it back.

So rather than mess about like that I've bought an 850 1TB to replace as the OS drive and this 980 Pro 500GB can go into the PS5 when they open up NVME additional drive support.

I believe the 980 Pro 500GB is unfit for purpose as an OS drive. Something about the logic on clearing up doesn't work right when the OS is involved, it's far too hit and miss (far more miss) and I outright refuse to Secure Erase an OS drive every time it decides to drop write speeds to 25%.

No more Samsung hardware for me, time to move on.


----------



## fun2k (Mar 22, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> So Samsungs support was useless. Utterly useless. Several bot responses, nothing worthwhile. The last point they made was to return the hardware under RMA, which I instigated but now even that is in question because to return it, I have to Secure Erase it and if I Secure Erase it, that might fix the write speed problem. They'll test it, see no issue and send it back.
> 
> So rather than mess about like that I've bought an 850 1TB to replace as the OS drive and this 980 Pro 500GB can go into the PS5 when they open up NVME additional drive support.
> 
> ...


Im also thinking of replacing the 980 500gb with 1tb 850. And will use the 950 pro as an external usb/thunderbolt drive. I dont know yet if some of these 950 pro have fault or all of them behave the same way after a certain amount of usage. its a pity, the drive works great as an os drive and you dont really see a difference unless transferring a lot of data but this its still way off the advertised speeds. 

What would be the best way to copy my os (on 500gb 980) to a new drive (say 850 1tb).


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Mar 22, 2021)

fun2k said:


> Im also thinking of replacing the 980 500gb with 1tb 850. And will use the 950 pro as an external usb/thunderbolt drive. I dont know yet if some of these 950 pro have fault or all of them behave the same way after a certain amount of usage. its a pity, the drive works great as an os drive and you dont really see a difference unless transferring a lot of data but this its still way off the advertised speeds.
> 
> What would be the best way to copy my os (on 500gb 980) to a new drive (say 850 1tb).



Hold that thought, the 850 is in but its running at 3000 write, so its also underperforming but nowhere near as bad as the 980. WD know there's some sort of problem with NVMEs running potentially on chipset lanes, which could end up being part of the problem.

I'm now updating this thread ....https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/wd-sn850-slower-than-expected-performance.278121/page-5

To copy, grab Macrium Free and clone the 980 drive, then make a Macrium USB stick, boot to that, navigate to the drive that has the clone image and restore off that onto the 850.


----------



## Spock Grocker (Mar 30, 2021)

At least Samsung is apparently acknowledging this issue, now.  Still no progress beyond that from what I can tell, but I guess that's something.  Here's a link to the US Samsung community page about this issue:









						Samsung SSD 980 PRO extreme slow write speed (1100 mb/s)
					

Did several tests, any suggestions?




					us.community.samsung.com
				




At the bottom of page 2 of the exchanges is a post from someone designated "Memory Product Expert-1" 2 weeks ago:

Hello Samsung Community Users,                    
"We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the symptoms of not recovering write performance, since the turbo write area of 980 PRO is being exhausted.                    
Samsung is investigating these symptoms and will keep you posted on our progress. We appreciate your patience while we work on resolving the issue.                    
Thank you for contacting Samsung Community Support and we value your feedback."


----------



## spykeer (Mar 30, 2021)

Oh yes! Just after my message on their forums. Cool to know. Hope they will fix it soon.


----------



## abactuon (Mar 30, 2021)

I have installed a Samsung driver for Samsung MZVLB512HAJQ (PM981).
The temperature (idle) increased by 10°C(!).
Rolled back to Standard NVM Express Controller.
Is Microsoft driver better?


----------



## belmirp (Mar 31, 2021)

Does anyone have 980 Pro that has firmware *1B2QGXA7*? The latest one is 2B2QGXA7, which I also have. Could it be that Samsung messed something up with the latest firmware?!
This is the screenshot of the test that Gigabyte support did on B550 Aorus Elite motherboard, and they sent me as reply that "it works on their machine". Notice that they have the old firmware:





The Gen 4 speeds on my system are so crappy, I tried couple of BIOS versions, and it is same. I tried also running benchmark while Windows is booted from another drive, it is same:




By the way, Gen 3 is working perfectly anytime I run the benchmark:




*UPDATE*: I have pulled out and reinstalled the 980 Pro, and it fixed everything. I am not sure how it is even possible for a drive to work if it is not installed properly or if it is losing contact with the slot. I have been using this NMVe for more than a month in this state. Here are the new speeds:


----------



## Pwablo (Apr 1, 2021)

There was a firmware update for the drive a few weeks back, but it didnt sort the problem regarding the slow write speeds. I would suggest that your improvement by removing the drive has possibly nothing to do with a poor contact, and possibly to do with the drive no longer getting any power whilst removed ? which may of done something to the way it stores data in the SL cache? Or by reinstalling it something related to a driver was reinitialized? I wouldnt be surprised if the slow write issue returns after a period of time, but please do keep us posted on progress.


----------



## belmirp (Apr 1, 2021)

I am really not sure, I have tested it several times, and it is always reaching 6800+ read and 4900+ write. I will test it again after some time, and keep posting if something changes.


----------



## Mussels (Apr 1, 2021)

Zach_01 said:


> What is the drive's temp? idle/load
> 
> Try Samsung Magician software. From it you can see if the drive needs a firmware update and also what NVMe driver you are using.
> You can run benchmark too...
> ...



howd you change the colours in HWinfo? maybve i've missed the obvious but i've never seen that before

and relevant to people still with this issue: are you running your GPU in vertical mount of a riser? I'm wondering if errors on the GPU side could slow down the NVME bandwidth


----------



## Zach_01 (Apr 1, 2021)

Mussels said:


> howd you change the colours in HWinfo? maybve i've missed the obvious but i've never seen that before


1. HWiNFO sensors window settings (gear icon) down left >> "Custom" tab
or
2. Right click on a sensor and select "Customize values..."

And you can make it like rainbow....


----------



## Durhamranger (Apr 1, 2021)

have you tried turning off Ami Native NVME support in your bios (its in the boot section if I remember correctly)

ps, this doesnt affect booting from nvme devices....

I get much better speed from my Optane NVME with it off


----------



## chrcoluk (Apr 2, 2021)

Not read all the posts yet but samsung ssd's have very small SLC cache sizes, and this seems like it may be exhausted, with for whatever reason the background operations of the drive failing to recover it.

Also I suggest sticking with Windows 10 nvme driver.

Here is my 970 Evo bench (which I think has even smaller SLC)

I think its a controller/firmware bug on the 980 pro.  Also I have read about newer ssd's becoming more intelligent on SLC caching, the traditional way is kind of just dump all writes to it, and when is idle or when its full it will move to TLC/QLC, but I read at least with one manufacturer there is some kind of new algorithm where if the drive detects a file is frequently written to such as a log, then that file stays perpetually in the SLC area.  No idea if samsung are doing this though.


----------



## yanis1601 (Apr 2, 2021)

Hello everyone Have the same probleme with the Samsung  MZVLB512HBJQ ( PM981a )   everything was fin and randomly it dropped his write speed, and sometimes it was like 900 Mo








I have 2 Nvme One PM981a  used for the Os on an air-cooled Pci gen 3 X16 To M.2
and another 960 Evo pro plugged In the MB (Asus X370F) (for some games)
also if I switch between them I will face the same low Speed for the PM981a and, normal speed for the Evo
PS: I have another PM981a I used it to do a back up every 2 weeks if I swithe between the other PM981a same low speed

hope I was clear in my description

Ps 2.0: I have installed Samsung Magician and no firmware update for PM981a and it does not support the secure erase of Samsung
I'm actually  doing a low-level format from windows and will see if there is any diffrence


----------



## Smylei30 (Apr 17, 2021)

Hello Guys, 
I have the same problem with this Sasmung 980 pro drive, writting speed dropped to 1200-1400mb/s, so  I tired something and its looks like that increasing the write speed of this drive, but I do not know
up to now is it just a numbers in the program increased or also the preformance of the drive. 
So I just enabled the Ram Cache on my RogStrix motherboard and run the test again. Check the results below.


----------



## Mussels (Apr 17, 2021)

Smylei30 said:


> Hello Guys,
> I have the same problem with this Sasmung 980 pro drive, writting speed dropped to 1200-1400mb/s, so  I tired something and its looks like that increasing the write speed of this drive, but I do not know
> up to now is it just a numbers in the program increased or also the preformance of the drive.
> So I just enabled the Ram Cache on my RogStrix motherboard and run the test again. Check the results below.
> ...


That doesnt solve the problem at all, you're now benchmarking your RAM and not your SSD


----------



## Smylei30 (Apr 17, 2021)

Mussels said:


> That doesnt solve the problem at all, you're now benchmarking your RAM and not your SSD


Hy, 
Yes this is clear,  itself the SSD not benchmarking higer, but is this help in real working condition to speed up the write speed ?


----------



## Mussels (Apr 17, 2021)

Smylei30 said:


> Hy,
> Yes this is clear,  itself the SSD not benchmarking higer, but is this help in real working condition to speed up the write speed ?


no, its a buffer
It writes to RAM, then to the SSD as fast as it can

The NVME is still writing slow... it's like benchmarking your D: drive at full speed and saying C: is fixed - nothing is faster


----------



## skip741 (Apr 21, 2021)

I created an account just to share my experience...970 evo plus  500gb here with same issues..the 1st one i got had write speeds drop off to about 900mbs..Read speeds were fine across the board but write and iops fell thru the floor.These drives literally are running without benefit of the turbo slc cache which is ridiculous becuz that cache with enhanced write speeds was what these drives were all about...So they now perform as if they had little or no cache and run at slow TLC speeds...Hilarious! Do you guys know that samsung has been plagued by issues like this from back in the days of the 840 evo ssd?  I still have those drives and use them! they are actually More stable and consistant than the nvme 970! Back in the day, the 840 had the samsung users up in arms about diminished write speeds that could only be restored by rewriting the drive or doing a secure erase... sound familiar? samsungs final answer was a firmware update that took care of the write speed dropoff... whatever they did, it worked and the drives have been fine ever since... these nvmes have same issues and Need a firmware and or driver response from samsung to fix their mess...Back to the nvme, I ordered a replacement 970 evo plus  and sent the other back..All was good for a brief time till, as you guys figured out, the slc cache stop working as it should and defaulted to crap write speeds..Now a secure erase doe Absolutely fix this....Temporarily.... Ive tested this theory time and again and it works but who the heck wants to be reinstalling their software over and over every few weeks? At present I have 3,280 read and about 900 mbs writes... the writes can start at 3000 but will fall to 900mbs b4 I have even written 4gb...Normally ,that slc cache should carry the write speeds thru a benchmark at least but once that cache is messed up, it wont even do that...What ive tried? Literally everything in this thread and then some...Various chipset drivers and windows 10 default ones..Enabling write caching and turning it off and then back on to see if it clears the slc, but no it doesnt.various bios settings achi/raid mode since they use different drivers but no. every samsung version nvme driver in existance in case they had One that worked, no.reseating the drive in the slot, no reimaging just windows 10 Sometimes has made a difference but again in a week or 3 its back to being slow..Horrendous! I also had briefly used the hynix p31 gold which ran circles around the samsung in terms of twice the iops and cooler running..no issues with speed consistancy either But I only owned it for a month and cant say long term... Why then did i stick with the samsung? I needed an nvme that was compatible with Mac and windows and samsung Was... the hynix unfortunately, wasnt and they had no firmware update nor intention of making that happen so i didnt keep it...great drive for windows users though! Samsung has been negligent on further driver or firmware updates on the 970-980 nvmes...why? i dont know...maybe its being worked on as we speak.One thing for sure, Im fed up with the brand and would neither buy nor recommend samsung after having gone thru this mess.


----------



## belmirp (Apr 24, 2021)

I can confirm that drive's write speed is indeed falling down after some time to around 2500 MB/s and it doesn't go up afterwards. I have had full speed for some time, since I pulled out the drive and reinstalled it in the NVMe slot. Then I had to change something in the BIOS, and the infamous Gigabyte self reset occurred, after which the write speed fell down. I tried the benchmark couple of times after that, and it was not going up, as you can see from the screenshot. It is obvious that the drive can go at the full speed, but there is a bug in the firmware that is preventing it at some point, probably related to the mentioned cache.


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (Apr 25, 2021)

I'm going to say, don't waste your time trying to fix whatever bovine defecation Samsung did to the 980 Pro. It's obvious that it's a widespread issue with the drive itself and it's up to them to fix it, if possible at all. I personally can live with the 1500 mb/s write since I do nothing that would require NVMe levels of bandwidth anyway, just wanted a fast Read drive as my OS boot drive.


----------



## Spock Grocker (Apr 29, 2021)

Earlier today, someone on a related thread of the Linus Tech Tips forum posted that the firmware update promised by Samsung to address the write cache issue has been released and appears (at least, so far) to successfully deal with it:

"Samsung Magician reported a firmware update for the 980 Pro today. The version number is 3B2QGXA7. The firmware update seems to have fixed all the write cache issues, at least for now. Will have to see if it holds up over time. I ran Magician benchmarks as wells as CrystalDiskMark and the results are promising."

(They also post some screen grabs of their results.)






						Samsung 980 Pro 1TB Slow Write Speeds
					

Hi Everyone, Has anyone had issues with their 980 Pro not giving you the advertised sequential write speeds? I was able to reach it once in the Magician benchmark, after that... half speed :(




					linustechtips.com


----------



## skip741 (Apr 29, 2021)

Spock Grocker said:


> Earlier today, someone on a related thread of the Linus Tech Tips forum posted that the firmware update promised by Samsung to address the write cache issue has been released and appears (at least, so far) to successfully deal with it:
> 
> "Samsung Magician reported a firmware update for the 980 Pro today. The version number is 3B2QGXA7. The firmware update seems to have fixed all the write cache issues, at least for now. Will have to see if it holds up over time. I ran Magician benchmarks as wells as CrystalDiskMark and the results are promising."
> 
> ...


This is awesome news brother but I do Not see such a firmware on the samsung site, at least not Yet!  the  3B2QGXA7 seems nowhere to be found on google either... may need alittle time b4 it pops up..I sure hope us 970 evo plus owners are not left out in the cold and the plain evo either cuz it affects ALL of US!


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (Apr 29, 2021)

Spock Grocker said:


> Earlier today, someone on a related thread of the Linus Tech Tips forum posted that the firmware update promised by Samsung to address the write cache issue has been released and appears (at least, so far) to successfully deal with it:
> 
> "Samsung Magician reported a firmware update for the 980 Pro today. The version number is 3B2QGXA7. The firmware update seems to have fixed all the write cache issues, at least for now. Will have to see if it holds up over time. I ran Magician benchmarks as wells as CrystalDiskMark and the results are promising."
> 
> ...


Wait really? I didn't get such update. I'll be waiting. In the meantime here is what Samsung told me in an email:





Here's hoping the new firmware fixes it.


----------



## Mussels (Apr 29, 2021)

It's exhausted, it just needs a nap
(I'm glad samsungs found the issue and is fixing it)


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (Apr 29, 2021)

got the 3B2QGXA7 firmware today, and it fixed this issue... we'll see how long it lasts...


----------



## Pwablo (May 1, 2021)

I have latest Samsung MM software and no update shows available for the 500GB drive as of yet? Still shows latest firmware as being 2B2QGXA7.
Was it the update available through Samsung MM?


TIA

Went looking for the new firmware on Samsungs official website.... and look what I noticed.......says it all really.....


----------



## Smylei30 (May 1, 2021)

Pwablo said:


> I have latest Samsung MM software and no update shows available for the 500GB drive as of yet? Still shows latest firmware as being 2B2QGXA7.
> Was it the update available through Samsung MM?
> 
> 
> ...


It is available


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (May 1, 2021)

Pwablo said:


> I have latest Samsung MM software and no update shows available for the 500GB drive as of yet? Still shows latest firmware as being 2B2QGXA7.
> Was it the update available through Samsung MM?
> 
> 
> ...



/facepalm



Smylei30 said:


> It is available
> View attachment 198731
> View attachment 198726



Has the firmware update fixed the write speed for on the 980 Pro? I've removed it from my system but if its fixed the problem I might reinstall.


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (May 1, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> Has the firmware update fixed the write speed for on the 980 Pro? I've removed it from my system but if its fixed the problem I might reinstall.


Fixed it for me. Check my post above.


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (May 1, 2021)

Vanny said:


> got the 3B2QGXA7 firmware today, and it fixed this issue... we'll see how long it lasts...



Interesting. Was your NVME permanently in your system, and writing at far under 5000mb/s before the firmware went on?


----------



## Deleted member 205776 (May 1, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> Interesting. Was your NVME permanently in your system, and writing at far under 5000mb/s before the firmware went on?


Yes, I installed it last summer. Problem started appearing in December of last year, as seen in the following screenshot. Likewise, you can also see from my CrystalDiskMark screenshot above, and the benchmark I just ran in Samsung Magician, that the write speed has drastically improved.


----------



## spykeer (May 4, 2021)

I finally get the update.

Need to Open/Close Magician multiple times to get the Update on it.

Last Magician Software update on middle of march, implemented the "Full Power Mode" function, and i left enabled it (Which makes my 980 Pro hotter, without performance gain)
But the firmware update won't works with it, every time i get an error on updating firmware.
I disabled the Full Power Mode function, restart, and after a reboot, i finally get the update working.

Now i'm on the 3B2QGXA7 Firmware and my Speed is finally correct, hope, it will stay like that!


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## Mike B (May 6, 2021)

Firmware updated yesterday, 3B2QGXA7 2 drives, 1TB first, 500GB OS 2nd.
My speeds are back to the speeds measured when my drives were first installed, 4 months ago.


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## Deleted member 205776 (May 7, 2021)

Well, looks like Samsung hit the nail on the head with this fix. I sure hope these write speeds hold up, and that it doesn't go back to abysmal speeds weeks later.


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## heartog (May 10, 2021)

Well I guess I'm the unfortunate one here, 500GB on 3B2QGXA7, TRIMed before testing


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## Hardcore Games (May 10, 2021)

I have a 980 PRO 2TB and it runs fast as new, check to see windows is fully updated and make sure no more than 75% of the SSD is used


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## heartog (May 10, 2021)

Hardcore Games said:


> I have a 980 PRO 2TB and it runs fast as new, check to see windows is fully updated and make sure no more than 75% of the SSD is used


I want to buy another 980 pro (2tb) like you, so i have to solve the issue using my 500gb before i buy it. How many percent is your 2TB filled to?


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## Hardcore Games (May 12, 2021)

heartog said:


> I want to buy another 980 pro (2tb) like you, so i have to solve the issue using my 500gb before i buy it. How many percent is your 2TB filled to?



about 20% filled so it's likely to be very durable


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## Heavyhms (May 28, 2021)

I have a similar problem: on my Asus ROG Strix Z490-f gaming (bios 2103) i have two 970 evo plus 1TB. The first, with 6.9TB written and 400GB free (plus over provisioning) purchased September 2020, the second, only 20 days old, 1.2TB written, 330TB free (plus over provisioning). Today I have noticed a massive speed drop: actually I have on each drive 904MB/S read and 871MB/s write. Few days ago speed are totally by spec and both drives works ad pcie gen3 x4.
Reinstalling Samsung nvme drivers does not correct the problem.
Coud be a windows update problem? Actually I have windows 10 pro build 21h1

Actually i have enabled from about 3 weeks both discrete graphic (rtx 3070) and intel i7-11700k integrated video: this combo can degradate m2 nvme performance?

a little update: problem solved disabling onboard video


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## skip741 (Jun 18, 2021)

The evo 970 plus line ALSO is suffering from the slow write speeds caused by the turbowrite cache being exhausted and not refreshing....Where is the firmware update for 970 evo plus owners Samsung?!!!!! We are awaiting a fix, you KNOW what the issue is,You Have Already fixed it in the 980 pro, so where is the firmware for the 970 line? why is this being neglected?  Man, I will Never buy or recommend another samsung drive...ever.... after all this crap...its unexcuseable, when an answer exists, a problem is well know, but the fix is Not being offered!    shame on you samsung!


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## mailo34 (Jul 26, 2021)

Today i noticed again my SAMSUNG 980pro running very very slow again (Using the newest firmware and AMD chipset, nothing i can do about it)....Piece of junk


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## Pwablo (Jul 26, 2021)

Your not alone... I copied a 90GB game onto my 500gb 980 Pro on Saturday....ran a test on the drive yesterday and got a write speed of 684 !!! Drive only half full. Latest firmware also....Moved the data to another drive yesterday and did a test 5 minutes ago... write speed to back over 5000 again. Wont be buying another.


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## skip741 (Sep 4, 2021)

I Knew that you guys were Not gonna be able to verify the new firmware fixed things without giving it some time...the act of simply flashing the firmware, will clear that slc cache so the issue will Seem to have been fixed after updating firmware but you wont Know till some time has passed and you moved some data on the drive..THATS what uses up the cache and Thats when you will Know whether its been truly fixed or not.. with my 970 evo plus, the cache is used up and has been for months..writes are about 800-900mbps which is abysmal and they dont recover...A properly working controller Should clear that used cache and  give you plenty to bench with or copy data with but thats not happenning..what a crying shame...when Ive talked to samsung techs direct, they say "YOUR THE 1ST ONE WE HAVE HEARD MENTIONING THIS ISSUE" WTF?  IVE searched hrs to try and find a way to clear slc cache,if there was a simple cmd prompt but no,there isnt..these stupid programs like magician Should at least offer an option to clear the slc cache since they know its an issue and they havent fixed it with firmware...If I could Reflash the current firmware, it would clear tyhe cache but you cant Reflash firmware, it says its Already up to date so no go on that...secure erase will do it but im fed up wiping my drive to fix samsungs incompetence, so ive put up with low write speeds but man, I will Never buy another one nor recommend samsung EVER!  the best way to avoid these issues with slc cache is to buy true mlc drives that dont rely on slc to boost slow tlc based chips to normal speeds...unfortunately, real mlc drives are almost extinct...everyone is doing what samsung is now doing...cheap tls or worse ,qlc drives with slc to boot the write... thing is that most other brands are doing it Right..


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## plat (Dec 3, 2021)

There's a new firmware version for the 980 Pro at least.  



Spoiler







At first it failed, then it went thru on the 2nd attempt, thank goodness.  Health and performance of the drive seem OK.  Hope it holds up.


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## chrcoluk (Dec 3, 2021)

lexarflash8g said:


> View attachment 175491
> 
> There is no driver for the Samsung 980, only the 970. The temp is about 51.. and sometimes in Samsung Magician it says too high. I can't open it now its crashing for some reason.
> And In my gigabyte BIOS settings It shows the setting as PCI 4x and shows up under NVME. And I put in the top most slot. Not sure whats going on.


Its expected, the drives smaller than 1TB are slower, Samsung knowing that reviewers "very rarely" buy retail, deliberately only sent the bigger models to get the best reviews.

Check amazon reviewers, the 500gig and smaller are slower, the 256gig is even slower than yours.

With that said, I am talking about when SLC is exhausted, yours seems too slow if its writing to SLC cache.


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## plat (Dec 4, 2021)

With the latest firmware (4B2QGXA7): Crystal Disk Mark results.  They're OK but not at levels when I first installed it 15 months ago--notably with the random writes.  Still, I can't really complain and I def. perceived a performance improvement. This is PCIe v. 3. Think I may get the 980  (not Pro) next time just b/c of the hassle.  



Spoiler


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