# Unstable work of Samsung 860 EVO 300MB/s



## don dolarson (Aug 15, 2019)

Hi everyone  It's my first post here since I'm new to this forum and fact that I need help with what I think instabile work of my Samsung 860 EVO 500GB bring me here. I'm not so new to this page, was mostly reading news, tests, forum, and I'm pretty sure I get the help I need here. To the problem...
Every time, couple of weeks after formatting, the drive slows down. I can't really explain why this happen. Within this time I'm just doing some customization, programs & games installation, some registry tweaks, but nothing involving in the system so much itself, mostly customization, everything takes me about 3-4 weeks to do after every format so no way I'm doing it one more time as I already done it twice and same shit happens. I've only disabled the Windows Search service as the "bigger thing", and changed the virtual memory to my own setting minimum 1024 and maximum 2048 (not more than 20% is in use). I've 32GB RAM.

When the disk is fresh, after formatting, everything is smooth and nice. I check benchmarks CrystalDiskMark from time to time and 2 weeks they are the same as after formatting (*1st picture*), then between 2nd and 3rd week I felt less responsiveness in Photoshop and it took longer time to open the software and was slower on working on files, so I've checked bench again and it gave me about 300MB/s write and less on whole column down . *(2nd picture)* I was pissed off as it happened before too and I can feel less power from it in some usage, ex Photoshop, just like I can feel a bad cylinder on a car engine. Then for some day ago I've checked benchs again as it felt a bit faster and look 3rd picture, like sequential is back to normal, except some others... I've checked benchs today, about 1 hour after powering the system up and the result is on 4rd.


  


Anyone knows what is going on? I've a laptop with old Toshiba 128GB SSD SATA III, also with BitLocker encryption enabled, paired with i7 Haswell Mobile CPU and I get not much worse bench results than Samsung EVO 860 500GB after formatting on 1st picture, and the system is still on Windows 10 1809 and works great about 8 months now.


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## don dolarson (Aug 19, 2019)

Really? No one? In addition to the first post I can tell you that I'm getting about 40-45 I/O in ATTO Disk Benchmark.


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## Ferrum Master (Aug 19, 2019)

It works fine. It is an EVO drive and it acts like that when emulated SLC cache runs out. 

Other than that, it will give you zero issues or slowdowns.


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## newtekie1 (Aug 19, 2019)

It could be lots of things. My first guess would be something either writing to the drive in the background, or an issue with TRIM. Or it could just be running out of SLC cache.


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## Zareek (Aug 19, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> It could be lots of things. My first guess would be something either writing to the drive in the background, or an issue with TRIM. Or it could just be running out of SLC cache.


I agree, I would install Samsung Magician and check for a firmware update. 

The performance you are seeing is in-line with what is expected when you fill the SLC turbo-write cache on a 500GB drive. The empty drive SLC cache is 22GB on the 500GB drives. As I understand it, the cache will recover some capacity based on the amount of drive space left open. This process isn't instant as the drive moves the SLC writes to TLC storage internally. From Samsung Look at the asterisks under the laptop picture with the drive speeds listed. TLC drives like the 860 EVO are not meant for writing big chucks of data to on a daily basis. If you are using this drive for professional use that depends on consistent speed you should consider a Pro drive. The Pro series drives use MLC NAND and are made for that kind of work.


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## don dolarson (Aug 20, 2019)

> Other than that, it will give you zero issues or slowdowns.


I'm experiencing a bit slower work on files in Photoshop and a little bit lower responsiveness in couple of scenarios, so it's not really "zero issues" as you say.



> My first guess would be something either writing to the drive in the background, or an issue with TRIM. Or it could just be running out of SLC cache.


I've checked the TRIM by a cmd command and it's set to 0, and 0 means it's ON.
What do you mean with "writing to the drive in background" ? It's hard to not write or read from the disk which is in use and installed OS on it, especially being benched. I've got flawless CrystalDiskMark results up to 2-3 weeks after formatting the drive & installed new OS on it, and I've benched it every 2nd day. If it was because of the drive activity, don't you think that I'd get same results all the time?



> The performance you are seeing is in-line with what is expected when you fill the SLC turbo-write cache on a 500GB drive. The empty drive SLC cache is 22GB on the 500GB drives. As I understand it, the cache will recover some capacity based on the amount of drive space left open. This process isn't instant as the drive moves the SLC writes to TLC storage internally. From Samsung Look at the asterisks under the laptop picture with the drive speeds listed. TLC drives like the 860 EVO are not meant for writing big chucks of data to on a daily basis. If you are using this drive for professional use that depends on consistent speed you should consider a Pro drive. The Pro series drives use MLC NAND and are made for that kind of work.


Firmware is up to date. I've updated it once (before 3rd drive format) but nothing has changed, and... to be honest, I doubt it could be just because of newer firmware, unless the old one was buggy, but it's not, since thousands of people worldwide using the same drive & firmware and runs just  fine...

*Really?* I can understand that the disk slows down when filled more and more by the time, especially when filled  around 80% or more as almost all SSDs work this way, but mine was filled with no more than 10% of the total capacity, 37GB   I've two partition on it, C with installed OS on it is 111GB (37GB in use) and E partition is 353GB (0GB in use).
_If you take a look at 2nd and 3rd picture?_ 2nd was taken before formatting the drive, about 2 months after Windows installation. 3rd picture was taken about a week after formatting and a new Windows 10 has been installed on it. As you can see, after new OS has been installed, the disk was filled with even more data, 42GB vs 37GB (before format) and still gave me decent numbers. You can even take a look at 4rd picture, which is the newest one. 1GB less data on it and pretty bad numbers. Sound pretty weird 

I'm posting some ATTO Disk Benchmark results as of today

 


It's hard for me to believe that it has something to do with any kind of cache, especially when seeing all these benchmarks of people using the same drive, for example, the *CAN-User, 5 mins ago *outperform my numbers with MUCH more filled disk.


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## Mussels (Aug 20, 2019)

the evo drives (and most SSD's) have a high speed cache, and the rest of the drive is slower.
Your is performing slower than expected, but dont be surprised that it slows as it fills, even a smaller amount.

You'll notice your drive got 88.9% 'excellent' compared to other drives of the same model - your below expecations result is likely comparing to other drives


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## don dolarson (Aug 20, 2019)

Alright, you all look like united to this cache thing in these disks, and if the problem is caching for real, then it was the last Samsung storage device I ever got my hands on, unless I can get them for for free... China ordered Vasekey 256GB SSD for 1$ outperforms it, as it is now... what a shame Samsung. I've 6 years old M.2 Toshiba 128GB SSD installed in my laptop. 55TBW written on it, ~3000 spins/starts and ~15.000 hours powering on, remaining life according to different software is less than 5% and I get better result than new EVO, all the way down   I've even a 3 years old M.2 Crucial MX300 275GB installed in the same laptop and running with no problems, just like the Toshiba disk.

Did you took a look on the last picture I've posted above? Different people, different machines, different disk capacity usage, and 5, almost 6 out of 8 has normal speeds. How the heck is this possible?
*Is there a way to reset that cache somehow*?


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## Toothless (Aug 20, 2019)

I'd check your pagefile as a "just in case" something isn't being cached up there and sucking up your drive. I can vouch that sometimes my 850s will get a little slow for a few, then get right back to speed.


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## tabascosauz (Aug 20, 2019)

Something feels off here, maybe have a quick chat with Samsung? I don't think the user has control over what the controller decides to do with that cache. Otherwise, the 860 EVO isn't of particularly great value or speed nowadays.


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## don dolarson (Aug 20, 2019)

I've just turned the pagefile back to automatic mode and I'll let it settle down 1-3 days (if it needs?) and will be back here to tell you if it caused my problem.
Thanks for suggest to contact the manufacturer. It'll be the last thing I'll be doing, before I leave this SSD wannabe back and take something more reliable.

I've just ordered an Intel 545s 256GB for L2 caching my 3TB Toshiba HDD, and started wondering if it would be better to migrate my OS to it instead of EVO, and turn EVO into L2 cache... though I don't need 500GB SSD just for caching. EVO isn't brand new, I bought it 1 year ago for about 90$, which was a good price at that moment. I just haven't used my PC for about 8-9 months.


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## Mussels (Aug 20, 2019)

I'm gunna say somethings wrong with userbench when it comes to reporting their results as well
I have no SSD caching, just a fast SSD and it tells me mine is both absurdly fast, and absurdly slow at the same time

Way below expectations (15th percentile) yet 280% outstanding at the same time?


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## don dolarson (Aug 20, 2019)

I'm just comparing my results to other peoples results. Only number to the right (next to Bench) are interested to me when comparing.  I get same results every time I run this benchmark.


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## trparky (Aug 20, 2019)

I would make sure that TRIM is indeed working properly on your system, you can do this by using TrimCheck.


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## don dolarson (Aug 22, 2019)

trparky said:


> I would make sure that TRIM is indeed working properly on your system, you can do this by using TrimCheck.


I've tested it and this is what I've got:



Spoiler



Press Enter to test drive C:...

Querying C:\ disk space and sector size information...
  C:\ has 512 bytes per sector, and 8 sectors per cluster.
  14740582 out of 29132543 clusters are free.
Generating random target data block (16384 bytes)...
  First 16 bytes: DF 0F 31 2C CC 5C D2 EF 43 0B 53 4B B8 B5 D0 78...
Creating C:\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck.bin...
Querying file final paths...
  DOS  : \\?\C:\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck.bin
  GUID : \\?\Volume{9c64cda7-aebd-4325-809a-247b22026c78}\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck.bin
  NT   : \Device\HarddiskVolume4\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck.bin
  NONE : \Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck.bin
Writing padding (33554432 bytes)...
Writing data (16384 bytes)...
Writing padding (33554432 bytes)...
Flushing file...
Checking file size...
  Data is located at Virtual Cluster Numbers 8192-8195 within file.
Querying file physical location...
  trimcheck.bin has 8 extents:
    Extent 0: Virtual clusters 0-264 are located at LCN 15090371
    Extent 1: Virtual clusters 265-926 are located at LCN 15256128
    Extent 2: Virtual clusters 927-1856 are located at LCN 12081063
    Extent 3: Virtual clusters 1857-3895 are located at LCN 15198643
    Extent 4: Virtual clusters 3896-7968 are located at LCN 10256323
    Extent 5: Virtual clusters 7969-12147 are located at LCN 11961113
      (this is the extent containing our data)
    Extent 6: Virtual clusters 12148-15239 are located at LCN 12976366
    Extent 7: Virtual clusters 15240-17343 are located at LCN 13249608
Closing file.
Saving continuation data to C:\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck-cont.json...
Flushing buffers on \\.\C:...
  Opening \\.\C:...
  Flushing buffers...
Deleting file...
Flushing buffers on \\.\C:...
  Opening \\.\C:...
  Flushing buffers...

Test file created and deleted, and continuation data saved.
Do what needs to be done to activate the SSD's TRIM functionality,
and run this program again.
Usually, you just need to wait a bit (around 20 seconds).
Sometimes, a reboot is necessary.

Press Enter to exit...




I've been hearing about testing to move the pagefile to another disk, and even try to defrag the SSD. I've loaded Defraggler yesterday,  analyzed fragmentation of both partitions and I've seen some high numbers, like 24GB fragmentet files on partition C and 67GB on partition with only installed games. It looked a bit to high for me and thought thats why it slows down. I've analyzed the disk after a restart and checked it, only 2GB fragmented files after a start and 2,4GB after 1 check with ATTO disk benchmark. _How is the log from command prompt?_


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## Toothless (Aug 22, 2019)

Never defrag an ssd. TRIM is to an ssd as defrag is to an hdd.


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## trparky (Aug 22, 2019)

What happens when you reboot and run the trim check again?


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## Regeneration (Aug 22, 2019)

Post PC specifications. Why 1GB benchmarks? you're killing the drive with those.


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## Athlonite (Aug 22, 2019)

Toothless said:


> Never defrag an ssd. TRIM is to an ssd as defrag is to an hdd.



the windows Defrag program wont actually let you defrag an SSD but will run trim so maybe a good Idea for the OP to check and see if this has indeed been run or not last time I checked mine stated it hadn't been run for 17 days even though it's been set to run everyday


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## eidairaman1 (Aug 22, 2019)

Zareek said:


> I agree, I would install Samsung Magician and check for a firmware update.
> 
> The performance you are seeing is in-line with what is expected when you fill the SLC turbo-write cache on a 500GB drive. The empty drive SLC cache is 22GB on the 500GB drives. As I understand it, the cache will recover some capacity based on the amount of drive space left open. This process isn't instant as the drive moves the SLC writes to TLC storage internally. From Samsung Look at the asterisks under the laptop picture with the drive speeds listed. TLC drives like the 860 EVO are not meant for writing big chucks of data to on a daily basis. If you are using this drive for professional use that depends on consistent speed you should consider a Pro drive. The Pro series drives use MLC NAND and are made for that kind of work.



Pro Drives are SLC iirc



Athlonite said:


> the windows Defrag program wont actually let you defrag an SSD but will run trim so maybe a good Idea for the OP to check and see if this has indeed been run or not last time I checked mine stated it hadn't been run for 17 days even though it's been set to run everyday



Run it in a dos prompt Defrag /? For all parameters


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## Mussels (Aug 22, 2019)

eidairaman1 said:


> Pro Drives are SLC iirc



Not all of them, but they're a step up from consumer models
So if a consumer was TLC, the pro would be MLC

my 970 pro is 2 bit MLC, while the 970 evo is three bit MLC (technically, TLC)


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## don dolarson (Aug 22, 2019)

Toothless said:


> Never defrag an ssd. TRIM is to an ssd as defrag is to an hdd.



Yes, I know to not defrag SSDs, but in this situation I don't think it hurt more than it already hurts to the disk, because it's not working as it should.
I did defrag with Defraggler these fragmented 24GB + 67GB files, but without any issues and/or without any positive/negative result in benchs.



Regeneration said:


> Post PC specifications. Why 1GB benchmarks? you're killing the drive with those.



ASUS X470 Strix, AMD Ryzen 1700x stock, 32GB RAM @ 3200MHz OC, GTX 970, Samsung 860 EVO 500GB, Toshiba P300 3TB. _What do you mean with 1GB benchmarks?_



trparky said:


> What happens when you reboot and run the trim check again?



This is what I've got. I tried 2 times and get the same thing:


```
Loading continuation data from C:\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck-cont.json...
  Drive path   :  \\.\C:
  Offset       :  54231375872
  Random data  :  A2 14 4D C2 81 54 30 D6 3B 1F 29 89 F2 99 1C 1E...

Reading raw volume data...
  Opening \\.\C:...
  Seeking to position 54231375872...
  Reading 16384 bytes...
  First 16 bytes: 1E C4 82 D4 85 51 62 3D C3 F4 4C 74 98 7A 6E 36...
Data is neither unchanged nor empty.
Possible cause: another program saved data to disk,
overwriting the sector containing our test data.

CONCLUSION: INDETERMINATE.
Re-run this program and wait less before verifying / try to
minimize writes to drive C:.

Press Enter to exit...
```

In addition to it, I run a simple command to check TRIM and it's what I've got:


```
C:\Windows\system32>fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
NTFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0  (Disabled)
ReFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0  (Disabled)
```


I've checked it for my HDD and the program tell me that TRIM is unsupported on this drive.

And finally I've checked TRIM on my 2nd SSD partition where I've all my games installed and it's what I've got:


```
Loading continuation data from H:\trimcheck-cont.json...
  Drive path   :  \\.\H:
  Offset       :  17809408
  Random data  :  5C 38 CC 96 FE EA 73 74 AB 03 4C C2 98 FA 7D D0...

Reading raw volume data...
  Opening \\.\H:...
  Seeking to position 17809408...
  Reading 16384 bytes...
  First 16 bytes: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00...
Data is empty (filled with 0x00 bytes).

CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be WORKING!

Press Enter to exit...
```


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## Gungar (Aug 22, 2019)

eidairaman1 said:


> Pro Drives are SLC iirc



If i am not mistaken there is no SLC ssd on the market except maybe datacenter ones (stupidly expensive).

The Samsung PRO series has always been MLC since it exists.


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## don dolarson (Aug 22, 2019)

*THANKS TO YALL FOR ALL HELP I GET HERE ❤ YOU ALL GR8.*

I'm tired of messing with this drive and shortening life of it with all these benchmarks and I'm aware of this, I don't know how much but remaining life showing at 99%, and I know that this drive isn't working as it should, that's why I did 3 formats, to track it down. _What more can I do? _After every format everything was good so it MUST be something that isn't working 100% with this disk, which occurs by time. It won't be a problem for me as for example system boot up time is the same, chrome opens my 20+ tabs as fast as before too, not biggger differences  as when it was fresh, but as told you I'm working in Photoshop and it feels less responsive in some situations. I've had 22GB RAMDisk with Photoshop installed on it with junction activated to copy an image of RAM to SSD on reboot and restoring after, which took 15-20 seconds more to do than usual but I'm normally not restarting my PC, it is always powered on, but these 15.000MB/s I've got is a speed unreachable for any disk and was worth it and everything saved on this RAM Disk felt as a dream.

I've just bought an Intel 545s 256GB and was wondering if maybe I'll return EVO disk to manufacturer for checking it? _What do you think guys?_  Maybe I can use this topic to tell 'em about the problem, if they care. However, I bought this Intel disk because I wanted to use it to work as a L2 cache for SSD both for system and installed games and a HDD partition where I've my installed games too. I wanted even L1 RAM cache for SSD on system partition because I've get rid of RAMDisk and will be better using PrimoCache with L1 RAM cache given to it, as it caches only needed files, not need to install Photoshop with extensions on it, which takes about 4.5GB, so it gonna be used even for speeding up whole system. I've 30 icons/shortcuts/files on desktop and when refreshing it it takes about 200-250ms before all icons and arrow in them are refreshed. It was less than 100ms before. Maybe it's not related to anything with the disk and it's just because Windows can't handle this properly as it's the very small percentage of all possible number of icons on a FullHD resolution. I just hope that Windows will be still usable when there's +300 icons on desktop.

The question is if it's worth to paying for shipping the disk back to the store and get it checked or just  dont' bother and use it along with L1 + L2 cache, totally about 100GB for the SSD, and forget. I will get much higher numbers in both benchmarks and daily use anyway, I think so, so I won't even mark this malfunction of EVO. I was reading documentations about it before and that's why I decided to buy this Intel disk and run as a cache. The 2nd option is to migrate the system to the Intel disk and use EVO as an installed games disk.


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## trparky (Aug 22, 2019)

Yes, you're supposed to be getting the message "CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be WORKING!" but it appears that on your C drive you're not. This is strange. If TRIM isn't working then the SSD isn't performing the garbage collection that it's supposed to be doing hence the degraded performance. This is very weird. The only time that I've seen this happening is when using the standard SATA controller drivers that come with Windows, you should be using the manufacturer's SATA controller drivers be it Intel, AMD, or ASMedia.


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## Mussels (Aug 22, 2019)

just on the fragmented files thing - they are MEANT to be fragmented on an SSD, spreading out over multiple chips to boost speed.
Defragging an SSD slows it down AND kills it, so please dont do that

check with the samsung magician software if TRIM is active properly?


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## killster1 (Aug 22, 2019)

I would bite the bullet and grab a new nvme (since you are worried about speed) they have many low budget options. i just picked up a 35$ 256gb mydigitalssd bpx pro for my moms new x470 pc, i sure hope it doesnt fail i know i trust samsung and intel drives 10000%. Altho 860 evo's are known to have issues for main OS and i would keep it for a secondary drive or external.


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## Zareek (Aug 22, 2019)

It is never fun when a product doesn't seem to be performing up to your expectations. SLC caching is not exclusive to Samsung in any way. The Intel 545s has the same thing. Almost all TLC drives use it because TLC writes are slow when compared to 2bit MLC and obviously SLC. 

I will try to test a drive and see if I get similar results. I should have at least two 860 EVO drives in the 500GB flavor I can try.  The 1TB 860 EVO in my main machine is getting 450MB seq. writes and it is 62% full but I also have it 3% over provisioned. Your drive is spanking my 1TB EVO in Q8T8 reads and writes!


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## don dolarson (Aug 23, 2019)

trparky said:


> Yes, you're supposed to be getting the message "CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be WORKING!" but it appears that on your C drive you're not. This is strange. If TRIM isn't working then the SSD isn't performing the garbage collection that it's supposed to be doing hence the degraded performance. This is very weird. The only time that I've seen this happening is when using the standard SATA controller drivers that come with Windows, you should be using the manufacturer's SATA controller drivers be it Intel, AMD, or ASMedia.





Mussels said:


> just on the fragmented files thing - they are MEANT to be fragmented on an SSD, spreading out over multiple chips to boost speed.
> Defragging an SSD slows it down AND kills it, so please dont do that
> 
> check with the samsung magician software if TRIM is active properly?





I just checked this magic TRIM checker software again, and this is what I've got. This time I haven't waited these 20 seconds or restarted the system.


```
Loading continuation data from C:\Users\Don Dolly\Desktop\trimcheck-cont.json...
  Drive path   :  \\.\C:
  Offset       :  9089871872
  Random data  :  65 DA 1F AD 87 04 AF 83 0D 79 C9 7A 0A C5 D8 8A...

Reading raw volume data...
  Opening \\.\C:...
  Seeking to position 9089871872...
  Reading 16384 bytes...
  First 16 bytes: 65 DA 1F AD 87 04 AF 83 0D 79 C9 7A 0A C5 D8 8A...
Data unchanged.

CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be NOT WORKING (or has not kicked in yet).

You can re-run this program to test again with the same data block,
or delete trimcheck-cont.json to create a new test file.

Press Enter to exit...
```


```
Loading continuation data from H:\trimcheck-cont.json...
  Drive path   :  \\.\H:
  Offset       :  161377705984
  Random data  :  B4 2D A7 F3 66 FB FD 56 23 F6 A4 AA 1F 77 FE BE...

Reading raw volume data...
  Opening \\.\H:...
  Seeking to position 161377705984...
  Reading 16384 bytes...
  First 16 bytes: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00...
Data is empty (filled with 0x00 bytes).

CONCLUSION: TRIM appears to be WORKING!

Press Enter to exit...
```


How can it be possible that this whole TRIM thing works on H partition but won't work on C? Benchs are the same on H as on C.


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## don dolarson (Aug 26, 2019)

Guys, this is ridiculous. Since last Friday I've installed apps and games, configured almost everything in the system, so I bench checked EVO and popped out both R&W about 560/550 and higher 4K speeds as well and I felt right off when I refreshed my desktop, that it refresh faster. I measure from the last arrow when it appear after refreshing on every shortcut on desktop. When the 4K is smaller and benches are like now, 320MB/s, then all my icons and folders (small) refresh with a delay of 600-700ms. When speeds are higher it refresh in a half and whole system feels snappier, as well as Photoshop and must say that Audacity with plugins feels different too, just discovered it. Games and other smaller apps and system start doesn't impact. I've checked one more DiskMark 2GB file 2 days ago as I turned off Windows SuperFetch/Prefetch services and speeds were higher again, about 560/550MB/s. Don't really know if it's because of that as speeds went back to smaller again, but in the morning they were 500MB/s.

No need to check DiskMark anymore and any more help here, and shorten life od this disk, as I can easily see differences on my desktop. I will load a big cache partition of my new Intel 545s Series, and on top of that will be 18GB RAM for caching the system. I may be happy with that setup, and at this range, I will probably not mark any 200-300MB/s lacking from EVO.
I don't know what to think about this, but one is sure, I will stick to another manufacturer next time, as I never ever had any problems with different SSD's, even that 6 years old Toshiba, with capacity of 128GB from 2013 still works like a charm. I don't like to have it sending back to repair it, or get a new one if this is in any way broken, because I've just configured everything on my system and don't have the time to just copy everything and be without a PC. I will game now. A lot. Maybe when I will format it again and install fresh Windows in the future, then can I investigate and decide to send it back. I've like 4 more years to do it, so...

Thank you all for your help. I'm done. Maybe a good idea to let other continue this thread as I see I'm not alone about this, but we're minority.


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## lfbb (Mar 14, 2020)

Sorry to dig up this thread, I hope I'm not breaking any forum rules!

Just to tell you guys my experience. I also have a 860 EVO 500GB Sata III and in my case the write speed drops down to ~300MB/s because the SLC cache fills up to 22GB and it won't flush, not even if I power my computer off, causing the SSD to write directly to the slower TLC memory.






I tried several times and I'm sure it is the SLC cache filling that's causing the poor write speeds. The weird thing in all off this is that if I go to BIOS and change any setting the SLC cache gets empty and I recover my speeds(~530MB/s sequential write). I know this is very strange but after changing some specific BIOS settings I came to the conclusion that any change would flush my SLC cache. Maybe the problem is a conflict between the SSD and the BIOS. I have an old MSI Z77A-G45 mobo with the last BIOS version, I can't do much about that. Here are my other specs:

Board: MSI Z77A-G45 | Bios: Version 2.13B1 | GPU: MSI GeForce GT 710 1GB | PSU: Corsair HX650 | CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 77W | MEM: Kingston PC3-10700 1333Mhz 2x8GB | HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB | SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA III | COOLER: Noctua NH-C12P SE14 | OC: (Turbo) 4.1Ghz 1.211 CPUV ram: 1333Mhz 1.5v | OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit v1809 build 17763.1098

Regards,

-lfbb


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## don dolarson (Mar 14, 2020)

I can tell you that I haven't solved it yet. It's how it is and I don't care so much about it anymore, but because of that, I'd never buy a Samsung SSD drive again. I've a Crucial MX300 275GB, Intel s545 256GB & an 7 years old Toshiba 128GB SSD drive and never ever run into such speed problems with any of them as with the Samsung.

What BIOS setting you're changing? I might check it too.


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## lfbb (Mar 14, 2020)

don dolarson said:


> What BIOS setting you're changing? I might check it too.



You may not believe me but any setting change will clear the SLC cache. I started changing Intel C-State because of an article I found about SSD optimizing but it just worked for sometime(until SLC cache filled, now I know). Next I got desperate and I've disabled Intel Virtualization Tech. That worked too. Then I started choosing some random setttings, nothing that would interfere with pc's normal functioning. Nowadays I change Package C State Limit between [No Limit] and [Auto] which is pretty innofensive and does the job.

Regards,


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## don dolarson (Mar 14, 2020)

My system is an AMD system running Ryzen 1700X on ASUS X470 Gaming-F board. I've tried with 2 or 3 different BIOS versions back in time (the one flashed today is from July 2019) but it was the same thing on any of them. I'm stuck read speed at 560MB/s and write 320MB/s (at it's highest). I could see some write speed spikes in HWiNFO while benchmarked with CrystalDiskMark, but they were just for 1-2 seconds at 480MB/s write and then back to 300-320MB/s for the rest of the test. I've done 3 tests total, 4x4GB probes. Checked first with the system as it was, then I've enabled NVM (CPU virtualization), checked again, and then disabled it and checked once again. Every benchmark result was similar so this "solution" isn't working for me, or maybe anything else in BIOS need to be changed. The drive is filled with 285GB data.


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## lfbb (Mar 14, 2020)

Maybe your SLC cache is filled. I don't know any other way of clearing it besides the BIOS change. Maybe someone else could help on this...

Regards,


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## don dolarson (Mar 14, 2020)

Probably it is, all the time... and as in your case, not freeing it by idling or shutdown, or after "any" setting change in UEFI. Teach you to live with degradated drive right from the factory, and consider to buy any other SSD brand in the future. I can't blame anyone else since I don't have any problem with any other of my 3 SSD drives. One of them is an 7 years old Toshiba 128GB from 2013 with 45TB written data to it. This one is actually working hell better than the 500GB 860 EVO from Samsung.


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## lfbb (Mar 14, 2020)

I really don't understand why the SLC cache isn't cleared at shutdown as there is so much concern on loss of data during a power fail!


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## LFaWolf (Mar 15, 2020)

If you are running Windows 10, there might be a setting here that may or may not help. Turn it off and see if it helps -
https://lifehacker.com/enable-this-setting-to-make-windows-10-boot-up-faster-1743697169


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## don dolarson (Mar 15, 2020)

This setting is off since I've installed the system. It's actually the first thing I do on every machine running Windows 10.


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## Vya Domus (Mar 15, 2020)

don dolarson said:


> Firmware is up to date. I've updated it once (before 3rd drive format) but nothing has changed, and... to be honest, I doubt it could be just because of newer firmware, unless the old one was buggy, but it's not, since thousands of people worldwide using the same drive & firmware and runs just  fine...
> 
> *Really?* I can understand that the disk slows down when filled more and more by the time, especially when filled around 80% or more as almost all SSDs work this way, but mine was filled with no more than 10% of the total capacity, 37GB   I've two partition on it, C with installed OS on it is 111GB (37GB in use) and E partition is 353GB (0GB in use).



I have the exact same SSD and it performs in the exact same way, I don't know what other confirmation you could have that everything works as intended.



don dolarson said:


> How can it be possible that this whole TRIM thing works on H partition but won't work on C? Benchs are the same on H as on C.



I would stop worrying about it and tinkering with it, TRIM is a redundant feature with modern SSDs.


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## don dolarson (Mar 15, 2020)

Vya Domus said:


> I have the exact same SSD and it performs in the exact same way, I don't know what other confirmation you could have that everything works as intended.



It's then not working correctly for us 3 (only in this thread). The faster +500MB/s write SLC memory of 22GB should be filled with data in first hand, then when idle, it should move them to the slower TLC memory and release faster SLC for new, faster writes. It's working with my Intel s545 which has the same technology, but not Samsung.



Vya Domus said:


> I would stop worrying about it and tinkering with it, TRIM is a redundant feature with modern SSDs.



I don't think so. Couple of reliable tests on whether this is true? Or is it just your own theory? Never heard about that.


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## Vya Domus (Mar 15, 2020)

don dolarson said:


> Never heard about that.



TRIM was something meant for old SSDs back when they first came out who didn't have automatic memory management.



don dolarson said:


> It's then not working correctly for us 3



Think of the odds . Anyway if you still think you have an issue I guess we can't help you.


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## don dolarson (Mar 15, 2020)

Vya Domus said:


> TRIM was something meant for old SSDs back when they first came out who didn't have automatic memory management.



Your theory is worth 0 without reliable confirmations, and it seems like you don't have any at all?



Vya Domus said:


> Think of the odds . Anyway if you still think you have an issue I guess we can't help you.



And if you still think you have a properly working drive, sorry, but we don't need you here in this thread. Just skip it, be happy and enjoy your drive as it is.


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## LFaWolf (Mar 15, 2020)

I think I have the same SSD in one of my computers. I can run the test and see what I get. Is it just CrystalDiskMark?


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## Vya Domus (Mar 15, 2020)

don dolarson said:


> And if you still think you have a properly working drive, sorry, but we don't need you here in this thread. Just skip it, be happy and enjoy your drive as it is.



I hold the liberty to be in any thread I want, thanks. Also "we" seems to be just you.









						The 860 EVO Review: Samsung Back On Top
					

The world's best selling SSD just got a makeover. Today we see how Samsung increased its performance and longevity.




					www.tomshardware.com
				








_"Samsung cut the number of NAND die in half in this model. That hurts the 860 EVO's performance significantly when the workload saturates the TurboWrite cache and falls into the TLC NAND. Performance drops to 285 MB/s."_

285 mb/s ? I guess these guys got a defective drive as well. Damn, are we unlucky.

The cache can fill for a million reasons, having things in the background writing constantly to disk, having fast startup enabled going back from hibernation, etc. It's the way it is, some drives perform better some worse, the Intel one is probably just better. Your basically complaining that this drive doesn't perform as good as some other drive you have from a different manufacturer.

The cache will never be "flushed empty", that's the point of a cache, to contain some data that might be needed and keep some free space for new data.

But anyway I wish you the very best in your endeavor to fix a problem that doesn't exist.


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## the54thvoid (Mar 15, 2020)

don dolarson said:


> Your theory is worth 0 without reliable confirmations, and it seems like you don't have any at all?
> 
> 
> 
> And if you still think you have a properly working drive, sorry, but we don't need you here in this thread. Just skip it, be happy and enjoy your drive as it is.



He has every right to be in this thread and has not shown you the disrespect you have shown them. Civility is free, please try some.


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 15, 2020)

the54thvoid said:


> He has every right to be in this thread and has not shown you the disrespect you have shown them. Civility is free, please try some.



He may want to rethink his stance before people just ignore him for being rude lol


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## OneMoar (Mar 15, 2020)

drive is >50% full meaning you are out of SLC cache which means reduced performance
drive is fine op is clueless and didn't do enough research before purchasing


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## don dolarson (Mar 15, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> drive is >50% full meaning you are out of SLC cache which means reduced performance
> drive is fine op is clueless and didn't do enough research before purchasing





Zareek said:


> It is never fun when a product doesn't seem to be performing up to your expectations. SLC caching is not exclusive to Samsung in any way. The Intel 545s has the same thing. Almost all TLC drives use it because TLC writes are slow when compared to 2bit MLC and obviously SLC.
> 
> I will try to test a drive and see if I get similar results. I should have at least two 860 EVO drives in the 500GB flavor I can try.  The 1TB 860 EVO in my main machine is getting 450MB seq. writes and it is 62% full but I also have it 3% over provisioned. Your drive is spanking my 1TB EVO in Q8T8 reads and writes!
> 
> View attachment 129794



It's just one of bilion screenshots. Filled with 62% data on a 1TB drive with doubled SLC = 44GB.

Here's my benchmarks from September 2019. 0-4 weeks after fresh Windows 10 installation. Filled with 31-42GB data, about 7-10%. More in the 1st and 6th post.

1st Windows installation early in September.








2nd Windows installation later in September. Partitioned c:/ to 111GB instead. 2nd partition as stated in 6th post was empty at that moment.


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## lfbb (Mar 23, 2020)

Hi don,

I managed to restore my SSD to the normal performance by disabling some services in Windows 10 that were messing with my drive's SLC cache in the background. So, here's what I've changed:

-disabled Nvidia Display Container LS service;
-disabled WD Smartware services;
-uninstalled PerfectDisk(I dont't need this one);
-uninstalled Everything search engine, which installs a background service, and replaced with the portable version;
-disabled FLEXNet Licensing Service

In your case maybe there's other programs running in background causing the SLC cache fill. You can use Sysinternals Process Explorer to kill the processes, one by one, and test them:

https://download.sysinternals.com/files/ProcessExplorer.zip

Best luck for you!

EDIT: Here is a bench of my SSD:


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## don dolarson (Mar 23, 2020)

I'm happy for you man  You just proved all these doubters here that not self-cleaning SLC memory isn't anything normal on this, or any other drive with separate SLC memory to the primary TLC. They will probably still refer me/us to some crazy reviews where people tested this drive for an hour or so, still claiming that everything is normal with it or maybe blaming you for cheating now? 
Thank you for it. I'll try with disabling services and processes one by one next week when I've a bit more of time for it. So far, I've tried to kill Everything process (I'm running the portable version with it's process running in background for indexing purposes), but it wasn't that. Maybe it need some time to clean SLC memory now. I'll run a benchmark in next 10-12 hours or so and check it again.

Cheerz


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## rfrazier (Jun 13, 2021)

HI all,

I am a newbie here. I found this thread while searching for a potential cause of horrible performance on my Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SSD. I was hoping to solve a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in Windows 7 but that didn't happen. But, I may have found a solution for the OP. I know there's some disagreement on the thread about certain things and I don't want to get in the middle of that. But, I will say that I, as a consumer, shouldn't have to worry about researching an SSD extensively, whether it has an SLC cache, or even the setting I'm going to mention in order to get good performance. I think the fact that I and the OP are getting such poor performance is a design flaw. I'll leave it at that. I think I fixed my problem. I don't know if it will work for the OP or not.

In troubleshooting my BSOD problem, I discovered that my SSD had gotten really horrible at write performance. Here's a screen shot from Crystal Disk Mark.






Note that my random write performance was as bad as 1 MB/S. Even on a SATA 2 interface, it should be capable of more than that.

Well, as it turns off, I had my Windows Write Cache off to improve system reliability. I turned that back on and it made a huge difference, although I'm now more vulnerable to drive corruption if there is a crash. You can get to this by going to device manager, then disk drive, then the specific drive, then properties, then I think click a button to go into admin mode, then policies, then write cache. Turn it on and say OK and reboot. This dramatically improved my performance.

I have Crystal Disk Info monitoring the drive and the temperature is a little high, over 50 deg C sometimes, so something may still be thrashing the drive. This drive should be good up to 70 deg C though. Here's the new benchmark.





The numbers may not be what you'd call great, but I can live with them. Hope this info helps someone. If anyone knows of further bottlenecks on the Samsung 860 EVO, feel free to share.

Ron


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## trparky (Jun 13, 2021)

rfrazier said:


> although I'm now more vulnerable to drive corruption if there is a crash


This is not true. NTFS is based upon a concept called atomic transactions. In other words, either the file system operation is completed, or it is not. If it's not, the whole of the file system operation is walked back to the last known good commit point thus restoring file system consistency. Yes, a CHKDSK may be required, however, unlike with FAT32, it will not result in cross-linked chains.

This is why, at least 99% of the time, you can write to a USB Flash Drive that's formatted as NTFS and begin writing to it and mid-write you can just yank the thing out and yet not corrupt the file system. Your thought process comes from the days of FAT32 in which if you looked at it cross-eyed, it would become corrupted.

You have to do some serious damage to NTFS in order for it to become corrupted beyond repair. That's why I have to hand it to Microsoft, they made NTFS nearly indestructible.


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## rfrazier (Jun 13, 2021)

@trparky That info is cool and interesting. Makes me feel a bit better about the write caching. Thanks.

Ron


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## trparky (Jun 13, 2021)

I encourage you to look up and research the concept of atomic transactions, especially in NTFS. A great starting point is this article...
NTFS Transaction Journal - NTFS.com


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