# Very low write speeds in NVME SSD



## depakjan (Apr 30, 2022)

HI All,
I have a crucial nvme 1tb SSD , recently i benchmarked my ssd to see if its still working as expected but i realised my write speeds are ridiculously low, its just around 130 mb/s where it used to be > 1200 , as per all the hdd utilities the drive is in good health.







I have done the following

Forced optimize(trim) in windows 11
installed some micron nvme driver from crucial software
No new firmware updates
Power plan is in maximum perf already
I read something about APM but i cant enable or disable for this drive so don't think its applicable
BIOS is set to AHCI mode already
what else should I do, i don't remember when i got this drive, maybe three years old, how can i fix it ?


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## Toothless (Apr 30, 2022)

Had the same thing happen to my 970 EVO. Basically your drive is dying or software issue.


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## depakjan (Apr 30, 2022)

Oh god, if its dying is there any way to check, with hdd i guess bad sectors was a sign with SSD no idea, what software issue could cause this?


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## oobymach (Apr 30, 2022)

I've heard about some ssd drives losing speed as they fill up maybe crucial are one of them? One of my old sata ssd's would start writing a file at 150mbps and then drop after a minute to around 50mbps. You have no data integrity errors and no critical warnings so the drive _should _still be in good health.

Do a search for your drive model and see if there are bad reviews and what they say.


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## GerKNG (Apr 30, 2022)

your SSD is pretty full but 130MB/s is still way lower than it should be.

check SMART Values first.
a dying drive normally writes in the single megabyte range for a couple hours/days before it just dies completely (like my HP EX900 SSD)

Edit:
i just realized that the P1 is a QLC SSD.
130MB/s with almost 90% filled means that you basically have zero SLC cache left. 140ish MB/s looks quite normal. a 4TB 870 QVO barely achieves 160MB/s writing 4bit per cell. below that it's 80MB/s.


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## Chrispy_ (Apr 30, 2022)

It's first-gen 64L QLC right? That NAND is a turd but I'm not sure your drive is old enough to have exhausted it's endurance rating yet. It's only 11% through its TBW, supposedly.

I'm suspecting it's an OS/Firmware issue; W10/11 likely have patches/updates that alter the host-memory buffer for supported DRAM-less SSDs and even though the P1 has a DRAM cache, it could be operating in HMB mode for a weird detection/driver/firmware reason.

If it's not an OS drive for your system, the best thing to do is dump it in an different PC/Laptop and see if it sucks there as well.
If it is your OS drive, and you windows install isn't too much of a ballache to reinstall, Diskpart /clean it to destroy the existing partition info and do a fresh Windows install.


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## TheLostSwede (Apr 30, 2022)

Drive is too full, clear out 50 GB and see if it changes.


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## micropage7 (Apr 30, 2022)

could be from dying, any sign of corrupted files or slow loading or something that not usual for nvme?


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## Chrispy_ (Apr 30, 2022)

TheLostSwede said:


> Drive is too full, clear out 50 GB and see if it changes.


88% full shouldn't be that slow. Sure, it'll be less than optimal but 150MB/s is only what you see when it's 99.5% full, normally.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 30, 2022)

If its the primary drive, it has to compensate for recycle bin and paging/swap space.

Try another cable as well.


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## Chrispy_ (Apr 30, 2022)

eidairaman1 said:


> If its the primary drive, it has to compensate for recycle bin and paging/swap space.
> 
> Try another cable as well.


The pagefile and recycle bin are both included in the 88% full reading.

It has 12% of available space, plus some additional overprovisioning that's available only to the drive, so it really shouldn't get that slow until it's genuinely near 100% full.

@depakjan There's a dedicated Crucial SSD utility with self-test and firmware updates etc. I would be checking that out at this point:








						Crucial Storage Executive Tool | Firmware Download
					

Download the latest version of Crucial Storage Executive to get the most from your SSD hard drive. Includes information on storage used & drive health.




					uk.crucial.com


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## TheLostSwede (Apr 30, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> 88% full shouldn't be that slow. Sure, it'll be less than optimal but 150MB/s is only what you see when it's 99.5% full, normally.


Depends on the drive, I had a Samsung OEM drive that was only 80% full and it was causing my laptop to stall out.
Sure, it was a fairly old SATA drive, but not used that much and at least TLC, but after swapping it out for a larger drive, everything was working fine again.


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## Chrispy_ (Apr 30, 2022)

TheLostSwede said:


> Depends on the drive, I had a Samsung OEM drive that was only 80% full and it was causing my laptop to stall out.
> Sure, it was a fairly old SATA drive, but not used that much and at least TLC, but after swapping it out for a larger drive, everything was working fine again.


Are you sure that wasn't one of the Samsung TLC failures - the 840, the 840EVO, and around half a dozen OEM models used by Dell/Apple etc such as the PM841?
I saw dozens of stalls/slowdowns on those because of degradation that was eventually fixed by idle background rewriting of old data for the 840 and 840EVO in firmware.
Long before Samsung admitted the problem (they were called out by multiple customers and high-profile review sites) the workaround was to use a free utility called diskfresh.


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## TheLostSwede (Apr 30, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> Are you sure that wasn't one of the Samsung TLC failures - the 840, the 840EVO, and around half a dozen OEM models used by Dell/Apple etc such as the PM841?
> I saw dozens of stalls/slowdowns on those because of degradation that was eventually fixed by idle background rewriting of old data for the 840 and 840EVO in firmware.
> Long before Samsung admitted the problem (they were called out by multiple customers and high-profile review sites) the workaround was to use a free utility called diskfresh.


Nah, OEM drive, PM871.


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## Chrispy_ (Apr 30, 2022)

TheLostSwede said:


> Nah, OEM drive, PM871.


If it's a PM871a rather than a PM871b then it's the problematic 21nm planar NAND that I'm talking about, the last they made before going 3D.

Maybe I'm wrong but you match all the symptoms, the drive is from the right era, and you said you didn't use it much which was the behaviour that allowed voltage drift in the first place. I bought about 50 of them (840 and 840EVO) and noticed the issue in a couple of OEM drives in Dell laptops too.


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## depakjan (Apr 30, 2022)

Thanks all for your suggestions,, I have already installed crucial software even that reports good health, I have run all their tests and its ok as well,  I have directly slotted in my motherboards primary m2 slot there is no cable involved, unfortunately its my OS drive so thinking whether to try the secure erase as its too much hassle but if you all think drive is dying I may have to move to a different drive anyway.

I feel like its windows 11 after upgrade this is the first time I am benchmarking also other than this I don't see any major hiccups as I don't any frequent writes other than downloading games.


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## Chrispy_ (Apr 30, 2022)

depakjan said:


> Thanks all for your suggestions,, I have already installed crucial software even that reports good health, I have run all their tests and its ok as well,  I have directly slotted in my motherboards primary m2 slot there is no cable involved, unfortunately its my OS drive so thinking whether to try the secure erase as its too much hassle but if you all think drive is dying I may have to move to a different drive anyway.
> 
> I feel like its windows 11 after upgrade this is the first time I am benchmarking also other than this I don't see any major hiccups as I don't any frequent writes other than downloading games.


You can confirm the problem is your OS by downloading a tiny USB-bootable linux distro.
If performance is shit even when running linux off a USB, then you have a dying SSD.

I don't keep up with the linux scene so I don't know what the best USB-bootable utility distro is these days (it used to be DSL) but I keep a bootable Ubuntu distro on a USB for testing shit and fixing broken Windows OS drives.


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## X71200 (Apr 30, 2022)

It's a P1 which wasn't really a great SSD even on a fresh install, it's probably bunked since almost the entire drive is full of files. Open space / clear the SSD.


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## depakjan (Apr 30, 2022)

Thanks will try the live linux and see, i have cleared the space as well , its still the same


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## Toothless (Apr 30, 2022)

eidairaman1 said:


> If its the primary drive, it has to compensate for recycle bin and paging/swap space.
> 
> Try another cable as well.


So uh, where do you plug the cable into an NVME? Asking for a friend.


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## X71200 (Apr 30, 2022)

I do plug a cable to a NVMe, but it's U.2 so... yeah, lol.

The drive is still filled very much, lots of small files can murder this kind of drive's performance.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 30, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> The pagefile and recycle bin are both included in the 88% full reading.
> 
> It has 12% of available space, plus some additional overprovisioning that's available only to the drive, so it really shouldn't get that slow until it's genuinely near 100% full.
> 
> ...


Ok its their version of Magic



depakjan said:


> Thanks will try the live linux and see, i have cleared the space as well , its still the same


Its the line of drive itself. Nothing you can do to make it faster.


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## depakjan (May 1, 2022)

i guess full format is the only option, i will buy a new one and try it.
is this a good cheap and reliable drive









						Kingston NV1 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Internal SSD Up to 2100 MB/s SNVS/1000G - Newegg.com
					

Buy Kingston NV1 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Internal SSD Up to 2100 MB/s SNVS/1000G with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com


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## X71200 (May 1, 2022)

Buy something like this instead:









						Mushkin Enhanced Pilot-E M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.3 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDPE1TB-D8 - Newegg.com
					

Buy Mushkin Enhanced Pilot-E M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.3 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDPE1TB-D8 with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!




					www.newegg.com


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## Mussels (May 1, 2022)

All SSD's slow down as they get full
Hell, mech drives do as well it's just not quite as extreme.


It doesnt matter what you buy, if its past 80% full it's going to slow down - if it's hot, it's going to slow down. Writing enough to fill the cache? Going to slow down.
NVME speeds are very much an "upto" speed, not a constant.


If you need the ability to do large writes regularly, you need to get one of the more premium drives with a large cache and less layers (SLC/MLC, not TLC or QLC)


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## X71200 (May 1, 2022)

Wouldn't recommend buying into that stuff as doubtful the OP can spend an enormous amount of cash for low per GB. That stuff isn't truly worth it, never been for the average consumer.

The P1 is one drive that specifically sucks with this, newer, better drives will perform significantly better in this area. Especially if they go about using two drives, then the data would be spread and easier to handle.


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## DarkDreams (May 1, 2022)

depakjan said:


> Thanks all for your suggestions,, I have already installed crucial software even that reports good health, I have run all their tests and its ok as well,  I have directly slotted in my motherboards primary m2 slot there is no cable involved, unfortunately its my OS drive so thinking whether to try the secure erase as its too much hassle but if you all think drive is dying I may have to move to a different drive anyway.
> 
> I feel like its windows 11 after upgrade this is the first time I am benchmarking also other than this I don't see any major hiccups as I don't any frequent writes other than downloading games.


Your drive spent quite some time thermal throttling. Try opening your side panel, pointing a fan at the drive and running the test like that again. If it is still slow we can at least rule out thermal issues.


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## depakjan (May 1, 2022)

I don't think its thermal throttling, i benchmarked with the case open, high is 63 which is still hot but ok I guess, I don't know about the driver temp 5 whether its related to SSD and if its the issue


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## DarkDreams (May 1, 2022)

depakjan said:


> I don't think its thermal throttling, i benchmarked with the case open, high is 63 which is still hot but ok I guess, I don't know about the driver temp 5 whether its related to SSD and if its the issue


From the tpu review of this SSD:


> Without a fan, the drive throttles pretty quickly, after around a minute of full load, which is rather short. The temperature at which throttling starts seems rather low, too: only 63°C. We've seen other drives start throttling at much higher temperatures, and more gradually, which is something Crucial should consider for a future firmware revision.


So I think your drive is throttling already. Everything listed in the CT1000P1SSD is related to that SSD. The almost 90°C is probably the controller, which is extremely toasty imo. 
Just opening the side panel might not be enough if there is no airflow in your room either. Also depends on where you live and how hot it is in your room. The hotter the ambient air, the worse your cooling will perform. If you have any kind of fan you could point at the ssd (even a regular room fan or something) that should drop temperatures enough to test it.


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## Chrispy_ (May 1, 2022)

DarkDreams said:


> From the tpu review of this SSD:
> 
> So I think your drive is throttling already. Everything listed in the CT1000P1SSD is related to that SSD. The almost 90°C is probably the controller, which is extremely toasty imo.
> Just opening the side panel might not be enough if there is no airflow in your room either. Also depends on where you live and how hot it is in your room. The hotter the ambient air, the worse your cooling will perform. If you have any kind of fan you could point at the ssd (even a regular room fan or something) that should drop temperatures enough to test it.


Throttling drops write speeds from 1.6GB/s to 600MB/s:






Now @depakjan is seeing write speeds of 42MB/s and he's even cleared out another 150GB since the first test yesterday.

It's not a throttling issue, performance is laughably low
It's not a free space issue, continuing to make more free space has made things considerably worse, not better.

At this point I'm tempted to say it's a faulty drive; Bootable linux from USB to confirm it's not the OS but 42MB/s sequential write is all kinds of FUBAR.
@depakjan - you have backups of anything you care about on the P1, right?


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## DarkDreams (May 1, 2022)

Chrispy_ said:


> Throttling drops write speeds from 1.6GB/s to 600MB/s:
> 
> View attachment 245748
> 
> ...


In the TPU review their controller "only" reached 79°C whereas OP's controller reports almost 90°C peak temp. It might just be a faulty drive, but I think it is easy enough to eliminate thermal issues by testing it with a fan. Especially because their read speeds are all fine but (excessive) writing is an issue, thermals jump to the top of my suspect list. Also the way I understand the first post, OP has been using the drive normally without issues for quite some time. The problems are only apparent during benchmarks, which naturally produce a lot of heat through maximum usage that wouldn't happen as much on day to day usage.


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## depakjan (May 1, 2022)

I will test once at night with my air conditioning on which will reduce the ambient temps to about 26( current ambient is crazy 31) and redo the tests, post back the results. 

Yes this is my primary OS drive so cant clean it up easily, have to prepare another drive first


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## eidairaman1 (May 1, 2022)

depakjan said:


> I will test once at night with my air conditioning on which will reduce the ambient temps to about 26( current ambient is crazy 31) and redo the tests, post back the results.
> 
> Yes this is my primary OS drive so cant clean it up easily, have to prepare another drive first


Get on it before the controller poops on you


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## chrcoluk (May 1, 2022)

X71200 said:


> Wouldn't recommend buying into that stuff as doubtful the OP can spend an enormous amount of cash for low per GB. That stuff isn't truly worth it, never been for the average consumer.
> 
> The P1 is one drive that specifically sucks with this, newer, better drives will perform significantly better in this area. Especially if they go about using two drives, then the data would be spread and easier to handle.


Also very high quality TLC drives have great sustained speeds now, the 980 PRO is almost as fast sustained as the MLC 970 PRO.


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## X71200 (May 1, 2022)

Yeah I do have a 980 Pro, it's been a pretty solid drive speed-wise. 4k's came close around 100, 32QD boosting shoot. There are better Phison drives out now, though.

Frankly, a cheaper drive that doesn't suck, would just work.


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## depakjan (May 1, 2022)

Dont think its the temps, temps were around 74 this time during the write test


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## Mussels (May 2, 2022)

You need the drive cooled, free space, and TRIM ran.
74C is still too damn hot.

After thats sorted speeds might get back to normal.

You're another user who didnt fill the system specs - please do
TechPowerUp Forums

How is this drive connected? CPU lanes, chipset lanes? It shows 3.0 x4 which is good, but if you're overheating on congested bandwidth with a full drive it all piles on together.


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## chrcoluk (May 2, 2022)

Just researched the drive, after I read the QLC post.

I think you are writing direct to QLC bypassing the SLC, looks like for whatever reason SLC hasnt been cleaned.


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## depakjan (May 3, 2022)

This is exactly my conclusion, i have no clue how to force clean the SLC other than to full format the drive


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## dogwitch (May 7, 2022)

Mussels said:


> You need the drive cooled, free space, and TRIM ran.
> 74C is still too damn hot.
> 
> After thats sorted speeds might get back to normal.
> ...


i notie recently. with how i set up my pc for the third time. the 1 m.2 under the fattttt evga 2070( thick boy one) is making the controller run way hotter now. due to cpu cool massive size. air not flowing correctly.
i have some 3d metal printed hs i will be adding onto m.2 controller .
but  i will say nice spot on temp thing. most people dont even talk about that.


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## eidairaman1 (May 7, 2022)

Trim should of cleared the "cache"


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## Mussels (May 7, 2022)

depakjan said:


> This is exactly my conclusion, i have no clue how to force clean the SLC other than to full format the drive


On most QLC drives, SLC uses 3x the space - as the drive fills it cant use the cache any longer

They only use one of the three layers (rotating through them) and speeding things up, but once it's too full there are no empty layers to ignore and all writes are the slower TLC method


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## AleXXX666 (May 7, 2022)

Toothless said:


> Had the same thing happen to my 970 EVO. Basically your drive is dying or software issue.


yeah, look at these written TB and health. plus it's not top-notch ssd.


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## Toothless (May 7, 2022)

AleXXX666 said:


> yeah, look at these written TB and health. plus it's not top-notch ssd.


To be fair, my drive had 364TBW on it.


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## AleXXX666 (May 12, 2022)

Toothless said:


> To be fair, my drive had 364TBW on it.


i know it's ok, i just prefer to replace 'em when they hit about ~20-30 lol


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## Toothless (May 12, 2022)

AleXXX666 said:


> i know it's ok, i just prefer to replace 'em when they hit about ~20-30 lol


They have so much more life than that. We're at the point where a single flash chip on an NVME is rated for 150TBW. Just practice backing up your files and you'll be fine.


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## zx128k (May 12, 2022)

> During our test benchmarks stress tests with a high-stress workload, we monitor the SSD temperature. As you can see the secondary internal sensor even reaches 89 Degrees C when the product is not cooled by air or a heatsink. source





> The P1 will need another firmware update as *there is something going on with the SSD loaded up with data and a perf drop.*  Also, you have a huge cache for many gigabytes of writes, but once the buffers run dry, write performance will cave in bigtime.  source


Seems this is normal for this drive.


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