# WD SN850 Slower than expected performance



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 5, 2021)

Hi,

Just picked up a WD SN850 1TB.
Did a fresh install of latest version of Win 10 and installed latest AMD Chipset & Nvidia Gpu drivers.
Compared to review sites it seems my SSD is lacking in performance.
PCIe links are @ 4.0 and its installed on CPU lanes.
Temps max around 75c.
I have also disabled write cache policy on the SSD in device manager but that makes no difference.

Any help would be appreciated 

Left is my benchmark, right is review site benchmark


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## LTUGamer (Feb 12, 2021)

Firstly I can see, that you are using this drive as a system drive while speed should be tested while OS is in different drive. I think that it is the main issue.

Also test results are comparable when identical system is used. You can check how test results deppends on motherboard:






Also there is some more minor issues such as different software versions used in Crystal Disk Mark test. Also there was some data writen in your disk, while reviewer's SSD was empty


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 12, 2021)

Hi,

Did a test straight after and used it as D drive, but still hitting the same brick wall with writes not exceeding 3.1 GB/s.

A fan and heatsink has been added and temps don't exceed 55c.

Looking at below screenshot there is definitely a wall which has been hit for writes:


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## Vya Domus (Feb 12, 2021)

In crystaldiskmark set the size to 4-8GB and see what sort of results you get. I've observed these benchmarks become very inaccurate with really fast drives and small sized tests.

Even with my low end NVME drive I often don't get the rated speeds unless I increases the size.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 12, 2021)

Still hitting a wall, the writes really do suck


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## elemelek (Feb 12, 2021)

Putting my scores for comparison. Its 2Tb SN850 tho. As a system drive.


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## LTUGamer (Feb 12, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Still hitting a wall, the writes really do suck
> 
> View attachment 188005


You can try to update your Firmware


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 12, 2021)

System spec? UEFI version?


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## yotano211 (Feb 12, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Still hitting a wall, the writes really do suck
> 
> View attachment 188005


"The write really do suck", lol


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## Space Lynx (Feb 12, 2021)

yotano211 said:


> "The write really do suck", lol



yep I read some reviews on Amazon that said write speeds slow down after a month or so usage on these new gen4 phison controllers. thats main reason I have held off on it. honestly im happy with my old 2tb ssd i have had for like 4 years now... everything loads super fast for me, all i do is game so eh.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 12, 2021)

This is a brand new drive.
UEFI is latest available for Asrock X570 ITX/TB3, running 5950x & RTX 3070


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## ThrashZone (Feb 12, 2021)

Hi,
Tweak town sure likes it 





						WD Black SN850 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD Review
					

Western Digital seemingly comes out of nowhere and delivers the best performing flash-based SSD we've ever tested with the SN850.




					www.tweaktown.com


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## Space Lynx (Feb 12, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Tweak town sure likes it
> 
> 
> ...



tweaktown probably just did a couple days of testing though, not daily usage for two months then more testing. that's the problem with review sites. :/


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 12, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> tweaktown probably just did a couple days of testing though, not daily usage for two months then more testing. that's the problem with review sites. :/


This is a brand new drive. Not getting anywhere near what reviewers got.
I reckon WD are sending out duff drives...


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 12, 2021)

How did you partition it?
GPT or MBR? If it's MBR, try changing to GPT.

What Windows version are you on? Some of them have had some glitchy NVMe performance.

I very much doubt it's a bad drive. I had a similar issue in the past, changing to GPT fixed it for me.

Similar thread here.








						very slow nvme speed compared to my friend who has the same drive
					

My specs:  Ryzen 2700x Asrock taichi x470  Gskill 2x8Gb 3200 cl14 running at xmp profile Adata 120GB sata ssd Crucial 512GB sata ssd Seagate 1TB Hdd Intel 600p nvme 1TB ssd  My friend's specs: Intel 9900K  Gigabyte z390 aorus master corsair 32gb 3000mhz Kingston 128GB sata ssd Intel 256Gb nvme...




					www.techpowerup.com
				




Tom's seem to verify that the performance is there.








						WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Top-Tier Storage for Gamers and Pros (Updated)
					

With WD’s Black SN850 now in the lab, we will see if it really is ideal for those looking for fast, consistent storage.




					www.tomshardware.com


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## ThrashZone (Feb 12, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> tweaktown probably just did a couple days of testing though, not daily usage for two months then more testing. that's the problem with review sites. :/


Hi,
If I remember correctly @tabascosauz had interesting comparison of black and blue series and said he prefers the blue 
Save a little money and gets better performance out of the blue.
Can't seem to find the thread atm though :/


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## yotano211 (Feb 12, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> yep I read some reviews on Amazon that said write speeds slow down after a month or so usage on these new gen4 phison controllers. thats main reason I have held off on it. honestly im happy with my old 2tb ssd i have had for like 4 years now... everything loads super fast for me, all i do is game so eh.


I've been using a intel 660p for over a year now and its good enough for me. Game drive, movie drive, editing drive, it gets used.


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## Sihastru (Feb 12, 2021)

Make sure you have the latest AMD chipset driver. From 2/4/2021.
If you do, then try a 4K LBA sector size instead of 512B. Here's mine with 4K:



And 1 million read / 700k write IOPS:


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

I do have latest Chipset drivers and latest bios and currently formated with GPT.
How do I format with 4K LBA sector size instead of 512B ?


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## tabascosauz (Feb 13, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> If I remember correctly @tabascosauz had interesting comparison of black and blue series and said he prefers the blue
> Save a little money and gets better performance out of the blue.
> Can't seem to find the thread atm though :/



I have the SN750, not many reasons to get it over the SN550. The SN850 is all-new PCIe 4.0 and actually kinda impressive on most aspects.

Looks like OP's board just got the short end of the firmware stick, and either has to roll back to an older AGESA if he really cares enough about a benchmark, or wait until the next BIOS update. Even the boards themselves can have quite the impact on SSD performance.

Chipset drivers have been limited to minor bug fixes for months now. Main NVMe slot on the X570-TB3 comes off the CPU.


However, the X570-TB3 also has its only M.2 slot on the *back of the board *because the layout leaves no space on the front. I'm not sure which case it's been put in, but I can pretty much guarantee that a scorching PCIe 4.0 drive is not having much fun back there running benchmarks constantly, even if OP says it "only" gets up to about 55-75C. The CDM benchmark still takes a minute or two, and in my experience all WD NVMes heat up pretty damn fast. SN850 is not a cool running drive, even if its throttle point is 75-80C.


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 13, 2021)

I guess it got a good review here too, so...
Seems to be very resilient to thermal throttling.








						WD Black SN850 1 TB SSD Review - The Fastest SSD
					

The WD Black SN850 is the fastest SSD we ever tested thanks to support for the fast PCI-Express 4.0 interface. In our extensive real-life testing it beats the Samsung 980 Pro, the Phison E18-based Corsair MP600 Pro, and even the MLC-based Samsung 970 Pro.




					www.techpowerup.com
				






monkeyboy46800 said:


> I do have latest Chipset drivers and latest bios and currently formated with GPT.
> How do I format with 4K LBA sector size instead of 512B ?


I doubt this is your issue though.


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## Sihastru (Feb 13, 2021)

I did a *secure erase* from inside the UEFI BIOS. It asked if I wanted 512B or 4K LBA. If you have motherboard firmware issues, all you can do is wait for updates. My SN850 also had a firmware update, but I didn't notice differences in CrystalDiskMark.


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## jesdals (Feb 13, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> This is a brand new drive.
> UEFI is latest available for Asrock X570 ITX/TB3, running 5950x & RTX 3070
> View attachment 188022


Looking at your board and manual I have to ask if your using a riser card/cable for your Graphics card and thus have set the graphics card to pcie 3.0 in bios?

And will try to do a try on the latest Crystal disk mark when I get the chance - had a bug in the test at one point my self but dissapeared with chipset and windows update

can see that your sending the drive back, just be sure that non of the above is a problem or you might se same result with other pcie 4 gen drives


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

Hi,
No riser card.
NVME detected and running @x4 Gen4
Booted into Ubuntu and still hitting the same wall on this drive, there is just definately bad drives out there or issue with AGESA ComboAM4v2 1.2.0.0
To be honest looking at the quality of updates coming from AMD at the moment, I would probably presume AGESA issue.
Latest bios update also makes Wi-Fi undetected on this board when running Ubuntu: X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 3.00 BIOS breaks WiFi/Bluetooth : ASRock (reddit.com)


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 13, 2021)

Trust me there's nothing wing with that drive. WD will send it back, as is to you.

Your WiFi issue has nothing to do with the AGESA, talk to ASRock as that'll be on them.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Trust me there's nothing wing with that drive. WD will send it back, as is to you.



So where do you think the issue lies then ?


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 13, 2021)

I wish I remember what I did when I had a similar issue with one of my driver's, but it was so long ago now.

If you really think it's UEFI related, why not roll back to an older release and see if that helps?

You never said which Windows release you're on as well, but I presume you've updated that?

Regardless, a faulty drive doesn't behave like this. Yes, it might be some compatibility glitch, but if that's the case, a new drive won't help.

Did you have a look in the other thread I linked to earlier?


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

Fresh Install:




I'm on 5950x, rolling back to older bios revision could cause this board not to boot with my CPU.
I don't have Zen2 lying around unfortunately.
Also tried the samsung NVME controller driver, same performance: Forum - Recommended AHCI/RAID and NVMe Drivers (win-raid.com)


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 13, 2021)

Why would you install a Samsung driver for a WD drive? That driver is only for Samsung drives and isn't going to do squat in your case.

It might help taking a more scientific approach to fixing your problem, rather than throwing everything at it and hope it gets fixed.

Any chance you got another system or a friend who's system you can try the drive in?


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Any chance you got another system or a friend who's system you can try the drive in?


Why would I do that, you just said " Trust me, there is nothing wrong with the drive?"


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## ThrashZone (Feb 13, 2021)

Hi,
It's always a good to confirm issues on another system.
Good argument for rma too.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> It's always a good to confirm issues on another system.
> Good argument for rma too.


Advanced RMA is authorised, replacement should be here in a couple of days.


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## ThrashZone (Feb 13, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Advanced RMA is authorised, replacement should be here in a couple of days.


Hi,
Yes but you haven't ruled out the mother board as the issue.
Guess you will if the new one acts the same way.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Yes but you haven't ruled out the mother board as the issue.
> Guess you will if the new one acts the same way.


Ticket open with Asrock 10 days ago, no reply yet. But they do have Software QC issues at the moment. Some reviews of this board on Zen2 show Gen4 SSD's running over 6GB/s so if a board issue hopefully a bios update can fix that.


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## ThrashZone (Feb 13, 2021)

Hi,
10 work days ?


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> 10 work days ?


No, 10 days.


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## ThrashZone (Feb 13, 2021)

Hi,
Still a long time with no response :/


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 13, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Ticket open with Asrock 10 days ago, no reply yet. But they do have Software QC issues at the moment. Some reviews of this board on Zen2 show Gen4 SSD's running over 6GB/s so if a board issue hopefully a bios update can fix that.


Because, guess what, it's Lunar New Year, so everyone in Taiwan is on holiday.

Normal test procedure is always to try and test things in a second system if something isn't working as it should. Nothing strange with that.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 13, 2021)

So just downgraded bios stepping down each version as far back as I can go for Zen3 making sure to clear cmos each time, no change in performance.

EDIT

Managed to bump the performance a bit more using "nvme-cli" by using Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size 4096 instead of 512

Rolling back the firmware by changing to non active firmware slot is a no go, it seems western digital dashboard pushes firmware to both slots.

Anyway got  me a couple more hundred MB/s on reads & writes but something definitely wrong still :






```
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.10.1-pmagic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0
Serial Number:                   
Firmware Version:                   611110WD
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x15b7
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x001b44
Total NVM Capacity:                 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity:           0
Controller ID:                      8224
Number of Namespaces:               1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity:          1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:     4096
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64:            001b44 8b49d849b0
Local Time is:                      Sun Feb 14 00:17:50 2021 CST
Firmware Updates (0x14):            2 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017):   Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x005f):     Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         128 Pages
Warning  Comp. Temp. Threshold:     84 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold:     88 Celsius
Namespace 1 Features (0x02):        NA_Fields

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
0 +     9.00W    9.00W       -    0  0  0  0        0       0

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt  Data  Metadt  Rel_Perf
0 -     512       0         2
1 +    4096       0         1

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
```

If anybody is interested in full characteristics:


```
root@PartedMagic:~# nvme id-ctrl /dev/nvme0n1 -H | more
NVME Identify Controller:
vid       : 0x15b7
ssvid     : 0x15b7
sn        : 
mn        : WDS100T1X0E-00AFY0                    
fr        : 611110WD
rab       : 4
ieee      : 001b44
cmic      : 0
  [3:3] : 0    ANA not supported
  [2:2] : 0    PCI
  [1:1] : 0    Single Controller
  [0:0] : 0    Single Port

mdts      : 7
cntlid    : 0x2020
ver       : 0x10400
rtd3r     : 0x7a120
rtd3e     : 0xf4240
oaes      : 0x200
[27:27] : 0    Zone Descriptor Changed Notices Not Supported
[14:14] : 0    Endurance Group Event Aggregate Log Page Change Notice Not Supported
[13:13] : 0    LBA Status Information Notices Not Supported
[12:12] : 0    Predictable Latency Event Aggregate Log Change Notices Not Supported
[11:11] : 0    Asymmetric Namespace Access Change Notices Not Supported
  [9:9] : 0x1    Firmware Activation Notices Supported
  [8:8] : 0    Namespace Attribute Changed Event Not Supported

ctratt    : 0x2
  [9:9] : 0    UUID List Not Supported
  [7:7] : 0    Namespace Granularity Not Supported
  [5:5] : 0    Predictable Latency Mode Not Supported
  [4:4] : 0    Endurance Groups Not Supported
  [3:3] : 0    Read Recovery Levels Not Supported
  [2:2] : 0    NVM Sets Not Supported
  [1:1] : 0x1    Non-Operational Power State Permissive Supported
  [0:0] : 0    128-bit Host Identifier Not Supported

rrls      : 0
cntrltype : 1
  [7:2] : 0    Reserved
  [1:0] : 0x1    I/O Controller
fguid     :
crdt1     : 0
crdt2     : 0
crdt3     : 0
oacs      : 0x17
  [9:9] : 0    Get LBA Status Capability Not Supported
  [8:8] : 0    Doorbell Buffer Config Not Supported
  [7:7] : 0    Virtualization Management Not Supported
  [6:6] : 0    NVMe-MI Send and Receive Not Supported
  [5:5] : 0    Directives Not Supported
  [4:4] : 0x1    Device Self-test Supported
  [3:3] : 0    NS Management and Attachment Not Supported
  [2:2] : 0x1    FW Commit and Download Supported
  [1:1] : 0x1    Format NVM Supported
  [0:0] : 0x1    Security Send and Receive Supported

acl       : 4
aerl      : 7
frmw      : 0x14
  [4:4] : 0x1    Firmware Activate Without Reset Supported
  [3:1] : 0x2    Number of Firmware Slots
  [0:0] : 0    Firmware Slot 1 Read/Write

lpa       : 0x1e
  [4:4] : 0x1    Persistent Event log Supported
  [3:3] : 0x1    Telemetry host/controller initiated log page Supported
  [2:2] : 0x1    Extended data for Get Log Page Supported
  [1:1] : 0x1    Command Effects Log Page Supported
  [0:0] : 0    SMART/Health Log Page per NS Not Supported

elpe      : 255
npss      : 0
avscc     : 0x1
  [0:0] : 0x1    Admin Vendor Specific Commands uses NVMe Format

apsta     : 0
  [0:0] : 0    Autonomous Power State Transitions Not Supported

wctemp    : 357
cctemp    : 361
mtfa      : 50
hmpre     : 0
hmmin     : 0
tnvmcap   : 1000204886016
unvmcap   : 0
rpmbs     : 0
[31:24]: 0    Access Size
[23:16]: 0    Total Size
  [5:3] : 0    Authentication Method
  [2:0] : 0    Number of RPMB Units

edstt     : 102
dsto      : 1
fwug      : 1
kas       : 0
hctma     : 0x1
  [0:0] : 0x1    Host Controlled Thermal Management Supported

mntmt     : 273
mxtmt     : 357
sanicap   : 0x60000002
  [31:30] : 0x1    Media is not additionally modified after sanitize operation completes successfully
  [29:29] : 0x1    No-Deallocate After Sanitize bit in Sanitize command Not Supported
    [2:2] : 0    Overwrite Sanitize Operation Not Supported
    [1:1] : 0x1    Block Erase Sanitize Operation Supported
    [0:0] : 0    Crypto Erase Sanitize Operation Not Supported

hmminds   : 0
hmmaxd    : 0
nsetidmax : 0
endgidmax : 0
anatt     : 0
anacap    : 0
  [7:7] : 0    Non-zero group ID Not Supported
  [6:6] : 0    Group ID does not change
  [4:4] : 0    ANA Change state Not Supported
  [3:3] : 0    ANA Persistent Loss state Not Supported
  [2:2] : 0    ANA Inaccessible state Not Supported
  [1:1] : 0    ANA Non-optimized state Not Supported
  [0:0] : 0    ANA Optimized state Not Supported

anagrpmax : 0
nanagrpid : 0
pels      : 1
sqes      : 0x66
  [7:4] : 0x6    Max SQ Entry Size (64)
  [3:0] : 0x6    Min SQ Entry Size (64)

cqes      : 0x44
  [7:4] : 0x4    Max CQ Entry Size (16)
  [3:0] : 0x4    Min CQ Entry Size (16)

maxcmd    : 0
nn        : 1
oncs      : 0x5f
  [8:8] : 0    Copy Not Supported
  [7:7] : 0    Verify Not Supported
  [6:6] : 0x1    Timestamp Supported
  [5:5] : 0    Reservations Not Supported
  [4:4] : 0x1    Save and Select Supported
  [3:3] : 0x1    Write Zeroes Supported
  [2:2] : 0x1    Data Set Management Supported
  [1:1] : 0x1    Write Uncorrectable Supported
  [0:0] : 0x1    Compare Supported

fuses     : 0
  [0:0] : 0    Fused Compare and Write Not Supported

fna       : 0
  [2:2] : 0    Crypto Erase Not Supported as part of Secure Erase
  [1:1] : 0    Crypto Erase Applies to Single Namespace(s)
  [0:0] : 0    Format Applies to Single Namespace(s)

vwc       : 0x7
  [2:1] : 0x3    The Flush command supports NSID set to FFFFFFFFh
  [0:0] : 0x1    Volatile Write Cache Present

awun      : 0
awupf     : 0
icsvscc     : 1
  [0:0] : 0x1    NVM Vendor Specific Commands uses NVMe Format

nwpc      : 0
  [2:2] : 0    Permanent Write Protect Not Supported
  [1:1] : 0    Write Protect Until Power Supply Not Supported
  [0:0] : 0    No Write Protect and Write Protect Namespace Not Supported

acwu      : 0
ocfs      : 0
sgls      : 0
[1:0]  : 0    Scatter-Gather Lists Not Supported

mnan      : 0
subnqn    : nqn.2018-01.com.wdc:nguid:E8238FA6BF53-0001-001B448B49D849B0
ioccsz    : 0
iorcsz    : 0
icdoff    : 0
ctrattr   : 0
  [0:0] : 0    Dynamic Controller Model

msdbd     : 0
ps    0 : mp:9.00W operational enlat:0 exlat:0 rrt:0 rrl:0
          rwt:0 rwl:0 idle_power:0.6300W active_power:9.00W
```


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 15, 2021)

Gotta love Asrocks feedback to my support request:


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## GlitchKrieg (Feb 16, 2021)

I'm having the exact same problem with my SN850 on an MSI x570 Tomahawk w/a 5900x. Eager to see how things play out.


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## RJARRRPCGP (Feb 17, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Still hitting a wall, the writes really do suck
> 
> View attachment 188005


Likely failing, if it keeps being absurdly slow. Like some faulty SSDs that I received.


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## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 17, 2021)

i find it funny how we are in a world where 3000mb/s is "horrible"
but i agree it does not sound like a drive failure feel like its a bottleneck somewhere else


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## RJARRRPCGP (Feb 17, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> but i agree it does not sound like a drive failure feel like its a bottleneck somewhere else


That doesn't strike me as an SSD failure. Symptoms to look for are the following for SSDs:

1. A high amount of latency, including random and severe lag, where it feels more like a fragmented spinner!
2. A game server (especially a Halo Custom Edition dedicated server) gives you a high ping warning, even when the internet isn't the cause.
3. Windows out of nowhere has a file integrity error.
4. A Windows update may look fine, but SFC fails it, *more likely when SFC moans that it couldn't fix it. *



Isaac` said:


> i find it funny how we are in a world where 3000mb/s is "horrible"


3,000 MB/s is very good!


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## phanbuey (Feb 17, 2021)

It's the ubuntu kernel most likely... they used to always have SSD issues a few years ago, updates to the OS fixed them.

That 3000 mb/s sounds like a driver issue and there are tons of threads from all points in time about this (both windows and Ubuntu), everyone seems to blame AMD drivers and wiping+reinstalling them seems to work.

Can you try uninstalling all of the nvme drivers and run again?


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## DrCR (Feb 17, 2021)

^Actually, that has me wondering if testing from a current linux live cd/usb could be a good step to take.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 17, 2021)

I already did the Linux install and tested multiple kernels, still bottlenecked with the SN850. RMA drive arrives tomorrow. Will report back with results. Still waiting for feedback from Asrock also.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

New Drive arrived, WD replaced my 1TB version with the 2TB version.

Still bottlenecked at just over 3 GB/s writes, not seeing the  7 GB/s reads or  5 GB/s writes reviewers were getting


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 18, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> New Drive arrived, WD replaced my 1TB version with the 2TB version.
> 
> Still bottlenecked at just over 3 GB/s writes, not seeing the  7 GB/s reads or  5 GB/s writes reviewers were getting
> 
> ...


Didn't I say there was nothing wrong with your drive?
On the plus side, you got another terabyte of storage for free...


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## GlitchKrieg (Feb 18, 2021)

Wow, they gave you an extra 1TB for free? That's a pretty sweet deal. Kind of figured it wasn't the drive though. FWIW I'm getting about the same speeds using the 1TB version of the SN850 on an X570 board. Guess I'll fiddle around with the BIOS and see if I can make any difference.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Didn't I say there was nothing wrong with your drive?
> On the plus side, you got another terabyte of storage for free...



So you were right 
Happy for the 1TB more though, I did pay 20$ admin fee though for advanced RMA.

If anybody wants the firmware file for to do a bit of reverse engineering here it is (captured with fiddler):

Name: 611110WD.zip
Size: 2897058 bytes (2829 KiB)
SHA256: EF2CFEBBA24579050E9A1D7CF09267BCFA6901F64CAD0E1728E6547C9F3E2F9B


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## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 18, 2021)

Dont they need you to send your drive back for a replacement
otherwise that basically scamming
 however i still think there is a bottlenecks elsewhere that is causing the slow speeds


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## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> Dont they need you to send your drive back for a replacement
> otherwise that basically scamming
> however i still think there is a bottlenecks elsewhere that is causing the slow speeds


No, with WD you can pay for advanced RMA and they put a hold on your credit card, you get 30 days to send the old drive back, the old drive got sent back from this morning.


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 18, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> No, with WD you can pay for advanced RMA and they put a hold on your credit card, you get 30 days to send the old drive back.


AHHH so its not a free 1tb lol ok that makes more sence
what cpu do you have btw


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

GlitchKrieg said:


> Wow, they gave you an extra 1TB for free? That's a pretty sweet deal. Kind of figured it wasn't the drive though. FWIW I'm getting about the same speeds using the 1TB version of the SN850 on an X570 board. Guess I'll fiddle around with the BIOS and see if I can make any difference.
> 
> View attachment 188908


I've tried everything possible in my bios.
Either reviewers got cherry picked drives or there is an issue with X570 and ZEN 3 when using these drives or Asrock have screwed something in the bios.



Isaac` said:


> AHHH so its not a free 1tb lol ok that makes more sence
> what cpu do you have btw


Check my SIG, 5950x


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 18, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> AHHH so its not a free 1tb lol ok that makes more sence
> what cpu do you have btw


He had a 1TB drive and they replaced it with a 2TB drive, so yes, there was a free extra terabyte.



monkeyboy46800 said:


> I've tried everything possible in my bios.
> Either reviewers got cherry picked drives or there is an issue with X570 and ZEN 3 when using these drives or Asrock have screwed something in the bios.
> 
> 
> Check my SIG, 5950x


As I said, I had a similar issue, but I honestly can't remember what I did to fix it.
There is something weird going on sometimes with NVMe drives where you end up like this.
If you search, you'll find other people with the same issue, but I can't find a solution.


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 18, 2021)

Check that your partitions on the drive have the correct 4k alignment. You can check in the dashboard, Tools - Advanced Information - Device Details - 4k Alignment. Also, check that you've not modified the Write-Cache Settings. Enable Windows write caching should be ON, Disable Windows write-cache buffer flushing should be OFF.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> He had a 1TB drive and they replaced it with a 2TB drive, so yes, there was a free extra terabyte.
> 
> 
> As I said, I had a similar issue, but I honestly can't remember what I did to fix it.
> ...


No point posting if your gonna be so vague 



Sihastru said:


> Check that your partitions on the drive have the correct 4k alignment. You can check in the dashboard, Tools - Advanced Information - Device Details - 4k Alignment. Also, check that you've not modified the Write-Cache Settings. Enable Windows write caching should be ON, Disable Windows write-cache buffer flushing should be OFF.


Done it all , event changed to 4K in NVME-CLI


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 18, 2021)

It's not about being vague, I can't remember and I can't find the fix. Sorry, but it was a couple of years ago.


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 18, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Done it all , event changed to 4K in NVME-CLI


I'm asking you to do it in Windows, Linux can be iffy with NVMe drives.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> I'm asking you to do it in Windows, Linux can be iffy with NVMe drives.


Tested, hitting the wall on writes still........


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 18, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Tested, hitting the wall on writes still........


have you got another system that you could test it in
also i cant check your pofile you specs are not theire


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 18, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> have you got another system that you could test it in
> also i cant check your pofile you specs are not theire


Specs are in my sig.. No othe Pcie Gen4 system to test with I'm afraid at the moment.


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 19, 2021)

w


monkeyboy46800 said:


> Specs are in my sig.. No othe Pcie Gen4 system to test with I'm afraid at the moment.


What is a SIG


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 19, 2021)

You said you checked, so what is your partition size and offset?


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 19, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Specs are in my sig.. No othe Pcie Gen4 system to test with I'm afraid at the moment.


You're aware TPU has a specific system spec option that you can fill in your forum profile, right?


----------



## DrCR (Feb 19, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> w
> 
> What is a SIG


Wow, thanks for making some of us feel old, Isaac. (;
sig is short for signature. He's saying his system info is automatically appended to all his posts.

This:





AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @ 4448.96 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR (x86.fr)


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 19, 2021)

DrCR said:


> Wow, thanks for making some of us feel old, Isaac. (;
> sig is short for signature. He's saying his system info is automatically appended to all his posts.
> 
> This:
> ...


I can't see that for some reason lol


----------



## lolokaa (Feb 19, 2021)

I have a WD SN850 1TB on its way, pairing it with X570 Unify/5900X. This post got me a little worried. 
Initially I wanted to ask if you think the included motherboard M.2 heatsink does a sufficient job compared to the SN850 heatsink?

Now I'm curious to see if you manage to discover where the issue lies - and hopefully reach the expected performance - so I can rest assured awaiting my copy.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 20, 2021)

lolokaa said:


> I have a WD SN850 1TB on its way, pairing it with X570 Unify/5900X. This post got me a little worried.
> Initially I wanted to ask if you think the included motherboard M.2 heatsink does a sufficient job compared to the SN850 heatsink?
> 
> Now I'm curious to see if you manage to discover where the issue lies - and hopefully reach the expected performance - so I can rest assured awaiting my copy.


Never got to the bottom of the slow read and  writes. Mine came without heatsink, but purchased a cheap one of Amazon which keeps temps in check.


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 21, 2021)

The SN850 is on the recommended list by AMD for X570, along side many other SSDs, at https://www.amd.com/en/chipsets/x570. I believe that the problem the OP has in this thread is either a motherboard hardware/firmware issue or more likely accidental or intentional misconfiguration of the available settings within the BIOS or the Windows OS. If there was an actual incompatibility then the internet would be foaming at the mouth with displeasure.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 21, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> I believe that the problem the OP has in this thread is either a motherboard hardware/firmware issue or more likely accidental or intentional misconfiguration of the available settings within the BIOS or the Windows OS. If there was an actual incompatibility then the internet would be foaming at the mouth with displeasure.



If Bios was misconfigured why would I be getting above 6 GB/s on reads ?
I have done reset CMOS on this bios (via button on the motherboard) but still low writes.
Windows is fresh install, so definately nothing changed.
M.2 Slot speed is x4 Gen 4.

I guess it must be some firmware issue on Asrock side that can only be fixed with a bios update.

Still waiting to here back from Asrock.


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 22, 2021)

Good reads and low writes are a symptom of a misaligned partition. You've posted info from Linux and Windows; while transitioning between the different flavors of operating systems the drive could've been improperly or never cleaned by the partition managers in use. You keep trying to shift the blame on WD or AsRock, you even provided firmware files and hundreds of lines of mostly irrelevant Linux commands dumps. And when you're asked about relevant settings you answer with dismissive one-liners.

As for the "intentional" part, it is widely known that in case of RMA, there is a very small chance WD will replace the "defective" drive with a refurbished one, a small chance WD will replace the defective drive with the same model and a very high chance WD will replace the drive with an upgraded one. It's a bit of a crapshoot, but, hey, you just got a 2TB drive for the cost of a 1TB, which keeps on skewing the probability in a certain direction. I don't like to believe this is what happened, I don't want to believe that this is what happened, but it wouldn't be the first time something like this happened.

There is a very small chance AsRock has a bug in their firmware, but it's really small, since the AGESA code comes from AMD and, apart from hiding or exposing certain settings and reskinning, it's mostly left untouched by the motherboard manufacturers. As for a bug in the hardware design, sure, this can also happen, but, again unlikely, since there's a lot of copy/paste here as well.

So, it's either a widespread problem with the AMD firmware/chipsets or a case of PEBCAK.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 22, 2021)

Here is a reply from Asrock technical department which came in last night, seems like the one and only M.2 slot is actually running over the chipset, I do have a Sata3 SSD and Thunderbolt 3 10GB/s network card which I guess could be limiting the x4 lanes on the chipset.


----------



## jesdals (Feb 22, 2021)

Well at least WD didnt send your SSD back with a fee and ill gues its a testimony to there cusomer service.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 22, 2021)

Still not convinced though, Guru3D manages to get over 4000 MB/s with one of their Gen4 drives on the review they made, im still hitting 3 GB/s wall even after disabling thunderbolt, SATA, WiFi, Ethernet, Onboard audio: https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asrock_x570_phantom_gaming_itxtb3_review,17.html


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 22, 2021)

I couldn't find the diagram on the product site, so I did assume they might do that, going through the chipset. It doesn't make sense, since they only have a single TB3 port, the TB chipset would've worked fine trough the X570 chipset, but I guess at the time of design, we only had Gen3 SSDs or only 5GB/s Gen4s.

That's not what's happening. I understand that there's some *overhead* going through the chipset and that is probably why you get 6GB/s reads. But that's still 6GB/s, just 1GB/s shy of the drive specifications. The writes are at 3GB/s, about 2GB shy of the drive specifications, but, more importantly, 3GB short of the reads the slot is capable of. A shared connection is detrimental when the things that share it are fighting for bandwidth. But during your test, they are not, as demonstrated by the read speeds.

Your TB3 interface is probably using the lanes from the CPU, which is probably why the M.2 NVMe is relegated to the chipset. So it shouldn't interfere with the shared bandwidth.

So AsRock is talking horse manure.

EDIT: So *everything *goes through the chipset. Great design AsRock! /s


----------



## tabascosauz (Feb 22, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Here is a reply from Asrock technical department which came in last night, seems like the one and only M.2 slot is actually running over the chipset, I do have a Sata3 SSD and Thunderbolt 3 10GB/s network card which I guess could be limiting the x4 lanes on the chipset.
> 
> View attachment 189451



Just blows my mind that ASRock saw fit to intentionally route the only M.2 slot off the chipset. Just gotta be different, huh - typical ASSRock.

I would say that your only bet is to see if any owners of the B550 Vision D, X570 Creator, or X570 Aqua can put a PCIe 4.0 drive in a chipset slot and test, as only those boards have a Titan Ridge TB controller like yours. Something to do with both the NVMe and Titan Ridge coming off the X570 PCH.

I'm guessing Guru3D tested with a 4.0 drive, but didn't connect any TB3 devices.


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 22, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Here is a reply from Asrock technical department which came in last night, seems like the one and only M.2 slot is actually running over the chipset, I do have a Sata3 SSD and Thunderbolt 3 10GB/s network card which I guess could be limiting the x4 lanes on the chipset.
> 
> View attachment 189451


Wow, that's a naff board layout by ASRock. 
Why would they have done that and just wasted the lanes from the CPU??


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 22, 2021)

Well here is my reply to Asrock, lets see what they have to say:


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

Hi All,

So official response from Asrock is that they have tested the SN850 on my board in the M.2 slot and they see the same behaviour.
They have also tested the SN850 on other vendor board's running the SSD on the chipset slot and they also see the low write speed.
Which must mean then that the SN850 has issue to run on X570 chipset lanes.
Asrock confirmed to me that they reached out to WD who have also confirmed the low speed when running across the chipset lanes and that this is a limitation of the drive.

Somehow I smell BS, but would need to do further testing.


@W1zzard , any chance when you do your next NVME Gen 4 Review, that you could pop your SN850 in M.2 slot that runs through the chipset, and check write speed ?


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Hi All,
> 
> So official response from Asrock is that they have tested the SN850 on my board in the M.2 slot and they see the same behaviour.
> They have also tested the SN850 on other vendor board's running the SSD on the chipset slot and they also see the low write speed.
> ...


So to summarise it was a bios bug and you got a free tb of disk
i was right YAY!


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> So to summarise it was a bios bug and you got a free tb of disk
> i was right YAY!


What makes you say bios bug ?


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> What makes you say bios bug ?


Because other drives don't behave like that going via the chipset.

ASRock is full of crap, as there is no limitation to the extent you're seeing.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Because other drives don't behave like that going via the chipset.
> 
> ASRock is full of crap, as there is no limitation to the extent you're seeing.


Mmmmm, more like firmware bug on the SSD when running over X570 chipsets, not only my board but others too apparently:


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Mmmmm, more like firmware bug on the SSD when running over X570 chipsets, not only my board but others too apparently:
> 
> View attachment 189926


But only a few people are having this issue, so that doesn't make sense.


----------



## tabascosauz (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Mmmmm, more like firmware bug on the SSD when running over X570 chipsets, not only my board but others too apparently:
> 
> View attachment 189926



I mean hey, if it gives you consolation on your ASRock purchase..."we tested some other motherboards from other brands" may as well have not said it at all, if that's all they're going to say.

Three of the first listed reviews on Google for the SN850 have reviewers testing on Ryzen 5000, Ryzen 3000 and EPYC 77xx. The first two on X570 and none of them are seeing the same phenomenon.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> But only a few people are having this issue, so that doesn't make sense.


That's why I smell BS and have asked @W1zzard to try the SN850 on X570 chipset lanes to see if the drive has the same write limitation that WD have apparently confirmed to Asrock.



tabascosauz said:


> I mean hey, if it gives you consolation on your ASRock purchase..."we tested some other motherboards from other brands" may as well have not said it at all, if that's all they're going to say.
> 
> Three of the first listed reviews on Google for the SN850 have reviewers testing on Ryzen 5000, Ryzen 3000 and EPYC 77xx. The first two on X570 and none of them are seeing the same phenomenon.


But they are not running over the chipset lanes.....


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 25, 2021)

So its a bios bug
i was right
the drive was fine but you got extra storage anyway
sooo everyone wins
STILL cant belive 3000mb/s writes is BAD


----------



## tabascosauz (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> That's why I smell BS and have asked @W1zzard to try the SN850 on X570 chipset lanes to see if the drive has the same write limitation that WD have apparently confirmed to Asrock.
> 
> 
> But they are not running over the chipset lanes.....



From ASRock's email it doesn't even sound like they're implying it's a chipset issue. Limitation of what? Their response reads like a textbook workshop on how to write in non-committal language...

Somehow there's this bug that _only_ the SN850 can have this issue and _only _when it's connected over chipset lanes, that work just fine with other 4.0 drives over the PCH? That doesn't make any sense - sure, if an overloaded X570 PCH due to Titan Ridge is the problem, but why would it only affect the SN850??

Does WD offer firmware updates through their SSD Dashboard? I haven't gone back in a while since hi DPI broke the program


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

tabascosauz said:


> From ASRock's email it doesn't even sound like they're implying it's a chipset issue. Limitation of what? Their response reads like a textbook workshop on how to write in non-committal language...
> 
> Somehow there's this bug that _only_ the SN850 can have this issue and _only _when it's connected over chipset lanes, that work just fine with other 4.0 drives over the PCH? That doesn't make any sense - sure, if an overloaded X570 PCH due to Titan Ridge is the problem, but why would it only affect the SN850??
> 
> Does WD offer firmware updates through their SSD Dashboard? I haven't gone back in a while since hi DPI broke the program



I have a ticket ongoing with WD, shot them of a multitude of logs yesterday, I'm in touch with one of their L3 engineers, found him on linkedin and he gladly took on board my case, there gonna do some tests in their lab 

I could imagine if the thunderbolt was eating a lot of the bandwidth that could be a potential cause but I have same results with Thunderbolt Chip disabled in the bios and why are read speeds just fine, in fact I have tested with everything on the chipset disabled even USB (used remote desktop to log in) still hitting that 3GB/s wall on writes.


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> I have a ticket ongoing with WD, shot them of a multitude of logs yesterday, I'm in touch with one of their L3 engineers, found him on linkedin and he gladly took on board my case, there gonna do some tests in their lab
> 
> I could imagine if the thunderbolt was eating a lot of the bandwidth that could be a potential cause but I have same results with Thunderbolt Chip disabled in the bios and why are read speeds just fine, in fact I have tested with everything on the chipset disabled even USB (used remote desktop to log in) still hitting that 3GB/s wall on writes.


Again, I told you I had the same kind of issue, read speeds were fine, write speeds were, well half of what they should be. If you do some searching, you'll see that other people have/had similar issues, where the write speeds aren't living up to expectations. I did not update the firmware on my drive to fix this for sure. 
As for the actual solution, I can't find one, but it doesn't just affect your combination of hardware.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Again, I told you I had the same kind of issue, read speeds were fine, write speeds were, well half of what they should be. If you do some searching, you'll see that other people have/had similar issues, where the write speeds aren't living up to expectations. I did not update the firmware on my drive to fix this for sure.
> As for the actual solution, I can't find one, but it doesn't just affect your combination of hardware.


You keep mentioning other people with same issue, but I don't see other people when google searching with same issue. I do see people having issue with TCL Cache not working correctly after a few days or a heavy session of writes, and speeds drop to 1GB/s but I dont have this type of problem, I am hitting a wall of 3GB/s writes which shows TLS cache is working fine, but not working at full capacity bandwidth.


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> You keep mentioning other people with same issue, but I don't see other people when google searching with same issue. I do see people having issue with TCL Cache not working correctly after a few days or a heavy session of writes, and speeds drop to 1GB/s but I dont have this type of problem, I am hitting a wall of 3GB/s writes which shows TLS cache is working fine, but not working at full capacity bandwidth.


You mean like this thread here on TPU?








						Phison e12 Slow write speed, not using SLC cache
					

I have a Microcenter/Inland branded 1tb Phison e12 based SSD, which normally should get around 2000-3000 mb/s writes, but mine is only getting around 1000 mb/s. I did some research and it looks like this speed is the drives write speed without SLC cache, so it looks like my cache is full and can...




					www.techpowerup.com
				




Or this on reddit

__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/czg84a

or this

__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/crnk5w

or this on Anandtech





						Question - nvme very slow write speed
					

I have a 3900x with a x570 mobo and 1TB sabrent rocket nvme m2 PCIe 4.0 disk. My write benchmarks are very very poor.  Chipset and windows drivers are upto date. what gives ? how can i troubleshoot?    https://ibb.co/SKFN03h  https://ibb.co/JmDJZWG




					forums.anandtech.com
				




It's really not hard to find people with similar issues.
And no, they don't have the same hardware as you, but are clearly seeing the same or a very similar issue.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> And no, they don't have the same hardware as you, but are clearly seeing the same or a very similar issue.



That's the key point, similar issue but not the same


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> That's the key point, similar issue but not the same


Close enough. They're all experiencing slow write speeds on PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives. How precise so you want it to be? 

Did you try this?

__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/crnk5w/_/f4yi5pj

Here you go, someone with EXACTLY the same problem as you. Except I guess that's you.








						Western Digital SN850 1/2TB Extremely slow write and kinda slow read
					

Dear Forum Members,  I have an issue with Western Digital SN850 Gen4 NVME. I cannot seem to get over 6.3 GB/s read and 3.2 GB/s write  My setup is Asrock X570 ITX/TB3 and 5950x with 64GB Ram All reviews for my motherboard show that there should be no issue getting over 4 GB/s writes All reviews...




					www.win-raid.com
				




I guess this ain't you though.

__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabytegaming/comments/km2flk

I mean, we are really trying to figure out what is going on here, but you just keep shooting people down. So tell, me, why should we bother trying any more?
You seem to know best, so good luck.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Close enough. They're all experiencing slow write speeds on PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives. How precise so you want it to be?
> 
> Did you try this?
> 
> ...



I'm not shooting you down, I just don't believe this is an issue with configuration.
Something is bugging on this drive when running across the chipset lanes...

Another example of NVME GEN4 running across the X570 chipset , no issues here:


__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/emc2bv


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> I'm not shooting you down, I just don't believe this is an issue with configuration.
> Something is bugging on this drive when running across the chipset lanes...
> 
> Another example of NVME GEN4 running across the X570 chipset , no issues here:
> ...


You clearly didn't even look at the links I provided then.
Also, how can it be "this drive" when you just got a new drive?
I really don't get you, you are looking for an answer that doesn't exist.
The issue is not the WD drive.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Also, how can it be "this drive" when you just got a new drive?


ON SN850 1 & 2 TB model.....



TheLostSwede said:


> You clearly didn't even look at the links I provided then.


Only the last link that you posted in your edit is exactly what I am experiencing:


__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabytegaming/comments/km2flk


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> ON SN850 1 & 2 TB model.....
> 
> 
> Only the last link that you posted in your edit is exactly what I am experiencing:
> ...


So I was right in presuming the other link was you posting in a different forum under a different nick then?

Regardless, the problem is still not because of the drive.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> So I was right in presuming the other link was you posting in a different forum under a different nick then?
> 
> Regardless, the problem is still not because of the drive.


Nope, not me and he has completely different motherboard and cpu.
If I had motherboard with with CPU lanes for M.2 I would put my NVME in that slot and forget about running across the PCH.

I still don't understand why you say its not the drive, if other Gen4 NVME's are getting good write speed across the chipset lanes why shouldn't the SN850 ?
The chipset does have 8GB/s of bandwidth....


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Nope, not me and he has completely different motherboard and cpu.
> If I had motherboard with with CPU lanes for M.2 I would put my NVME in that slot and forget about running across the PCH.
> 
> I still don't understand why you say its not the drive, if other Gen4 NVME's are getting good write speed across the chipset lanes why shouldn't the SN850 ?
> The chipset does have 8GB/s of bandwidth....


So once again, did you bother read ANY of the things I posted?
First you say you can't find anyone having the same issue.
Then you're saying they're not the same, even though every single link I posted is having slow write speeds, just not with the same drive.
Then you say no-one else has the same issue again, wtf?
Dude, you need to take a seriously reality check.
There are LOADS of people with the SAME issue, with different drives.
It's NOT just you and it's NOT just the SN850.
CPU lanes or chipset lanes ISN'T the issue again.
This is NOT a hardware problem.
But you simply WON'T listen.
Have a great life, never bother me again.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> So once again, did you bother read ANY of the things I posted?
> First you say you can't find anyone having the same issue.
> Then you're saying they're not the same, even though every single link I posted is having slow write speeds, just not with the same drive.
> Then you say no-one else has the same issue again, wtf?
> ...


You really are lost in your words.
If not hardware, SN850 or CPU/CHIPSET Lane issue then it only leaves Windows 10 as the culprit, is this what you are implying ?


----------



## lolokaa (Feb 25, 2021)

@TheLostSwede Why don't you take your personal issues elsewhere? Stay on topic man..


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

Another thing I just been reading about is that their is that not all X570 chipsets are the same, apparently their is a Premium 15w chipset and a standard 11w chipset which has less performance.
Looking on Asrock website they actually mention this in specs of boards:

X570 Taichi http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 Taichi/#Specification




X570 ITX/TB3 https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 Phantom Gaming-ITXTB3/index.asp#Specification




This makes me think maybe the non premium version cannot handle the insane write speeds of Gen4 NVME and the premium version can.
I'll ask Asrock and report back here


----------



## tabascosauz (Feb 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Another thing I just been reading about is that their is that not all X570 chipsets are the same, apparently their is a Premium 15w chipset and a standard 11w chipset which has less performance.
> Looking on Asrock website they actually mention this in specs of boards:
> 
> X570 Taichi http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 Taichi/#Specification
> ...



No I'm 99% sure any differences are just flexibility of lane allocation for premium/workstation-oriented boards (think X570-ACE), because the ACE has 8x/8x/8x multi-GPU support......and even if there are 2 versions for 11W and 15W, and even if the X570-ACE has a special PCH, it's not like it affects you, because the way to solve this problem would be to buy any other B550/X570 ITX board that appropriately uses CPU lanes for the NVMe...

And I really wouldn't take that claim at face value. I know the Reddit thread you're referencing, it's 1 Reddit thread and it's not corroborated anywhere else on the web. Everywhere else has conflicting claims like:

X570 draws 11-15W
X570 has a 11W and 15W version
X570 draws 11-15W depending on silicon quality
X570 is 11W TDP, TRX40 is 15W TDP
And well, it's ASRock's product page. You already know the standard of quality that goes into those.


----------



## TheLostSwede (Feb 25, 2021)

lolokaa said:


> @TheLostSwede Why don't you take your personal issues elsewhere? Stay on topic man..


Oh wow, my personal issues? I have provided all the information he said isn't out there, proving that other people have the same problem, yet HIS problem is not the same...


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Feb 25, 2021)

It is Not the drive like ThelostSwede says IT is not any part that has failed it is 1 thing
some limitation bottleneck or bug happening in the chipset it seems to effect some x570 boards and not others
you can get wd to send you all the free drives you want but it wont do anything


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Feb 25, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> It is Not the drive like ThelostSwede says IT is not any part that has failed it is 1 thing
> some limitation bottleneck or bug happening in the chipset it seems to effect some x570 boards and not others
> you can get wd to send you all the free drives you want but it wont do anything



With regards to @TheLostSwede comments I totally agree with most of her comments, but I also believe something is happening to write speeds when the SN850 runs on the X570 chipset lanes which does not happen to other GEN4 drives when running on the X570 chipset. As it stands I have no concrete evidence until I get my hands on another X570 board (Taiichi should be here in a few days) for testing.
I will also keep on investigating until I find the cause as I really don't want to let this board go, it has everything I need, thunderbolt 3 being the main factor.


----------



## Sihastru (Feb 26, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> I also believe something is happening to write speeds when the SN850 runs on the X570 chipset lanes which does not happen to other GEN4 drives


But you haven't established that. You only tested the SN850, in two variants, 1TB and 2TB. If you'd tested other Gen4 drives on your system then we'd know this. But you haven't and so we don't.

I think the issue TheLostSwede has with you, and, frankly, I do too, is that you're making these massive conclusive jumps that are somewhat illogical. There's a hint of cognitive dissonance in your approach. What you do is telling us there's something wrong with the drive or the motherboard. Perhaps. You are however adamant that it can't possibly be user error. That you tried everything, absolutely everything and it can't possibly be you. Dealing with someone like this can be very frustrating.

You need to be more scientific in your approach. You are limited in what you can do, we all are, but you can be more thorough. Don't make a bunch of changes at a time. Be as granular as you can be. *Start FRESH, everything DEFAULT, NO overclocking of any kind.* Whenever there's a binary setting that can have an effect on the performance of your SN850 drive, test with it in it's default state, then flip it, on or off, whatever that would be. Compare the results. Keep that setting flipped to the side that gave you the better results. Go to the next one. Non-binary settings require more time.

Take the time, do your research. Don't copy things other people did for their systems. Don't take everything at face value.

And don't get me wrong. It could turn out that you are right. You may well be right. The SN850 is a new product. Everything AMD does is and will forever be in a BETA state. But you didn't provide enough empirical evidence as to convince us to this end. Feeling it in one's bones isn't empirical evidence.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Mar 3, 2021)

@Sihastru @TheLostSwede

Guys / Girls, after a few emails with asrock R&D team and testing at home (980 Pro X570 Taichi) we finally know the issue lies with SN850 drives and X570 chipset, it just doesn't behave well when writing across chipset lanes. Maybe WD will update firmware but all is under NDA and Asrock are not allowed to speak about the fine details.

@W1zzard , I know you guys have insanely busy schedules, but details like this should come up in reviews. Maybe you can bring it up with WD as lots of us are moving to having multiple fast M.2 SSD's in our workstations.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Mar 20, 2021)

New SN850 firmware due next week:




*
**EDIT***
Firmware now available: https://wddashboarddownloads.wdc.com/wdDashboard/firmware/WDS200T1X0E-00AFY0/613000WD/613000WD.fluf
Still crappy write speeds


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Mar 22, 2021)

Just wanted to chime in here. I dragged a 980 Pro 500GB, as the OS drive, kicking and screaming out of my system due to it dropping to 25% of its write speeds and instead put an 850 1TB in.

My write speeds are about 3100, as seen in this thread. The NVME sits in M2.1 on my board and all integrated peripherals are disabled (WiFi, Audio, etc).

The good news is, its 3x faster than the 980 Pro 500GB and consistently so, so that's a bonus. The bad news is, its still far off its actual.

I've updated using the firmware, no difference. I have another 1TB in my system, on M2.3 and its fine, speeds are all good.


----------



## monkeyass408 (Mar 29, 2021)

GlitchKrieg said:


> I'm having the exact same problem with my SN850 on an MSI x570 Tomahawk w/a 5900x. Eager to see how things play out.


my brother and i both have the msi x570 tomahawk wifi.  I have a 5900x and he has a 5950x.  Tried my crucial mx500 2tb as a control test.  Im getting shiety write speeds on both systems.  I popped the drive in my old system that has an x470 ryzen 2700 and it benches like it should.  I have tried many bios and none of them have fixed this issue.  The issue isnt just this drive.  Its all my drives are affected.  My 1tb rockets 4, 2tb rockets, 2tb intel 660p.  Every single drive has write issues.  I also have tried to install different chipset driver versions and nothing worked.  I am convinced its a bios/x570 chipset issue.


----------



## Searing (Apr 3, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> New SN850 firmware due next week:
> 
> View attachment 193146
> 
> ...



These are my results with an Asus B560-Plus + Intel i5-11500, SN850. I got very bad results using AS SSD for some reason, but very high results with Crystal Disk Benchmark.


----------



## R0H1T (Apr 3, 2021)

monkeyass408 said:


> The issue isnt just this drive. Its all my drives are affected.


Yeah well I have a 2700 (non X) with x570 MAG & two 970 EVO+ 1TB drives & I don't see this issue, the one (OS) drive on the "chipset lane" just runs hotter that's it. The performance difference between the one directly going with the CPU lanes as opposed to chipset is negligible! Of course this doesn't necessarily apply to (all)  PCIe 4.0 drives but the thread seems to be headed in a direction which suggests there's issues with x570 chipset & I don't see that just yet.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 4, 2021)

Searing said:


> These are my results with an Asus B560-Plus + Intel i5-11500, SN850. I got very bad results using AS SSD for some reason, but very high results with Crystal Disk Benchmark.






R0H1T said:


> Yeah well I have a 2700 (non X) with x570 MAG & two 970 EVO+ 1TB drives & I don't see this issue, the one (OS) drive on the "chipset lane" just runs hotter that's it. The performance difference between the one directly going with the CPU lanes as opposed to chipset is negligible! Of course this doesn't necessarily apply to (all)  PCIe 4.0 drives but the thread seems to be headed in a direction which suggests there's issues with x570 chipset & I don't see that just yet.



Point of this thread is SN850 on the PCIE 4.0 Chipset lanes, try it & you will see degraded write performance.
2700 & 11500 dont have PCIE 4.0 Chipset lanes.

Other PCIe 4.0 drives (Samsung, Corsair) perform ok, just the SN850 has issues on X570 chipset.


----------



## R0H1T (Apr 4, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Point of this thread is SN850 on the PCIE 4.0 Chipset lanes, try it & you will see degraded write performance.


Yeah the reason why I contrasted my experience with yours is partly because you brought up the mx500 & 2 (3?) drives in your comment aren't PCIe 4.0 either *IIRC*. As far as I'm concerned a better way to gauge performance would be to use the PC normally & hwinfo to monitor performance, or use use something like hdsentinel. PCIe 4.0 drives throttle under heavy loads & high temps, do we know what temps are observed during benches or indeed during regular use?



 This is why I also mentioned (drive) temps in my case, how the one drive is hotter because it is an OS drive, not necessarily because of the chipset thing.


monkeyboy46800 said:


> Other PCIe 4.0 drives (Samsung, Corsair) perform ok, just the SN850 has issues on X570 chipset.


All PCIe drives, v4 or v3, throttle under heavy loads & temps. It's a *feature*.

Now it's quite possible that the (PCIe 4.0) drives run hotter on the chipset lanes, but that's not what I've observed with PCIe 3.0 drives here. I can show you other results from benchmarks run under WinPE so the OS thing will not have any bearing on the actual results.


----------



## lolokaa (Apr 6, 2021)

Testing proves that at least the SN850 does not throttle and has zero effect on performance from temperatures.


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Apr 6, 2021)

Has anyone been able to run a SMART test against their 850, via the WD Dashboard app? I have two and neither of them work with the SMART tests, both throw Operation Failed errors.

I can get SMART data back from the drives using the option at the bottom of the page but the short and long tests just won't run.


----------



## TheLostSwede (Apr 6, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> Has anyone been able to run a SMART test against their 850, via the WD Dashboard app? I have two and neither of them work with the SMART tests, both throw Operation Failed errors.
> 
> I can get SMART data back from the drives using the option at the bottom of the page but the short and long tests just won't run.


Try CrystalDiskInfo.


----------



## 5950xSlowNvme (Apr 6, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Try CrystalDiskInfo.


Cheers, does it have a SMART test feature? I've got it down but it looks like its passively reporting on drive info, rather than something to perform a test?

Edit: Ignore me, running the app is the test. So all's good there. Thanks!


----------



## chrcoluk (Apr 6, 2021)

Given my experience of WD warranty vs samsung, and this review, I think this drive is firmly on my radar if I ever buy a new NVME.  The large SLC area I like as well.


----------



## TheLostSwede (Apr 6, 2021)

5950xSlowNvme said:


> Cheers, does it have a SMART test feature? I've got it down but it looks like its passively reporting on drive info, rather than something to perform a test?
> 
> Edit: Ignore me, running the app is the test. So all's good there. Thanks!


If you want to go hardcore, try this





						Download – smartmontools
					






					www.smartmontools.org


----------



## 529th (Apr 11, 2021)

Just bought a SN850 1TB but the model version is different, it's WDBAPY0010BNC, not WDS100T1X0E.  It's unopened, should I return it for something else?  e.g. a 980 Pro ?


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 14, 2021)

Dear All,

Hope you are all well 

I think we can finally put this thread to sleep.

WD admitted to me in a call that there is an incompatibility with this drive and the X570 chipset lanes.

No fix is in the pipeline:






Picked up a Corsair MP600 a couple of weeks ago and it works pretty damb close to advertised speeds in the same slot where my SN850 was crippled.

Put the SN850 in my freenas box and using it as a cache drive, no room for dodgy drives in my workstation and its the last time I will buy western digital.

Also pretty gutted Techpowerup didnt chime in and test the drive they have in their possesion considering the number of people with the issue, maybe they are under agreement with western digital with regards to the negative points of which they are allowed to communicate.


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Apr 14, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Dear All,
> 
> Hope you are all well
> 
> ...


Uhhhh you had me to the last paragraph they likely dident test it cause thats not the kind of thing it does also that drive is not faulty or dogy it just had ONLY 3000mb also I I to hate company's that give me a free tb


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 14, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> Uhhhh you had me to the last paragraph they likely dident test it cause thats not the kind of thing it does also that drive is not faulty or dogy it just had ONLY 3000mb also I I to hate company's that give me a free tb


The drive has 5000+ write on a cpu lane and only 3000 on a chipset lane, this dis-advantage should have been picked up by reviewers. Simple as that to be honest.......


----------



## R0H1T (Apr 14, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> The drive has 5000+ write on a cpu lane and* only 3000 on a chipset lane*, this dis-advantage should have been picked up by reviewers.


True but tbf that is not always picked up by reviewers unless they encounter it personally or some (other) users report it. That's how it is mostly for all kinds of product reviews.


----------



## Space Lynx (Apr 14, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Dear All,
> 
> Hope you are all well
> 
> ...



wow... I'm glad I didn't buy one... I almost did... maybe I will go with samsung 980 pro after all... hmm


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Apr 14, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> The drive has 5000+ write on a cpu lane and only 3000 on a chipset lane, this dis-advantage should have been picked up by reviewers. Simple as that to be honest.......


Yeah but it's only on this specific chipset the reviewers don't test in everything


----------



## raziel77 (Apr 16, 2021)

I just bought this disk, installed windows and all my applications, but when doing tests I noticed that I am with this speed...asus z490-a cpu i7 10700k



my second disck is even worse is announced  3400 MB/s read 3000 MB/s write 
Team Group Cardea Zero Z340


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 16, 2021)

raziel77 said:


> I just bought this disk, installed windows and all my applications, but when doing tests I noticed that I am with this speed...asus z490-a cpu i7 10700kView attachment 196977
> 
> my second disck is even worse is announced  3400 MB/s read 3000 MB/s write
> Team Group Cardea Zero Z340View attachment 196979​


Thats crap, what slot you in ? PCH Lanes I think on Z490 are still PCIE 3.0 , but even still thats is very slow !


----------



## raziel77 (Apr 17, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Thats crap, what slot you in ? PCH Lanes I think on Z490 are still PCIE 3.0 , but even still thats is very slow !


Thanks for the reply....yes i shouldn't have spent so much money on a disc that is not fully compatible, i was tricked in a store, however after installing my whole system i don't want to return the disc, anyway the speed is very low and the second disc is half speed so i have another unknown problem here. maybe something in the bios that has to change .... any ideas ??( the TG cardea is pcie3 and the writing speed is faster than reading)
what do you mean, "what slot you in" ?i only have two M2 slots on the board they are both with abnormal speeds


----------



## Sihastru (Apr 17, 2021)

A PCIe 3.0 4x slot MAXIMUM theoretical bandwidth is 3940MB/s. NVMe SSDs incur quite a lot of overhead, especially during write operations. So, 3500/3300 R/W is the absolute best you can get on PCIe 3.0 NVMe drives. In other words, that's *EXCELLENT*. Calling it slow is disingenuous.

As for the drive connected to the chipset lanes, the overhead of the chipset is even greater, but you must have other devices taking up bandwidth. The chipset is connected to the CPU through a DMI 3.0 interface, that's more or less equivalent to a PCIe 3.0 4x interface. So you should, in perfect conditions, be around 3000-ish.

I would also look into installing drivers for the chipset from the Intel site.


----------



## jesdals (Apr 17, 2021)

Well I am still happy with mine


----------



## Tobiman5591 (Apr 17, 2021)

I'm experiencing the same issue on an ASUS impact VIII. It has a stand-off card for the nvme drives. I don't know if that's part of the problem. It took me quite some time to get this drive to work with my system, even without it being my main drive. I was getting multiple BSODs over and over again. I had to reinstall windows to get this drive to show up in drive management. I bought this drive because of the advertised speeds and nothing more.


----------



## raziel77 (Apr 20, 2021)

Thanks for the explanation, the chipset drivers are update but  I have a 1660 super 4g and a UAD solo plugged in, maybe that's it, I'll try to turn off the UAD


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 20, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Also pretty gutted Techpowerup didnt chime in and test the drive they have in their possesion considering the number of people with the issue, maybe they are under agreement with western digital with regards to the negative points of which they are allowed to communicate.


I haven't talked to anyone at WD for years. I bought a retail SN850, so slow down with the accusations

What do you want me to test? 

Thanks to @TheLostSwede for bringing this post to my attention


----------



## Lindatje (Apr 20, 2021)

Isaac` said:


> STILL cant belive 3000mb/s writes is BAD


Because you pay for 7000 MB/s and not 3000 MB/s.


----------



## Sihastru (Apr 20, 2021)

@W1zzard It seems that on X570 not all PCIe lanes are created equal. "Gen.4" NVMe PCIe 4.0 4x drives will perform to spec in CPU connected PCIe lanes, but not great on chipset connected lanes. We're not sure if it's a WD problem or an AMD problem (generalized or just limited to a few boards), but I've seen reports of the Samsung 980 Pro having similar issues. We're speculating there are chipset latency issues that result in less then stellar performance for NVMe drives.

It would be great if we can have a semi-official TPU test with the WD SN850 Black, the Samsung 980 Pro and maybe a couple of last gen "Gen.4" drives (Phison E16) and a couple of current gen "Gen.4" drives (InnoGrit IG5236, Phison E18) in these two situations (connected to the CPU, then connected to the chipset).

Even some "Gen.3" NVMe PCIe 3.0 4x drives seem to suffer when connected to the chipset lanes.


----------



## W1zzard (Apr 20, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> NVMe PCIe 4.0 4x drives will perform to spec in CPU connected PCIe lanes, but not great on chipset connected lanes


I assumed that everyone knew that?



Sihastru said:


> It would be great if we can have a semi-official TPU test with the WD 850 Black, the Samsung 980 Pro and maybe a couple of last gen "Gen.4" drives (Phison E16) and a couple of current gen "Gen.4" drives (InnoGrit IG5236, Phison E18) in these two situations (connected to the CPU, then connected to the chipset).


Great idea, this should be fairly easy to test, because I can use my existing data for "connected to CPU". Already working on 3 SSD reviews at the same time, so it'll be a few weeks


----------



## Sihastru (Apr 20, 2021)

Well, there's knowing... and then there's kind of knowing but finding out on your own that the situation is so much worse and then feeling cheated. If it was a couple of hundred MB/s, that would've been fine. But it seems that switching to the X570 chipset lanes just kills performance. You lose more than 2GB/s (just above 5GB/s on the CPU, under 3GB/s on the chipset). And it seems to be affecting PCIe 3.0 drives as well. First time I've seen this I assumed it was user error, but I couldn't test, I only have a B550 board. Now I'm not sure anymore. There might be more to this story.


----------



## Lindatje (Apr 20, 2021)

@Sihastru 
Here we get the performance as indicated by WD from the SN850 with different X570 motherboards. It is not really the X570 motherboards or AMD or WD, it is more the user who does something wrong on her / his side. If it is up to AMD / WD or x570 everyone is bothered by it and I know several people with this combination who just get the WD specifications (performance) from the SN850.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 20, 2021)

W1zzard said:


> I haven't talked to anyone at WD for years. I bought a retail SN850, so slow down with the accusations
> 
> What do you want me to test?
> 
> Thanks to @TheLostSwede for bringing this post to my attention


On the German review site WD requested certain parameters not to be tested, let me dig up the link.
Good to know you bought the drive yourself and not at accusing anybody, just me annoyed with myself for spending this amount of dosh on a terrible performing drive and coming accross a bit funny with others on this forum who doubted me even after all the extensive testing I did which included purchasing other drives and making RMA.

The issue Lots of people around the interwebs are having slow writes when this drive is run on X570 chipset lanes, it bottlenecks at 3000MB/s but other manufacturers drives work just fine at close to full speed when running on X570 chipset lanes (take for example Corsair MP600).
So this SN850 drive bugs out when it encounters the X570 chipset lanes which is a shame and should be easy to fix in software but WD just replied (after extensive testing) that they have no solution at this time. Asrock also reached out to WD and WD explained to Asrock what the issue is but due to NDA Asrock were unable to elaborate further.

If somebody could test who has a bit of status in this community then it would be great.

The only positive thing that has come out of this so far is that when I did my RMA, they replaced my 1tb with a 2tb model which also performs crappy on X570 chipset lanes.


----------



## Sarajiel (Apr 21, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> The issue Lots of people around the interwebs are having slow writes when this drive is run on X570 chipset lanes, it bottlenecks at 3000MB/s but other manufacturers drives work just fine at close to full speed when running on X570 chipset lanes (take for example Corsair MP600).


Judging from your signature your board also has a SATA SSD, a TB3 port and a WiFi module attached to the PCH. Personally I'm surprised you even get that much from a NVMe drive connected via the chipset. Keep in mind that PCIe 3.0 devices still read and write to the CPU at 3.0 speeds even if the PCH is connected with 4.0 speed.
Since my new SN850 is still on its seemingly endless trip around central Europe, I can't test it in my new system yet. I'll keep you guys posted once I get my 5950X machine completed and hopefully finally up and running this weekend.


W1zzard said:


> What do you want me to test?


May I suggest that you run a dedicated series of tests with at least one B550, X570, Z490 and Z590 board and both PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 NVMe SSDs attached to the PCH to get a general overview how the chipsets handle the bottleneck to the CPU. Maybe throw in a test with an active SATA connection or an active WiFi module as well.
There might be something odd going on with some X570 boards that also have PCIe 3.0 or SATA devices connected to the PCH.


----------



## Space Lynx (Apr 21, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> On the German review site WD requested certain parameters not to be tested, let me dig up the link.
> Good to know you bought the drive yourself and not at accusing anybody, just me annoyed with myself for spending this amount of dosh on a terrible performing drive and coming accross a bit funny with others on this forum who doubted me even after all the extensive testing I did which included purchasing other drives and making RMA.
> 
> The issue Lots of people around the interwebs are having slow writes when this drive is run on X570 chipset lanes, it bottlenecks at 3000MB/s but other manufacturers drives work just fine at close to full speed when running on X570 chipset lanes (take for example Corsair MP600).
> ...



Are you using a Zen 3 CPU?  You have to have a 5xxx series CPU AND an x570 mobo for the gen4 speeds to work correctly.

EDIT:  I was wrong, apparently W1zzard's own test for the review of this nvme drive was done on a slower chip and his speeds worked just fine... hmm no idea how to help you then, maybe something on your mobo just isn't working right. Most people seem to be getting advertised speeds.


----------



## Sihastru (Apr 21, 2021)

Lindatje said:


> @Sihastru
> Here we get the performance as indicated by WD from the SN850 with different X570 motherboards. It is not really the X570 motherboards or AMD or WD, it is more the user who does something wrong on her / his side. If it is up to AMD / WD or x570 everyone is bothered by it and I know several people with this combination who just get the WD specifications (performance) from the SN850.


On the chipset lanes? I think you're misunderstanding the problem. If you connect the NVMe drive on the primary M.2, the one nearest to the CPU socket, that's CPU connected lanes. It works fine there.



Sarajiel said:


> May I suggest that you run a dedicated series of tests with at least one B550, X570, Z490 and Z590 board [...]


In this list, only X570 has PCIe 4.0 chipset connected lanes.


----------



## Sarajiel (Apr 21, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> In this list, only X570 has PCIe 4.0 chipset connected lanes.


I'm fully aware of this. Maybe I wasn't clear enough what I meant. It was kinda late at night when I made my suggestion. Let me elaborate a bit then to make my reasoning a bit clearer.

The issue of a bandwidth bottleneck with NVMe drives connected to the PCH is nothing new in general. One of my systems runs both SATA (Evo 850) & NVMe (Evo 970) SSDs on an old Z170 board and I've often observed fairly bad performance during long running concurrent operations, especially if those are independent of each other, e.g. downloading files to one drive while copying large amounts of data from the other drive to my NAS. Usually one doesn't notice the effect that much during typical activities like gaming or office work since the drive access patterns are short and often don't interfere with each other even with multiple devices connected to the PCH.

Therefore it would be interesting to see if there is a difference in handling concurrent workloads between the X570 and B550 in itself. That could hint towards a problem with the chipset. Maybe the X570 throttles the drive I/O to 3.0 speeds under certain conditions?
A comparison with Z490 might be interesting to see if there is a difference of the performance penalty between PCIe (AMD) and DMI (Intel) connections to the CPU.
The Z590 comparison is mostly for completeness sake since one would expect that a wider DMI connection would allow the usage of a x4 NVMe drive without incurring the bottleneck compared to the others.

Since there wasn't much outcry of people noticing performance issues with the first generation of PCIe 4.0 drives on X570 at the time when the chipset became available, it could just be an issue limited to the SN850 or Asrock boards. However if it's a bigger problem with the newer and faster drives, it could also affect other boards or other fast drives like Samsung's PM9A1 and 980 Pro.


----------



## Sihastru (Apr 21, 2021)

Well, most people don't do sanity check tests. They read the spec sheet or inform themselves from a couple of reviews, then they buy the product and they assume all the benefits are there. Reviewers try to standardize their testing procedures and we end up with the best case scenario. In the real world, the product they tested and made a recommendation for will be subjected to so much more. And here we are.

It would be nice to know. People buy X570 boards because of the benefits a PCIe 4.0 chipset is suppose to offer. We all know about resources being shared in a system, it's the nature of the beast, it doesn't matter if it's AMD or Intel. But what if X570 isn't that great even when resources aren't shared? What if there's an inherent PCIe 4.0 instability in this AMD chipset? What if those pesky USB problems are connected to all this?

If it's a problem only WD or Samsung have with certain SSD models, then fine, we can buy something else. But if it's an AMD problem, there is no one else, there's only one PCIe 4.0 chipset.


----------



## raziel77 (Apr 21, 2021)

I now have nothing on my PCi slots except a 1660 Super, with the wd sn850 on the first slot its normal to loose alf the speed on a teem group cardea with 99% completed space??


----------



## Sarajiel (Apr 21, 2021)

Assuming from the information provided in your earlier posts, you are running the CARDEA M.2 as second SSD in slot M.2_2 of an ASUS Prime Z490-A mainboard?

Personally I don't have any first hand experience with any of these two items, but after a quick look inside the manual of the Asus mainboard, you might want to check if the slot is actually configured to run in x4 mode. This is one of those boards that allows using NVMe drives in either x2 or x4 mode, depending what is plugged into certain SATA ports. Make sure to check that SATA ports #5 and #6 are not in use and that M.2_2 is set to x4 in the BIOS.


----------



## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 21, 2021)

A lot of chit chat going on with regards to chipset lanes sharing sata, usb, wifi blah blah...

*But *the plain and simple fact is that my MP600 does 5GB/s writes on my X570 ITX/TB3 chipset lanes and the SN850 only does 3GB/s on the same chipset lanes and this is the case also on other X57O boards when SN850 is ran on the chipset lanes:





When I reached out to Asrock to check what the issue was they replied:





So here are two examples of NVME drives that work not too far off advertised speeds on X570 chipset lanes, but the SN850 just crumbles when on the chipset lanes and WD cant be assed to fix it.


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## Sihastru (Apr 21, 2021)

That's *amazing*, considering that Corsair MP600 is spec'ed to only do 4950/4250 MB/s R/W at best. How did you get 5000 MB/s write?


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## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 21, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> That's *amazing*, considering that Corsair MP600 is spec'ed to only do 4950/4250 MB/s R/W at best. How did you get 5000 MB/s write?


Should have said PRO  which is a very capable device.. See here the review: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/corsair-mp600-pro-1-tb/


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## Sihastru (Apr 21, 2021)

Ok, that's the 2TB version of MP600 Pro. That should get 6550MB/s write, so 5000 is a lot under that. Not working in spec, it demonstrates more that there's a problem with the chipset/motherboard than with the WD drive.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 21, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> Ok, that's the 2TB version of MP600 Pro. That should get 6550MB/s write, so 5000 is a lot under that. Not working in spec, it demonstrates more that there's a problem with the chipset/motherboard than with the WD drive.


Yes, but still 2GB/s faster than my SN850.
Let's take the fact that their is a little chipset overhead and then we could forgive the MP600 Pro and Samsung drives for running a little slower than advertised, but the WD SN850 is just damb right slow, almost as if WD engineers just couldn't be bothered to optimize the writes across this pathway. Can't wait to see some of @W1zzard tests...


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## Sihastru (Apr 22, 2021)

That's not the logical conclusion. *Both *SSDs suffer and get *1.5-2GB/s slower speeds on writes*. You can't blame just one of the SSDs, the logical conclusion is that there must be something wrong with the whole setup.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 22, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> That's not the logical conclusion. The logical conclusion is that both SSDs suffer and get 1.5-2GB/s slower speeds on writes. You can't blame just one of the SSDs, the logical conclusion is that there must be something wrong with the whole setup.


Not sure I quite understand where your logic is coming from but one thing which is most definitely logical is that NVME PCIe 4.0 SSDs do suffer from some overhead when running across the chipset as shown on lots of reviews around the web and my own experience, but this does not explain the the huge loss of performance for the SN850 drive encounters.

As Asrock mentioned in their mail, their is an issue with this SN850 drive which is not seen with the Samsung and other PCIe 4.0 SSD's and they are not able to speak further due to being under NDA from Western Digital. And I confirm their finding with MP600 Pro.


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## Sihastru (Apr 22, 2021)

All these products are selling on the market for some time now, what would the purpose of an NDA be? If it's to hide software/hardware defects wouldn't that be a bit illegal?

Let me try to explain the logic. It's gonna get funny, but... well...

SSDs are people.
CPU M.2 is a carton of milk, we'll call it "A-milk". People drink some and are just fine. Nice and nutritious.
Chipset M.2 is another carton of milk, we'll call it "B-milk". People drink some and get a bit ill. Not great, but don't worry, they'll survive.
But one of them is just a bit worse then the other.
You say that the company that gave them "B-milk" said something about an NDA, it's all hush-hush, but they gave the same milk to someone else and that person was fine, wink-wink.
Then you conclude that the one that is feeling worse is to blame for the whole situation and that there's no way "B-milk" could've been spoiled.

Plot twist: in a few weeks, W1zzard makes those two people drink some of that "A-milk" again, then some of that "B-milk", again! Then he gets other people and makes them drink all that milk. His conclusion is that *soylent green is people*!

Can you see the logic now? We're trying to get to the root of the problem, not just point fingers at the product that is most affected by it.


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## Caring1 (Apr 22, 2021)

Sihastru said:


> All these products are selling on the market for some time now, what would the purpose of an NDA be? If it's to hide software/hardware defects wouldn't that be a bit illegal?


Not illegal if the flaw could be exploited and the company is attempting to rectify it.


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## raziel77 (Apr 23, 2021)

Sarajiel said:


> Assuming from the information provided in your earlier posts, you are running the CARDEA M.2 as second SSD in slot M.2_2 of an ASUS Prime Z490-A mainboard?
> 
> Personally I don't have any first hand experience with any of these two items, but after a quick look inside the manual of the Asus mainboard, you might want to check if the slot is actually configured to run in x4 mode. This is one of those boards that allows using NVMe drives in either x2 or x4 mode, depending what is plugged into certain SATA ports. Make sure to check that SATA ports #5 and #6 are not in use and that M.2_2 is set to x4 in the BIOS.


THATS IT, you save my day , i now have 3100R 2910W... big diference from arround 1000....not the anouce 3400 on the Cardea but with a 99% full ssd i guess its ok and im more than happy.
I was really frustated couse i have 3500R 3300W on the WD sn850 (some guy on a store told me that my board was compatible with it) after instaling windows and all my stuf i will not change the ssd and that was bad enough....Now with your help..Not everithing is bad....thanks again Sarajiel and all you people for the help.


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## Wolflsi (Apr 25, 2021)

Hi, I am newbie here, I come from Taiwan.
Someone told me this problem, I have X570(ASRock X570 EXTREME4) and WD SN850 1TB,so I did a brief test.
Mainboard:ASRock X570 EXTREME4
RAM:16GB(8GB*2)DDR4-3600
CPU:AMD R5 3600XT
GPU:Nvidia GT710
I put SAMSUNG 980 PRO 1TB at first M.2(CPU direct link) as system drive, WD SN850 1TB at second M.2(X570 PCIe lane link) as data drive.
First picture is system summary.
Second picture is WD SN850 1TB summary.
Third picture is Crystal Disk Mark test result.


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## lolokaa (Apr 25, 2021)

I finished my build today and these are my results from my 1TB SN850 as requested:





Edit: Temps peaked at 55c during bench

@monkeyboy46800


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## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 25, 2021)

lolokaa said:


> I finished my build today and these are my results from my 1TB SN850 as requested:
> 
> View attachment 198113
> 
> ...


Which slot do you have your SN850 in (CPU or PCH) ?


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## lolokaa (Apr 25, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> Which slot do you have your SN850 in (CPU or PCH) ?


M2_1, CPU


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## monkeyboy46800 (Apr 25, 2021)

lolokaa said:


> M2_1, CPU


Can you try in chipset slot ?


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## lolokaa (Apr 25, 2021)

No sorry


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## Hachi_Roku256563 (Apr 25, 2021)

This is the problem with the pc millions of combinations of hardware means that 1 combination may not work
thats not wd fault or the disks fault its just that that combination does not work


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## Wolflsi (Apr 26, 2021)

Same WD SN850 1TB in Z590(ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E) + i5-11400 platform, installed at first M.2(CPU direct link) as system drive.
In my opinion, WD SN850 is okay in platform compatibility.


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## 529th (Apr 26, 2021)

Are we doing the *DEFAULT* CrystalMark test or are we doing the *NVMe SSD* CrystalMark test, under the CrystalMark 'Settings' tab?

I was getting some really bad write speeds with my SN850 1TB in my PCH slot (M.2_2) on my Dark Hero board e.g. 2200MB running the Default test.  First pic.

Then I switched to the NVMe SSD test.  Second pic.


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## 5950xSlowNvme (May 2, 2021)

529th said:


> Are we doing the *DEFAULT* CrystalMark test or are we doing the *NVMe SSD* CrystalMark test, under the CrystalMark 'Settings' tab?
> 
> I was getting some really bad write speeds with my SN850 1TB in my PCH slot (M.2_2) on my Dark Hero board e.g. 2200MB running the Default test.  First pic.
> 
> Then I switched to the NVMe SSD test.  Second pic.



Definitely NVME setting (it actually sets this automatically, it seems, as checking it was already set and I'd not done it).





This is on M2_1 which is a PCH slot.



Wolflsi said:


> Same WD SN850 1TB in Z590(ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E) + i5-11400 platform, installed at first M.2(CPU direct link) as system drive.
> In my opinion, WD SN850 is okay in platform compatibility.



The root problem with the SN850 it its usage on PCH lanes, not CPU. I too have an SN850 in a CPU slot and it's also fine (exceptional, in fact, in hitting 7000mb/s Reads). 

On PCH, however, it is not. Not only is the Read far under that of the CPU lane to the tune of about 700mb/s but the writes are a full 2000mb/s short.


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## Wolflsi (May 2, 2021)

I did SN850+X570 PCIe lane test at previous post(#163) and it works fine too(but a bit slower)


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## 5950xSlowNvme (May 8, 2021)

From MSI...

*We have tested the SN850 SSD on the MEG X570 GODLIKE motherboard. When it is installed on the M2_1 and M2_2 slots, the writing speed is only about 3255.75MB/s. We also tested this SSD with ASUS X570 motherboard. When we installed it on the M.2 slot from the PCH channel, and its write speed is also only 3242.07MB/s. Then use Corsair MP600 1TB SSD to test this issue again, but its speed is normal. After that, we communicated with relevant departments. As other brands of SSD do not have this problem, which may be related to the SN850 SSD itself. We suggest you contact Western Digital to check if the SN850 SSD has new firmware to update.*


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## dominicc (May 12, 2021)

I have 2 1GB drives, in slots 1 and 2, and get slower results on one of the two drives, I upgraded the firmware on both drives from 611100WD to 613000WD but that made no difference.

Using ASRock X570 Taichi Razer edition with 3 SSDs installed.

Slots 2 and 3 are connected via a 'PCI Express upstream switch port' in device manager, Slot 1 seems directly connected via a 'PCI Express Root Port'

I also have a Samsung 870 EVO Plus 1TB, in slot 3.

Hope this info helps. Nothing I can do about the speeds on the second and 3rd drives, and in a RAID configuration the RAID system would always be waiting for the second drive if using slots 1 and 2, you'd have to use slots 2 and 3 for matched, slower, performance - which sucks.


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## las (May 12, 2021)

Don't compare to reviewers using it as 2nd non-OS drive especially not if its emphy, numbers will always be better, it looks fine to me, i have 970 Evo, 970 Evo Plus, SN750 and SN850 + 980 Pro and the SN850 is the fastest of them all altho 980 Pro is close and wins some tests but overall SN850 is faster and often cheaper too


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## dominicc (May 12, 2021)

Wolflsi said:


> In my opinion, WD SN850 is okay in platform compatibility.


Except that with BIOSs < 1.44 of the ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition the system doesn't POST with 1 or more SN850 installed in any slot - reported to ASRock here: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=18733&PID=86769&#86769 

Confirmed that the Beta BIOS 1.44 'fixed' it, but the ASRock tech support said they didn't change anything related to NVME between 1.40 (non-working) and 1.44 (working)...

ASRock support quote: "BIOS L1.44 mainly update the AMD AGESA Code to 1.2.0.2, we didn’t adjust any M.2 functions"

The drive still isn't listed on their Storage QVL for *any* of their X570 motherboards.

Firmware on my SN850's was 611100WD at the time of installation.


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## Bewwm (May 13, 2021)

I recently bought the WD SN850, My motherboard which is the MSI B450 Tomahawk max, which only has one M.2 Slot and this is the results I'm getting well below what i expected, is it the motherboard or something else?


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## TheLostSwede (May 13, 2021)

Bewwm said:


> I recently bought the WD SN850, My motherboard which is the MSI B450 Tomahawk max, which only has one M.2 Slot and this is the results I'm getting well below what i expected, is it the motherboard or something else?
> View attachment 200204


You only have PCIe 3.0 on that board, not PCIe 4.0, so those numbers are quite good for PCIe 3.0.


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## Bewwm (May 13, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> You only have PCIe 3.0 on that board, not PCIe 4.0, so those numbers are quite good for PCIe


Thought it might've been the board, just had to double check thank you boss, cant complain too much still better than regular SSD


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## iBruceypoo (May 18, 2021)

Bewwm said:


> I recently bought the WD SN850, My motherboard which is the MSI B450 Tomahawk max, which only has one M.2 Slot and this is the results I'm getting well below what i expected, is it the motherboard or something else?
> View attachment 200204



Hmmm, wonder what the issue is?

Just grabbed a new SN850 500GB myself and here's the CrystalDiskMark 1st run today.

My board has (3) M.2 slots, only one is PCIe 4.0. I know in some bios you sometimes need to activate (enable) various M.2 slots.

Hope you find out what's going on... Good Luck Mate!


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## Caring1 (May 19, 2021)

iBruceypoo said:


> Just grabbed a new SN850 500GB myself and here's the CrystalDiskMark 1st run today.
> 
> View attachment 200856


Nanya chips are not known for their speed, makes me wonder how much better it could have been.


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## tallarnk (Jun 12, 2021)

Hello! You'll have to forgive me I'm just an average user, but I've been interested in the on going discussion regarding these drives. I recently purchased an Aorus X570 master rev 1.2 MB specifically for the option of having 3 m.2 slots on the board. Great! I thought. However after noticing stuttering issues with a capture card I have and narrowing the issue down to the onboard WIFI adaptor causing the problem I thought there is perhaps the same thing causing an issue with the drive speed as i've got pretty similar results. the Issue causing the capture card to have reduced bandwidth is that the WIFI adaptor seems to be limiting the max payload on everytthing that uses the same bus ? (sorry this might be incorrect way of putting it) to 128 bytes. I've emailed Gigabyte to see what can be done because there isn't an option in the BIOS to disabled the adaptor and I can't remove it without taking off the plastic shroud thingy. So although I've read what the MB vendor in the other  person(s) instance(s) and WD had to say I wonder is this is the case with my board at least, but also it might be something to check on your own board. I used a program called HWiNFO64. I'm sure all you tech experts have heard of it. Do you think this is a possible cause of the drive speed limitation ?


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## monkeyboy46800 (Jun 12, 2021)

tallarnk said:


> Hello! You'll have to forgive me I'm just an average user, but I've been interested in the on going discussion regarding these drives. I recently purchased an Aorus X570 master rev 1.2 MB specifically for the option of having 3 m.2 slots on the board. Great! I thought. However after noticing stuttering issues with a capture card I have and narrowing the issue down to the onboard WIFI adaptor causing the problem I thought there is perhaps the same thing causing an issue with the drive speed as i've got pretty similar results. the Issue causing the capture card to have reduced bandwidth is that the WIFI adaptor seems to be limiting the max payload on everytthing that uses the same bus ? (sorry this might be incorrect way of putting it) to 128 bytes. I've emailed Gigabyte to see what can be done because there isn't an option in the BIOS to disabled the adaptor and I can't remove it without taking off the plastic shroud thingy. So although I've read what the MB vendor in the other  person(s) instance(s) and WD had to say I wonder is this is the case with my board at least, but also it might be something to check on your own board. I used a program called HWiNFO64. I'm sure all you tech experts have heard of it. Do you think this is a possible cause of the drive speed limitation ?



Just pulled out my intel wifi card, still getting crappy writes:




I do still see limitation to 128bit though on the chipset lanes dur to titan ridge thunderbolt controller:




Disabling Thunderbolt controller and I now get 256bit bus and SN85O writes have increased by 2gb/s to 5129 MB/s , so it seems SN850 needs that 256 bus or more to get max write speeds.

Well done @tallarnk for finding the root cause


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## tallarnk (Jun 12, 2021)

oh that's brilliant, I'm so glad! I'm also bloody annoyed, how is the average user supposed to know that on purchase..oh btw some of your stuff won't work correctly. the only things that are mentioned clearly in the manual are the 2 end sata ports.


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## RUSTA (Jun 19, 2021)

For reference

Ryzen 5 3600 Gigabyte B550M Aorus pro-p
1TB SN850 on 1st m.2 slot connected to CPU.

RND 4K Q32T16 reads are lower than others by a fair bit (~700MB/s). Format to 4KB block size fix this?


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## Deluxe1 (Jun 20, 2021)

I've got 2 1TB 850's, one in the motherboard slot and the other in a Silverstone ECM23 in the pcie slot.

Asus X570 VIII Hero, the 4k scores seem a lot lower than some I have seen.


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## Sihastru (Jun 22, 2021)

I'm seeing the same, also IOPS are halved now for 4K Q32T16. Must be the result of new AGESA code or perhaps something Microsoft f-ed up with an update. The drive has the same FW version since forever ago.


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## basco (Jun 22, 2021)

There is some talk about slowing down sequential write rate on amd x570 on computerbase in german.
It should only effect you when the ssd is tied over the chipset with pcie 4.0.
There should be no probs if its directly tied over the cpu.
Motherboard manufacturers say it can be the higher latency over the chipset but should not effect that hard.
Western digital is looking into it.

that´s just my short summary.

sorry did not see the update:
WD says there should be a Firmware update on July 12.
and confirms there can be a slower write performance over the M2-chipset slot on some motherboards and especially when MPS is dialed in at 128byte.









						WD Black SN850: Einbruch der Schreibrate über Chipsatz-Slot wird untersucht
					

Die WD Black SN850 SSD verliert im M.2-Slot am X570-Chipsatz unverhältnismäßig viel Leistung. Die Suche nach der Ursache läuft.




					www.computerbase.de


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## tallarnk (Jun 22, 2021)

basco said:


> There is some talk about slowing down sequential write rate on amd x570 on computerbase in german.
> It should only effect you when the ssd is tied over the chipset with pcie 4.0.
> There should be no probs if its directly tied over the cpu.
> Motherboard manufacturers say it can be the higher latency over the chipset but should not effect that hard.
> ...


Yeah, this is ridiculous. noone is telling anyone about this until they find out themselves. Suppliers aren't being told by board manufacturers, etc. I'm trying to talk to Gigabyte about this and they are so far bloody useless. I've told them clearly what the problem is and they keep focusing on my capture card saying to move it to another slot (the ccapture card was how I found out about the issue in the first place). I'm quite annoyed because i want to return my board, the supplier are happy for me to return it but i need to know which X570 board that has 3 NVME slots won't have the same issue with the 2nd and 3rd slot. so far no success!

Edit : read the article...Great news!!  thanks for that!


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## Deluxe1 (Jun 22, 2021)

WD Preps New Firmware to Restore WD Black SN850's Performance On AMD X570 Chipset
					

Back in black




					www.tomshardware.com


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## Sihastru (Jun 22, 2021)

Yeah, I'm on B550 with the drive on CPU lanes. So it's not related to that.


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## SomeOne99h (Jun 23, 2021)

TechPowerUp is posting it now:








						Western Digital Readies WD Black SN850 Firmware Update Restoring AMD X570 Performance
					

Western Digital is reportedly preparing a firmware update for its WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD that restores the drive's write performance levels on PCs based on the AMD X570 platform. This problem is localized to X570, specifically to when the drive is installed on an M.2 NVMe slot that is wired...




					www.techpowerup.com


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## monkeyboy46800 (Jul 11, 2021)

New firmware is out for SN850 v613200WD and issue is fixed 
No more slow writes on 128 byte pcie bus.
Only took 7 months !!


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## Deluxe1 (Jul 11, 2021)

Just updated and I thought my 4k scores would of got better but no?


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## tallarnk (Jul 12, 2021)

Thankful for the firmware update, can confirm it's sorted out the write speed, but the read speed still isn't hitting the 7k mark.I managed to increase it by getting a custom bios from Gigabyte that gave me the option to disable the onboard wifi so the max payload speed increased to 256 bytes. but the firmware update doesn't seem to have done anything to resolve that side of things. I will contact Western Digital and see if they can help. However the firmware works it doesn't seem to affect or be related to the payload speed...at least on the write side of things because my current is 256 and the max is of course 512 for the drive.


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## monkeyboy46800 (Jul 12, 2021)

Don't think we will see 7Gbps over the chipset, but would be nice


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## tallarnk (Jul 12, 2021)

well the info for the firmware release says it fixes the write performance..and it has, it's running at performance specs, bypassing the now 256 byte max payload speed restriction so i'd like to know what's the situation with the read speed performance as well, unless that is something that cannot be sorted without the restriction on the max payload speed being removed.


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## legendos (Jul 22, 2021)

monkeyboy46800 said:


> New firmware is out for SN850 v613200WD and issue is fixed
> No more slow writes on 128 byte pcie bus.
> Only took 7 months !!


Can someone upload the firmware 613200WD for the SN850?

Cause the  WD Dashboard program still shows me the old fw as the actual version.

Best regards!


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## tallarnk (Aug 18, 2021)

I'm still in the middle of getting suppport from WD.  I'm not a super techy so i'm not sure how the write speed can match the advertised performance, it's actually a llittle bit higher  but the read speed is about 450 MB/s less.


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## MasterOfManyMuffins (Dec 10, 2021)

After having stutter in all games from a prebuild machine i am going insane.
Below scores are after a clean windows install, all firmware (SSD, tomahawk motherboard, Chipset. etc)

I have to identical 2 terabyte WD 850 drives. But what is going on with my system drive.

Seems almost like its hitting some weird cap. all MB write speed below hover around 128mb pr second, compared to what i would expect on the right. Does anyone here have any idea why this could be?





Edit: Ok. I dont know if this fixes anything. But i the performance test issues, were fixed by realigning my SSD. You can see in the first picture that the allignment supposedly is off. 

I have 0 clue what or why, but apparently that can cause slow ssd performance. And after doing the reallignment on the drive, it now performs as expected from the second disc.


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## Deluxe1 (Dec 12, 2021)

MasterOfManyMuffins said:


> After having stutter in all games from a prebuild machine i am going insane.
> Below scores are after a clean windows install, all firmware (SSD, tomahawk motherboard, Chipset. etc)
> 
> I have to identical 2 terabyte WD 850 drives. But what is going on with my system drive.
> ...




 Are you using win11?









						Windows 11 Users are Reporting Strange NVME SSD Behavior (Updated) - ExtremeTech
					

Users across various forms are reporting mysteriously sluggish benchmark results for SSDs in Windows 11.




					www.extremetech.com


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## an00bis (Dec 25, 2021)

I get these numbers with an SN850 500GB as boot drive in M.2_1 on an MSI B550 A-Pro / 5800X. WD Dashboard confirms capability as Gen4, but connection as Gen3. Fresh Windows 10 installation, most recent firmware, most recent BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.5, most recent chipset drivers, SSD as GPT. Any idea?


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jan 10, 2022)

I'll be grabbing a 1TB SN850 in morning. Can't wait to test it in the z690 board.


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## Athlonite (Jun 1, 2022)

an00bis said:


> I get these numbers with an SN850 500GB as boot drive in M.2_1 on an MSI B550 A-Pro / 5800X. WD Dashboard confirms capability as Gen4, but connection as Gen3. Fresh Windows 10 installation, most recent firmware, most recent BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.5, most recent chipset drivers, SSD as GPT. Any idea?
> 
> View attachment 230202
> View attachment 230204


from your mobo manual 

Storage 1 x M.2 Gen4 x4, 1 x M.2 Gen3 x4 slot


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 1, 2022)

Here are my SN850 speeds


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## chrcoluk (Jun 1, 2022)

Pretty funny thread, people jumping on and blaming asrock, defending WD as if their life depended on it, attacking the OP for saying its a WD drive issue.

What was it in the end? It was down to the way the drive was designed to operate fixed by a firmware update. 

Glad it got solved, seems mainly due to pushing from the German community. 

Hopefully lessons also learned for reviewers, dont rush the reviews, test in cpu and chipset lanes.


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