Degrading ssd performance

[W3RN3R]

Hello, hope anyone can help with this, i bought a gx2 teamgroup 2tb ssd a few months ago. I use it as my game storage drive, steam, ea etc. games loaded very fast at first, after some time i noticed that game loading times increased considerably, wrc generations for example took forever to load, where it loaded almost immediately when i first had the drive. I deleted the game folder and copied a backup to the drive, after doing that it was all fine again. Had to do this with all my games, now the same issue seems to happen again, not nearly as bad as it was, but noticeable. How is this possible? What's the point of having an ssd if weird things like this happens. I've read somewhere about data/cell ageing and i don't seem to be the only one with this problem. No issues according to crystaldiskinfo.

 

[Shrek]

A not very full SSD can run in SLC mode, so this might explain what you are seeing.

Switching between SLC and TLC | TechPowerUp Forums

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

If you start getting an error message about a corrupted file in the event log, then that SSD is done!

 

[Hardcore Games]

I suggest a usb hard disk can be handy to backup and reset the SSD to allow it to refresh the block translation tables

 

[W3RN3R]

Thanks to all of you, been reading about this and seems to be quite common. I'm not going to replace game folders everytime this happens just to get my performance back. I highly doubt this will happen with a Samsung ssd/nvme, very annoying issue that should not be IMO.

 

[Jacky_BEL]

Look up "SSD read disturb(ance)".

Turns out that the GRC spinrite v6.1 utility running in "Level 3" can be used to refresh the condition of SSD's.
Now I haven't tried this out myself , so feedback from those who did and saw improvement is very much welcome,
to establish if this method of refreshing of SSD's actually works.

 

[Ruru]

How much u have free space on that drive? Personally I keep at least 10% free on my SSDs

 

[massaker]

GRC spinrite v6.1 utility running in "Level 3" can be used to refresh the condition of SSD's.

So it's basically the same as HD Sentinel's "surface test"-> refresh data area, but much more expensive?

The upcoming SpinRite 7.0 will feature a UEFI-compatible version with a truly smart refresh algorithm for SSDs.

 

[AndyGawg]

How much u have free space on that drive? Personally I keep at least 10% free on my SSDs

Me too. I always overprovision any ssd by 10% , and my system drive by 15%. (Like can be done with Samsung majician, but I do it for all brands manually - errmm,.... mostly Samsung infact.)
Additionally, I keep available space around 30% or more.
I've never had a busted SSD, so I either lucky or doing something right.

 

[Ruru]

Me too. I always overprovision any ssd by 10% , and my system drive by 15%. (Like can be done with Samsung majician, but I do it for all brands manually - errmm,.... mostly Samsung infact.)
Additionally, I keep available space around 30% or more.
I've never had a busted SSD, so I either lucky or doing something right.

My only died SSD was a Kingston something, also that was a freebie so no actual casualties. It just died, didn't even detect in POST/BIOS :/

 

[W3RN3R]

This link explains the exact same issue I'm having with my drive, never knew it was a issue with some ssds to begin with. I still have more than 50% free space left, so definitely not that. I'm just gonna return the drive. My fault for buying cheap, only Samsung from now on.

Samsung's 840 EVO update fixes slow reads with old data

techreport.com

 

[micropage7]

Hello, hope anyone can help with this, i bought a gx2 teamgroup 2tb ssd a few months ago. I use it as my game storage drive, steam, ea etc. games loaded very fast at first, after some time i noticed that game loading times increased considerably, wrc generations for example took forever to load, where it loaded almost immediately when i first had the drive. I deleted the game folder and copied a backup to the drive, after doing that it was all fine again. Had to do this with all my games, now the same issue seems to happen again, not nearly as bad as it was, but noticeable. How is this possible? What's the point of having an ssd if weird things like this happens. I've read somewhere about data/cell ageing and i don't seem to be the only one with this problem. No issues according to crystaldiskinfo.

do you writing and erasing such a huge data very often?
ssd although it's fast, it degrades faster specially when you write/erase such a huge data often

 

[Jacky_BEL]

So it's basically the same as HD Sentinel's "surface test"-> refresh data area, but much more expensive?
View attachment 344516
The upcoming SpinRite 7.0 will feature a UEFI-compatible version with a truly smart refresh algorithm for SSDs.

Well it is good news for people that already have v6.0 and can now upgrade to v6.1
I find it remarkable that a program developped for "obsolete" HDD can benefit SSD's that work in a totally different way.

 

[W3RN3R]

do you writing and erasing such a huge data very often?
ssd although it's fast, it degrades faster specially when you write/erase such a huge data often

No i don't, it's only when i noticed the loading time increased with games, i replaced all games with backups and the performance was back to normal, not doing it again as it would only be a temporary solution. Tech reviewers should do follow up reviews on ssds with older data. Wonder how many users have this issue not even aware of it.

 

[Jacky_BEL]

I still like to have separate SSD drives for OS and Data , and have reused older smaller size SSD's for pagefile.

 

[W3RN3R]

I still like to have separate SSD drives for OS and Data , and have reused older smaller size SSD's for pagefile.

I have a Samsung evo 250gb with my os installed. The gx2 is just my games drive.

More links with these reported issues

Western Digital SSDs experiencing read performance degradation

According to several Chinese forum posts and my own experience, some (if not the most) Western Digital SSDs have serious performance regression problems. The read performance of old data drops significantly on drives such as WD Blue SATA, SN500, SN550, SN700, SN750 etc. Users reporting this probl...

linustechtips.com

Corsair MP510 (980GB) - slooooooooow with older files...

www.overclock.net

Would be interesting to see someone like gamer nexus doing investigation on this. Some manufacturers just seem to cheap out on nand chips and brag about their high TBW rating.

 

[AndyGawg]

I still like to have separate SSD drives for OS and Data , and have reused older smaller size SSD's for pagefile.

Agree. Same here, always done that and always will.

In relation to SSDs in general, there are now some pretty crappy brands I've heard/read. I stick to Samsung, but even they had an issue with bad Nvme 980 M.2s a while back if memory serves.

 

[Jacky_BEL]

Steve Gibson put out a SpinRite walktrough video on YT.

Now , I would ONLY use it on MBR partitioned drives.
There is some talk about version 7 with UEFI support but who knows howlong it will be before it gets out.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Steve Gibson put out a SpinRite walktrough video on YT.

Now , I would ONLY use it on MBR partitioned drives.
There is some talk about version 7 with UEFI support but who knows howlong it will be before it gets out.

I wonder if the performance issue is because the SSD is likely an older model given it's capacity and lacks internal housekeeping and/or wear leveling.

 

[LittleBro]

Thanks to all of you, been reading about this and seems to be quite common. I'm not going to replace game folders everytime this happens just to get my performance back. I highly doubt this will happen with a Samsung ssd/nvme, very annoying issue that should not be IMO.

This is definitely not normal, though may be common. I have only experienced this problem once and it was on my first SSD, Samsung 830 128 GB. I forgot to leave 10% of drive capacity unformatted (as over provisioning). Everything was fast for few weeks, then I could not see difference in Windows 7 boot time between old 7200 RPM HDD and mentioned SSD. I wiped out entire SSD, installed OS while leaving 10% unformatted and it never happened again. Nowadays drives have over provisioning partition that is hidden from users, so when drive says it has 1 TB capacity, it actually (physically) has a bit more, but only to work as over provisioning space and user is unable to allocate this space, it's hidden by firmware by default.

As @Ruru mentioned, is there enough free space on the drive? Even Windows requires some free space on NTFS partitions for it's own management.

Post S.M.A.R.T. output and disk space usage.

 

[W3RN3R]

No, it's definitely not a free space issue from my side, over 1tb left, and it is actually a common issue with cheap drives. From what i have researched, first generations of TLC NAND had data retention issues, in the sense that cell voltage varied too quickly over time. This meant that files older than 1-2 months became increasingly harder to read, with read speeds that could drop down to 20-30MB/s. Wouldn't surprise me if this is why so many people complain about in game stuttering. Cheaper drives/brands may have continued to use low quality NAND/controllers with similar behavior even to this day, this applies to cheap nvme drives as well. I replaced the gx drive with a Samsung 870 evo 2tb in may, no issues, so I'll just stick to Samsung or crucial from now on or drives with more recently updated controllers.

 

[AndyGawg]

Interesting stuff.

Unformatted (over provisioning) is critical in my experience too. I've been using Sammy since 840 pro. Still using a couple 850 evo in an older PC, and currently using pretty heavily used 860 evo's in my current PC. I take over provisioning to the next level on my boot drive and allocate a full 25%. Over kill? I honestly don't know, but for a drive that has had three years of daily heavy use, it still runs as well in AS SSD, various ATTO runs, and Crystal Bench. Crystal disk Info shows 89% remaining life. My other 860 evo''s (a 2TB gaming drive etc etc) are all still at 99%. I OP them at between 12% to 15%.

I wonder if it's because at least up to the 860 Samsung used the 3 level or layer?, MLC Nand? (That off the top of my head, apologies terminology sucks, but you know what I mean.)

What I didn't know is that now a days OP partition is added as a hidden extra partition.

But it makes sense. My newest, and cheapest drive is a Trancend TS2TSSD220Q 2GB. Treated with the same care and love as my Sammys get, but it just can't compete in terms of typical usage. It's already at 99%, and I've barely used it. It uses the newer but cheaper 4 layer or level QLC Nand (Off the top of my head). My mistake.

It has been relegated to 2nd backup drive, as even running ATTO sequential read/write tests with the test file set to 512MB (default is 256MB) it rapidly drops write speeds from exepected 515 MB/s range max to as low as 10MB/s. All over the place. These runs are at the default "direct I/O." So it clearly relies on some caching excessively. Is huge reliance on caching the "new thing," for newer but cheaper SSDs??

I stop there with the technical aspects as I know the folks on here are genereally a step, and some leaps and bounds above my (fill in space) tech knowledge.

I'll finish by simply saying NONE of the poor performance issues/degredation have ever occured on any of my Samsung 840, 850, 860 SATA3 SSDs. Additionally they all have far more wear and tear on them.

 

[W3RN3R]

My Samsung 850 evo 250gb is 9 years old now, still at 96% only used as a boot drive though. Back in 2014 the 840 evo had these slow read speed issues but was quickly fixed wit a firmware update. That transcend drive @99% is normal, the moment you copy data it will go down, but it will stay at 99% for a long time, depending on how much data you copy over of course.

 

[LittleBro]

This link explains the exact same issue I'm having with my drive, never knew it was a issue with some ssds to begin with. I still have more than 50% free space left, so definitely not that. I'm just gonna return the drive. My fault for buying cheap, only Samsung from now on.

Samsung's 840 EVO update fixes slow reads with old data

techreport.com

Samsung EVO 840 was affected by firmware issue. It was a huge issue back then.

I'd bet your drive's firmware the problem, too.

 

[W3RN3R]

No, only the 840 evo was affected, issue was not carried over to later revisions and drives.