Solidigm NVMe Custom Modded Driver for All NVMe Brands SSDs & Any NVMe SSDs

[FreedomEclipse]

I mean it does state that under the info for the 2 different versions

But if you dont quote it out of context...

I have made two versions of it...

• One is Solidigm driver without any modifications except making it work on all NVMe drives
• Second one got the name tag [+Tunings] on the file name. Also works on all NVMe SSDs drives. I have added modded tunings that Samsung and Phison uses on there own NVMe drivers like transaction sizes, interrupt coalescing times, interrupt parameters, and performance parameters like transfer size and number of I/O queues

It reads like only one driver is for all NVMe drives.

 

[THEBOSS619]

But if you dont quote it out of context...



It reads like only one driver is for all NVMe drives.

I have edited the main post and made underline on it too to make it more clearer for new users.

 

[gerard.bow]

I have an original Solidigm P44 Pro, fastlane can only be activated if the SSD is not the system drive!
Maybe you should first ask yourself why the manufacturer only allows this on “data drives”!
With the driver we have also been at 2.3.0.1023 (29.02.2024) for a long time, is there a reason why an old version has been adapted?


I would say it's the same nonsense as Western Digital with their GameMode, SN850X I also have, same thing here, only works if it's not the system drive!

 

[THEBOSS619]

I have an original Solidigm P44 Pro, fastlane can only be activated if the SSD is not the system drive!
Maybe you should first ask yourself why the manufacturer only allows this on “data drives”!
With the driver we have also been at 2.3.0.1023 (29.02.2024) for a long time, is there a reason why an old version has been adapted?


I would say it's the same nonsense as Western Digital with their GameMode, SN850X I also have, same thing here, only works if it's not the system drive!

The newer ones they blocked it on .sys files for any NVMe SSDs to work except there own Solidigm NVMe drives.

Hence why I used the older ones and there's almost no difference at all between them. They just added more NVMe Solidigm products to support & changed the NVMe milliseconds on operating states.

Most importantly it works and it provides improvements especially for RND4K read/write results.

It's not the same as GameMode of western digital as those mess with power management of SSDs and causing it to throttle as it gets stuck on the highest power limit & gets hot during heavy loads.

Solidigm doesn't mess with power management but they mess with how it deals with small files data through coalescing and parallelizing data.

Regarding the "fast lane" they even mentioned it that it is enabled by default. It's doesn't even need Solidigm app. Driver alone is enough & doesn't need a special NVMe SSD firmware to work with it.

As I have always said... test it by yourself... it's easy to do and by the amount of people sharing the results of improved performance... especially for RND4K as that's Solidigm goal with this driver.. you can't deny it or say that it's nonsesne

 

[cal5582]

commenting to follow this

 

[cal5582]

are there any downsides regarding longevity

 

[THEBOSS619]

commenting to follow this

are there any downsides regarding longevity

No downsides and no risks, I have been using it for over 2 months and not a single issues happened I use it mainly on my OS and on another SSD too, Both different brands... one with Lexar NM790 2TB (Main OS installed there) and the other one is Micro 2400 1TB. No issues reported until this very day

As I have always said... test it by yourself. see if it is worth it or not.

 

[Ricktheslickster]

I've installed this driver to check it out, to see how much better it is compared to Microsoft's NVMe driver. When I do my disk mark tests, I like to be sure there's no background activity on the drives, so I wait a good 5 minutes to pass by, I usually open task manager, then performance, then keep an eye on my drives to see if any activity is going on with them. Without the solidigm driver loaded, disk activity usually settles down to Zero activity within the first 4 minutes after booting up. But I've noticed with the SolidIGM driver loaded, there's constant activity with my C; Drive, why is that? I've rebooted over 25 minutes ago, and I'm still waiting for the c drive to settle down. It's not like its at 100% of my drive, very low activity actually, but still its constant and never seems to stop. If it does stop, its longer than 26 minutes from a fresh reboot.

 

[THEBOSS619]

I've installed this driver to check it out, to see how much better it is compared to Microsoft's NVMe driver. When I do my disk mark tests, I like to be sure there's no background activity on the drives, so I wait a good 5 minutes to pass by, I usually open task manager, then performance, then keep an eye on my drives to see if any activity is going on with them. Without the solidigm driver loaded, disk activity usually settles down to Zero activity within the first 4 minutes after booting up. But I've noticed with the SolidIGM driver loaded, there's constant activity with my C; Drive, why is that? I've rebooted over 25 minutes ago, and I'm still waiting for the c drive to settle down. It's not like its at 100% of my drive, very low activity actually, but still its constant and never seems to stop. If it does stop, its longer than 26 minutes from a fresh reboot.

You can exactly check what's causing this through "Resource Monitor" and pinpoint exactly what is happening on "Disk" tab.

If you are looking for explanations for this. My guess is it's doing some kind of caching as a first time use? after that maybe it settles down? I mean...that's likely related to "fastlane" that solidigm implements. Maybe after a couple of reboots it will settle down and stop.

Does it happen on every boot? or Does it only happen when you used the solidigm for the first time on the first boot? and what kind of activity? is it read activity? or write activity? or both?

 

[chrcoluk]

are there any downsides regarding longevity

It might help longevity as logs and other things that are written frequently I would think are always written to pSLC only.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I wish i took a before and after on my laptop but I didnt think to do it till I already had installed the turned driver.

This is my PC with the tuned driver.

1TB WD SN770 (Boot drive)

Before|After:


2x 2TB WD SN770 (Game drives)

Before|After:




I also have an older generation 500GB WD Black (WDS500G2X0C) installed but I'm not too pedantic about that one as it exists mainly as a dump or cache drive to take some wear and tear off my main drives. So how it performs isnt important as those listed above.

The difference between my two 2TB drives is very interesting though.

 

[THEBOSS619]

I wish i took a before and after on my laptop but I didnt think to do it till I already had installed the turned driver.

This is my PC with the tuned driver.

1TB WDSN770 (Boot drive)

Before|After:
View attachment 365866 View attachment 365865

2x 2TB WD SN770 (Game drives)

Before|After:
View attachment 365868View attachment 365867

View attachment 365870View attachment 365869

I also have an older generation 500GB WD Black (WDS500G2X0C) installed but I'm not too pedantic about that one as it exists mainly as a dump or cache drive to take some wear and tear off my main drives. So how it performs isnt important as those listed above.

The difference between my two 2TB drives is very interesting though.

This is really really good improvements ! Thank you so much for sharing this and for your time testing & sharing those results
No worries about the laptop, I'm pretty sure it will get the same improvements like the majority of people always focus on RND4K as that's what Windows use the most on day to day usage and almost all IO operations are depending on RND4K

 

[DR4G00N]

I gave the tuned driver a try with my Kingston NV2 1TB TLC, it helped RND4K a bit.

Before/After (I didn't notice that the write for SEQ128K was so low on the before otherwise I would've re-ran it).


Q32T1 w/driver (Forgot to test it on the default driver but I have a SS of when I first got it, though it's not directly comparable).
"Before"/After

 

[THEBOSS619]

I gave the tuned driver a try with my Kingston NV2 1TB TLC, it helped RND4K a bit.

Before/After (I didn't notice that the write for SEQ128K was so low on the before otherwise I would've re-ran it).
View attachment 365873

Q32T1 w/driver (Forgot to test it on the default driver but I have a SS of when I first got it, though it's not directly comparable).
"Before"/After
View attachment 365883 View attachment 365881

Not too bad! still the improvements is there either from RND4K Q32T1 or Q1T1 or even both! still... improvements is there Thank you for your time & sharing your results

 

[vidal6x6]

Yo guys GOOD NEWS! WORK ON ENTERPRISE HARDWARE!!!
I have Here a Seagate 5350 u.2/u.3 1.92tb and a old TOSHIBA Pci 3.0 22110 1.92TB
I think on the Seagate Side increased latency GOOD WAY but the numbers INCREASED A LOT!
The toshiba is for storage and seagate for daily use windows boot drive
Can't test the Direct storage because don't have graphics card right now! but the driver says it works

 

[PLAfiller]

I only now discovered this thread, colour me interested. My OS drive is Intel 670p which uses Solidigm utility for firmware updates, so it must be compatible with this driver I might give it a shot in the weekend.

 

[THEBOSS619]

Yo guys GOOD NEWS! WORK ON ENTERPRISE HARDWARE!!!
I have Here a Seagate 5350 u.2/u.3 1.92tb and a old TOSHIBA Pci 3.0 22110 1.92TB
I think on the Seagate Side increased latency GOOD WAY but the numbers INCREASED A LOT!
The toshiba is for storage and seagate for daily use windows boot drive
Can't test the Direct storage because don't have graphics card right now! but the driver says it works

Amazing news! that's great to know that it works on enterprise hardware! I never thought it would work on an enterprise hardware! that's really awesome Thank you for your time sharing those results!

I only now discovered this thread, colour me interested. My OS drive is Intel 670p which uses Solidigm utility for firmware updates, so it must be compatible with this driver I might give it a shot in the weekend.

Yes! it is compatible looking forward to it! Let me know how it goes since you got Intel 670p, test both versions or if you want to save time... try the tuned ones first

 

[bonehead123]

@THEBOSS619...thanks for your work on this, I will try it out this weekend & see what happens on my 850X's....

From what has been posted so far, I can summarize that some numbers go up, others go down, sometimes a good bit, others just a tad, or are my eyes deceiving me ?

 

[THEBOSS619]

@THEBOSS619...thanks for your work on this, I will try it out this weekend & see what happens on my 850X's....

From what has been posted so far, I can summarize that some numbers go up, others go down, sometimes a good bit, others just a tad, or are my eyes deceiving me ?

Thank you for your kind words, I really appreciate this.

It is indeed every different brands behave differently but I can assure you this... RND4K reads/writes will always have the improvements (can be seen on the majority of the results) even when the used space storage is still around 80% of your NVMe SSD capacity

Usually when you use above 50% of your NVMe SSD capacity the performance especially RND4K starts to suffer from performance loss. This Solidigm driver prevents that from happening and actually will keep maintaining the performance (if not improving it) until you reach like 90% of your used capacity and then after that performance falls of the cliff.

So there's always improvements and it can be measured so... as I have always said, test it by yourself and you decide if it is worth it to keep using Solidigm driver or not

 

[Micko]

You need to do the uninstall procedures , sorry for late reply... for some reason the website didn't notify me about your post and even other people's posts
Thank you, I really appreciate it

Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. BTW as for uninstall procedure, I did it in a way I've read on WinRaid forums: make a restore point before installing a NVME driver and go back to it after testing.

I tested the regular Solidigm driver as well and it scored even better than Solidigm+tweaks one. Tickled by bad write score of Solidigm drivers I did some real world testing which included copying between Kingston and old Samsung 960Pro. It turned out that Solidigm drivers do not handle fragmented files as good as the generic NVME driver - 1.4 vs 1.6GB/s when copying a large file from one drive to another (I tested for comparison also a Phison driver from WinRaid.com as well, and it also was capped at 1.4GB/s copying speed, strange). Unfortunately I can not reproduce these tests anymore since I defragmented both ssd-s. When copying non fragmented files, speed is more or less the same.

Is there any 3rd party utility that can do what Fast lane is supposed to do ? Keeping most used files on SLC is great management of resources, specially on 2TB+ drives which can have >500GB of SLC.

 

[THEBOSS619]

Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. BTW as for uninstall procedure, I did it in a way I've read on WinRaid forums: make a restore point before installing a NVME driver and go back to it after testing.

I tested the regular Solidigm driver as well and it scored even better than Solidigm+tweaks one. Tickled by bad write score of Solidigm drivers I did some real world testing which included copying between Kingston and old Samsung 960Pro. It turned out that Solidigm drivers do not handle fragmented files as good as the generic NVME driver - 1.4 vs 1.6GB/s when copying a large file from one drive to another (I tested for comparison also a Phison driver from WinRaid.com as well, and it also was capped at 1.4GB/s copying speed, strange). Unfortunately I can not reproduce these tests anymore since I defragmented both ssd-s. When copying non fragmented files, speed is more or less the same.

Is there any 3rd party utility that can do what Fast lane is supposed to do ? Keeping most used files on SLC is great management of resources, specially on 2TB+ drives which can have >500GB of SLC.

View attachment 365946

Thank you for this detailed information and your amazing analysis and test. That's some amazing information right here!

I would have never thought that the fragments will affect this much. Wow!

Finally the normal stock Solidigm driver have benefits another reason why I made two versions of it.

Unfortunately I don't know any way to test the fastlane feature. I wish I have known this.

BTW... nice improvements you got here!

 

[Micko]

I would have never thought that the fragments will affect this much. Wow!

I analyzed the download drive (Samsung 960Pro) again with AusLogic Disk Defrag. It can, among other things, show which files are the most fragmented and how many fragments they have. It turns out, every file downloaded through torrent client is fragmented like hell (1000+ fragments) by default. There's probably a way to mitigate that if client has an option to reserve drive space for files right after starting the download but i digress.

Point is, everyone can get the fragmented files this way to test them out. I tested one of the files again and yes, there's a large difference in copying fragmented vs non fragmented files between ssd-s. For testing, you can duplicate a fragmented file and duplicated version will be defragmented (unless the disk is close to being full).

Just to let everyone know before they sharpen the pitchforks, all the torrent files in my posession are 100% legal. I mostly use the client to download the Church calendar for grandma, every sunday.

 

[THEBOSS619]

I analyzed the download drive (Samsung 960Pro) again with AusLogic Disk Defrag. It can, among other things, show which files are the most fragmented and how many fragments they have. It turns out, every file downloaded through torrent client is fragmented like hell (1000+ fragments) by default. There's probably a way to mitigate that if client has an option to reserve drive space for files right after starting the download but i digress.

Point is, everyone can get the fragmented files this way to test them out. I tested one of the files again and yes, there's a large difference in copying fragmented vs non fragmented files between ssd-s. For testing, you can duplicate a fragmented file and duplicated version will be defragmented (unless the disk is close to being full).

Just to let everyone know before they sharpen the pitchforks, all the torrent files in my posession are 100% legal. I mostly use the client to download the Church calendar for grandma, every sunday.



View attachment 365961

I learn something new everyday. Thanks for this amazing info. I really appreciate this you gave me a new perspective on how I look on SSDs in general

 

[mechtech]

The Problem.................as your SSD fills up.....................

The Solution..............more SSD

https://www.newegg.ca/western-digital-4tb-black-sn850x-nvme/p/N82E16820250244

as for consistency, I usually edit power settings for trim/garbage collection

My SSD Used To Be So Much Faster But Has Recently Slowed Down ... What Happened?

Crucial SSDs use active garbage collection to perform background clean-up. For Active Garbage Collection to have an effect, the SSD needs to have periods of idle time.

www.crucial.com

 

[kalima]

Hello THEBOSS619,

I make a account for you, I feel feedback is really must to have when a job is amazing so......Thank you very much for your work , it's impressive.

I tested the tuning version with samsung feature ( I have 990 Pro Samsung)

You can have the result here with 3DMark benchmark, nice improvements

Just maybe a esthetic feedback , your .bat have still some echo related to other modded driver wifi (BTW , i will look that now for my laptop with AX210 )

I will make some ad for this project