WD SN850 Slower than expected performance

[raziel77]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Sihastru]

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?

 

[monkeyboy46800]

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/

 

[Sihastru]

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.

 

[monkeyboy46800]

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...

 

[Sihastru]

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.

 

[monkeyboy46800]

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.

 

[Sihastru]

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.

 

[Caring1]

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.

 

[raziel77]

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.

 

[Wolflsi]

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.

 

[lolokaa]

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

Edit: Temps peaked at 55c during bench

@monkeyboy46800

 

[monkeyboy46800]

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

View attachment 198113

Edit: Temps peaked at 55c during bench

@monkeyboy46800

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

 

[lolokaa]

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

M2_1, CPU

 

[monkeyboy46800]

M2_1, CPU

Can you try in chipset slot ?

 

[lolokaa]

No sorry

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

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

 

[Wolflsi]

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.

 

[529th]

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.

 

[5950xSlowNvme]

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.

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.

 

[Wolflsi]

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

 

[5950xSlowNvme]

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.

 

[dominicc]

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.