Some Samsung SSDs not running at max speed (SATA 2)??

SLP Firehawk

Limp Gawd
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Jan 30, 2020
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Hi. I have 4 SSD in my system.
C: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB
L: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
M: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
N: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
S: drive is a mandatory partition of C drive so ignore it

The first two (C and L) are running at the correct Read speeds (525 and 540)
But M drive is running at only at 397 Read instead of 540 and is showing "unknown'
N Drive was showing to be only 281 Read speed until I Ran Magician optimization and then it changed to 4841 Read!
N drive is also showing to be SATA 2 instead of SATA 3 for some reason?!

Something is not right with M and N drives but I don't know what to do. I have attached screenshots to hopefully help.
L M N were all originally HDD that I later replaced with SSD
I am running WIN 7 Pro 64. MB is ASUS P9X79 Pro
 

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More related screen shots that might help. It's strange that for some reason I have the option to EJECT M: like it were a flash drive or device plugged into USB
 

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First step, check the SATA cables. These can cause weird issues, get abused, and are both cheaply built and cheap to replace.

C: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB
L: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
These are on your SATA6G controller, which is SATA 3. '6G' is the line speed of 6000Mb/s, which translates into around a 550MB/s actual transfer rate max.
M: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
N: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
M is connected to SATA3G, which at half speed of SATA6G, is around 225MB/s max.
N is connected to a Marvell controller with different firmware and different drivers, but is connected at SATA6G. This controller is also presenting the drive as removable to Windows, which is a normal thing in some cases. The Marvell firmware may be able to disable this mode.

Or, you could move the last Evo 4TB to one of the SATA 2 ports, which will limit max transfer rates, but will cause it to behave more like your 'M:' drive in Windows.

Updating the Marvell drivers may help here. Use the controller type in the screenshot as a guide for driver searching.

Next, use CrystalDiskMark to check transfer speeds. Samsung Magician will likely provide the best data on drive status, but the speed test appears wonky.

Hopefully that helps, check back and let us know!
 
Thank you very much IdiotInCharge.
Tjhe drive being removable to Windows is not a problem but I thought it was strange but now that makes sense thanks to you.

I looked at my original order and my PC came with C: 6G SSD and one 6G HDD. So I must have added the other 2 HDD later. And then later swapped them for SSD.
The system also came with 2 optical drives and an internal card reader so that may be why it has the controller, to allow for the extra devices?

My main goal is to get as much speed as I can from all 4 SSD drives since this PC is used for video editing. I am happy with C and L since that is about as fast as standard SSD can go.
 
The system also came with 2 optical drives and an internal card reader so that may be why it has the controller, to allow for the extra devices?
That's really just something that's done on higher-end boards, which nearly all X79 boards were. At the time, since Intel was only putting two SATA 3 ports on their controllers with the remaining four SATA 2, it was a way to add more SATA 3 ports as well.

My main goal is to get as much speed as I can from all 4 SSD drives since this PC is used for video editing. I am happy with C and L since that is about as fast as standard SSD can go.
If that's the case, then you could consider moving M: over to the Marvell controller too.
 
Is there a specific reason you use the drive letters as you are? The fact that you have a removable drive is imo due to the letter you gave it, if it would be D or E this would go away.

Some letters have predefined use cases.
 
Is there a specific reason you use the drive letters as you are? The fact that you have a removable drive is imo due to the letter you gave it, if it would be D or E this would go away.

Some letters have predefined use cases.

It's being recognized as a hot plug device which is why it shows as removable.

Also OP, I would not connect any other drives to the Marvel controller, it's only connected to the motherboard through PCIe 2.0 x1 connection which is limited to 5Gb/s, meaning if you connect a second one, it'll split that bandwidth between the two.
 
For max drive speed you'll want a proper add-on HBA card for those drives. An LSI 9211-8i in IT mode is a great addition that would support your extra drives at full speed (uses a PCIe x8 connection). They can be found for cheap on ebay (make sure it says IT mode, otherwise you have to do extra work), and get an SAS SFF8087->4xSATA breakout cable to go with it.
 
Ok thanks. I was planning on plugging the slowest SSD into the Marvel controller not realizing it would split the bandwidth in half.
So is something like this what I need?
HBA card
https://www.amazon.com/SAS9211-8I-8...eywords=LSI+SAS+9211-8i&qid=1587171949&sr=8-1
breakout cable
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Breakout-SFF-8087/dp/B018YHS9GM
https://www.amazon.com/LiNKFOR-Breakout-SFF-8087-Multi-Lane-Internal/dp/B0728KRZYB/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=SAS+SFF8087-

>4xSATA+breakout+cable&qid=1587172657&s=electronics&sr=1-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExRVRETVVERUZBTjNKJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTc5MDY5QzhLR0RBSlM3TjZMJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA1MjQ2NDAxRUxZSlFST1A1SEkzJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==


Regarding drive letters. I really don't know why my drives ended up being
C main system drive
L media drive
M export media drive
N media drive
D DVD drive
E Blu-ray drive
S Scratch

On my other workstations I had D and E as media drives but this one came with D and E as optical drives and C and L as SSD/HDD.
So when I later added additional HDD they became M and N. It wasn't really my preference.
What drive letters should they be?
In the old days C was system, A and B were floppy, D and E were additional HDD
 
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You'll want to order this card: ebay 9211-8i. It comes already set to IT mode for you. IT mode lets you just connect drives without having to worry about setting up raids and removes a configuration missing message that halts booting until you do something. Setting a card to IT mode from default (IR mode) requires some work and digging for firmware files and this has all the work done for you and costs less (and who knows when Amazon will actually deliver).

The second link for breakout cables is the kind you want. The first one is a "reverse" which is the wrong direction. Here's an ebay link for a cheaper one from a good seller. Don't forget to measure your case before buying, you can get 1m/3.3 foot long ones as well if 50cm/19" isn't enough.

Don't worry about the drive letters. It's hard to predict why Windows suggests what it does (you can change letters in disk management or pick from an unreserved list if you're initializing a new internal drive), but it does hold a history of all attached drives for a time for consistency with removable devices and just increments along the alphabet or uses what is suggested to it (I have an ISO mounter program that uses J as its default). As long as it works for you as it is, you don't need to change it.

Aside from C, the other letters are all up for grabs for anything you want, even A and B, though these are best avoided as some older programs still have them coded in as floppy drives.
 
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Thank you very much. I ordered the ones off ebay. I never would have figured this out if not for you guys helping me. Thank you!
 
Thank you. Will the bandwidth be spread among every SSD that is plugged into the card? Reason I am asking is this will open the possibility of me adding another SSD to my system by using the card and also using the existing SATA connection but I do not want to slow anything down.
You'll want to order this card: ebay 9211-8i. It comes already set to IT mode for you. IT mode lets you just connect drives without having to worry about setting up raids and removes a configuration missing message that halts booting until you do something. Setting a card to IT mode from default (IR mode) requires some work and digging for firmware files and this has all the work done for you and costs less (and who knows when Amazon will actually deliver).

The second link for breakout cables is the kind you want. The first one is a "reverse" which is the wrong direction. Here's an ebay link for a cheaper one from a good seller. Don't forget to measure your case before buying, you can get 1m/3.3 foot long ones as well if 50cm/19" isn't enough.

Don't worry about the drive letters. It's hard to predict why Windows suggests what it does (you can change letters in disk management or pick from an unreserved list if you're initializing a new internal drive), but it does hold a history of all attached drives for a time for consistency with removable devices and just increments along the alphabet or uses what is suggested to it (I have an ISO mounter program that uses J as its default). As long as it works for you as it is, you don't need to change it.

Aside from C, the other letters are all up for grabs for anything you want, even A and B, though these are best avoided as some older programs still have them coded in as floppy drives.
 
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IdiotInCharge was giving you some important manual chipset information. Page 2-25 to 2-28 (https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P9X79_PRO/HelpDesk_Manual/) informs that the connectors for SATA 6Gb are the first 2 (SATA6G_1 and SATA6G_2), and then the 4 adjacent connectors are SATA 3Gb (SATA3_3 to SATA3_6). The very last two are from the Marvel controller (SATA6G_E1 and SATA6G_E2). E as in external controller. Samsung's software is not compatible with many AIC's, or integrated external controllers, and why you do not get information from the drive. Also, the mini-port supports eSATA (external) and therefore has the ejection ability. Sometimes, there are drivers that can be for external/internal, or only internal usage.

As for your other question about SATA controllers/HBA's you have Port Multipliers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_multiplier and https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features#Key

Do not worry about performance in the manner that you are thinking due to the fact that most controllers have pretty much been like this, and only particular people will know about the performance, if any is to be concerned about.

That AIC (Add In Card) is PCie 2.0x8, so, you have to install in one that is mapped to the processor anyways-this is noted by the PCIe 3.0. The only two PCIe expansions that are mapped from the south bridge you cannot mistakenly use due to the fact that these are PCIe x1. The only possible real issue is how many PCIe lanes do you have from the processor that are in use? Not to make things complicated, but if you have one GPU then you should be good.
 
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Thank you everyone! I got the card installed and connected the two SSDs on the slower ports to the add on card. CrystalDiskMark shows around 540-570 MB/sec read speed on the SSDs...except for one of them
SSD speeds N drive.jpg
shows crazy numbers. Pic attached. I'm thinking the SSD with the crazy numbers is the same one that SamsungDiskMagician had turboboosted and was also showing crazy numbers. It is one of the two drives connected to the Add on card. The other shows 570 so I'm guessing since it's running 570 hopefully the crazy one is ok too.
So now C and L are still on the motherboard SATA 6 ports and running full speed.
M and N are on the add on card. M is running full speed. N is showing crazy #s.
I even went ahead and added an extra SSD (O drive) to the add on card and it shows 570MB/sec too.

Samsung Magician now only recognizes C and L

Thank you all very much. I never would have figure this out. The add on card was recognized automatically during boot and really made a difference. I didn't even know such a thing existed for an old PC like mine.
And since nothing is connected to the bottom (Marvel) port none of my drives are showing up as removable disks now
 
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IdiotInCharge was giving you some important manual chipset information. Page 2-25 to 2-28 (https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P9X79_PRO/HelpDesk_Manual/) informs that the connectors for SATA 6Gb are the first 2 (SATA6G_1 and SATA6G_2), and then the 4 adjacent connectors are SATA 3Gb (SATA3_3 to SATA3_6). The very last two are from the Marvel controller (SATA6G_E1 and SATA6G_E2). E as in external controller. .............

That AIC (Add In Card) is PCie 2.0x8, so, you have to install in one that is mapped to the processor anyways-this is noted by the PCIe 3.0. The only two PCIe expansions that are mapped from the south bridge you cannot mistakenly use due to the fact that these are PCIe x1. The only possible real issue is how many PCIe lanes do you have from the processor that are in use? Not to make things complicated, but if you have one GPU then you should be good.

This REALLY helped when I got inside the computer because it looked like the top 2 and bottom 2 ports were both 6G according to the markings so I got confused until I read these messages on this forum. Then I knew what to do and figured out which was which.
And then I still had 3 open PCI 16 slots open and they all were marked the same, except 2 were gray and one was blue. So I plugged the addon card into the blue one, guessing it was fastest since my GPU and Matrox card were in blue slots
 
I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread or continue on this one since it has the history of what I've done.
My computer just isn't as fast as it once was running Premiere Pro CS6. My computer does a frequent "cycling" / "throttling" I'm not sure what to call it but the fans clearly kick up and down in speed frequently and they didn't use to do that. It's not running hot according to coretemp (around 52 C with all cores at 100% during 3ds Max renders). But Premiere is sluggish and there is delay clicking and selecting and moving things quite a bit, especially when using TGA sequences. I'm not sure where to even start so I'm asking here. All my drives are SSD and configured according to this thread.
My CPU runs at 3501.57 MHz.

The system was new in 2013 and not long afterward I hardware cloned my C drive to a larger C drive and then used Acronis Disk director to adjust the boot partition larger, so now it's 2 partitions. I have always wondered if that adversely affected performance.
One of my SSD is running Samgung Magician. All 5 my SSD are Samsung EVO.
Do I have too many SSD? Is that bottlenecking?
I am running WIN7 64 Pro
64GM RAM
3GB GTX 780
 
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cpu usage.jpg

Playing a long 4K Phantom 4 clip in CS6 my CPU usage varied from about 50% to 81% with the clip playing smoothly sometimes and sometimes playing very jerky.

Playing a complex timeline in CS6 where it totally played very very jerky nearly the entire time it varied from about 6% to high 90s all the way through which doesn't seem to make sense to me because it was struggling bad the entire time trying to play the timeline.



If it's software related I had an idea: I still have my original SSD system drive (stored) with CS6 activated which I later cloned to a larger SSD using a hardware clone device and then adjusted the partition using Acronis Disk director to give me more space. Could I unplug from internet, disonnect most of my other SSD drives and swap in the original SSD system drive to boot it and see if it runs faster? And if not then I could take it back out and put it back like it was?

The original SSD has a lot of software installed but not as much as I currently have on my current System drive so it would be the leanest way to run and if it handles video better then I'll know something has bogged down my system since then. If it's the same then I look into hardware solutions like changing paste etc...?
Wouldn't that work?
Should I remove the Add in card before booting up the old system drive?
 
The CPU in the past did reach in the 90c temp when the fan on the aio cooler failed. I soon replaced it with 2 new in push pull but since it got up that high in temp could it have cooked the paste or damaged something? Not sure where to start.
 
The system is 8 years old at this point, it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to break it down, put on fresh TIM and clean any dust bunnies out. You're approaching the point where it's time for a cpu/motherboard/ram upgrade though unless you go for GPU acceleration for Premiere Pro CS6.
 
The CPU in the past did reach in the 90c temp when the fan on the aio cooler failed. I soon replaced it with 2 new in push pull but since it got up that high in temp could it have cooked the paste or damaged something? Not sure where to start.
It would be a good idea to replace the paste, especially if it's been more than a couple years, but it isn't strictly necessary. The temp itself isn't the end of the world, the CPU is rated to go that high and would have been throttling speed and execution to keep from overheating. I had the block fail on an H80 in one of my BOINC 3930k's a few years ago and it was running in the 90s (at no more than 1.6GHz), but replacing the cooler and TIM had it back at the same OC, low temps and full stability.
 
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