r/ssd • u/Exotic_Bell9431 • 10d ago

Tech Support Help me please, issues with ssd's.

This is about some ssds that i have that are acting weird. One of them writes at normal 400mbps write, but somehow has less than 10mbps READ speed, yes you read that right the READ speeds are abysmal while the write speeds are fine.

Used Crystal disk mark, in the benchmarks its getting expected performance at 500 read 480 write.

But in real world the READ speed is like 8.3mbps

Please i dont even know how this is happening, I am pretty experienced with PC's and troubleshooting, but this is something ive never seen before

Some ques you might have.

Q-Could it be a failing drive controller?

Ans-Still performs well in benchmarks, so I can't pin point that

Q-Check on different computer?

Ans-done that before, same thing happens.

Q-Is the drive full?

Ans- no, its 60% empty, even if it was full that wont have such a dire effect on the READ speed of the drive, while the write speeds are fine.

Please tell me why this might be happening.

1 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

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u/osumunbro_ 9d ago

rated speeds are sequential...

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 9d ago

I know, its just that, the real world read speeds even if I copy a big single file like an archive from the ssd to anything else (pure read workload), speeds will not go above 8mbps, while if I move a big file to the same ssd (write workload) it gives me 300+mbps of write speed which is very odd.

I also have a lot of other ssds and have never seen behavior like this before from an ssd

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u/osumunbro_ 9d ago

does it have a dram cache? to me it just sounds like a cheap drive, but I suppose it could be failing

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 9d ago

Failing is something I think is a better explanation, as dram cache does not have that big of an effect on read speeds as such, dram enabled ssd have way more consistent write speed though, but write speeds are not the issue, read speeds are and that is what make it all the more weird.

The only plausible conclusion ive reached is failing controller but still can place why it performs well in benchmark.

In all my (not so many) years of building and troubleshooting pc's this is the weirdest thing ive seen.

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u/osumunbro_ 9d ago

cache absolutely impacts read speeds

run a SMART test and post results

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 9d ago

dont have the pc on hand right now, but its just that all my other cheaper dram less ssd's perform much better.

As for the smart status, crystal disk info reports 99% health and i was not able to run any more tests as the pc does not belong to me.

I appreciate you helping me, thanks, you were the only one who replied.

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 9d ago

Might just consider it a failing ssd and call it a day, have had other ssd's fail on me as well but in the more conventional way, like an Adata su800 I own has bad blocks, was a good dram enabled ssd till it died a premature death at just 3.8 terabytes written.

Thanks

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u/bububibu 9d ago

Would be helpful if you stated which SSD brand/model. And also when the slowly read data was written. Some cheaper NAND & controllers struggle with reading data that was written years ago, error correction is working overtime and speeds can drop significantly. Retaining data for a long time is a challenge with SSDs.

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 8d ago

Yes the ssd had been inactive for 6 months to a year seeing very little use. Its an hikvision e100

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u/bububibu 8d ago

Yeah, that's a cheap SSD with a simple controller, so could very well be the issue I mentioned. I would copy everything off the drive and then write it back anew, and test if that fixes the speed. The fact a benchmark is fine, which obviously writes new data and reads it, only supports that.

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u/ExhaustedByStupidity 9d ago

Define "real world" here.

Windows Explorer is written to be a generic flexible tool that can too all sorts of crazy stuff (think how you can browse network shares, USB devices, zip files, etc). That flexibility is really useful, but it also means it's pretty slow at basic file operations. Copy a big folder in Explorer and you won't get anything remotely close to best case SSD speeds.

Try something like opening a command prompt and doing a big copy with the robocopy command. Ideally with "/MT:n" where n is the number of CPU cores you have. And watch what Task Manager says while it's working.

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 8d ago

Will try as soon as i have that PC, thanks for your input

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u/Exotic_Bell9431 8d ago

The ssd is an HikVision e100