SATA SSD performance?

[Incendor]

Hi lads and ladies,

 

I have this setup where I have two separate Windows 11 computers, one that remains stationary at home and one that I take to LAN parties, etc...

They each have their own NVMe system SSD with Windows and all of the apps on them, the only thing I want them to share is the games library, since I have quite the collection and don't want to have to install and keep Terabytes of games up to date on two separate machines. So what I thought up is a 2.5" quick swap bay in each of the machines and a large enough SATA SSD that I can swap between the two.

I have built everything and after some initial NTFS "fun", it now works.

 

The only thing that annoys me is the performance of the SSD when I'm downloading/installing new games. I have limited experience with SSD storage, since I mostly just plug-and-played them so far, so chances that I made a stupid little mistake are high.

 

The SSD I'm currently running is a Patriot P210 2048GB and it's currently sitting at 1,45TB of 1.86TB used.

Idk if the SSD is just slow, if it's too full or if I messed something else up, but when downloading and installing a game via Steam, the write speed drops to around 10MB/s.

 

I'd like to fix this, but I'm at a bit of a loss on where to start. If a different/bigger SSD is the solution, I'm just gonna buy one, but I'd like to a) be sure and b) understand/learn what's going on.

So if you have any ideas, I'm grateful :)

[leclod]

18 minutes ago, Incendor said:

So what I thought up is a 2.5" quick swap bay in each of the machines and a large enough SATA SSD that I can swap between the two.

Which quick swap bay ?

I'd try the same "downloading and installing a game via Steam" without the quick swap bay, ssd directly connected to the motherboard.

This should be doable.

(by the way, how's the health of that ssd ?)

Edited August 24, 2025 by leclod

[Incendor]

- The quick swap bay is a Chieftec CMR-125

- The SSD behaves the same when hooked up directly to the MB on my main (home) machine

- Here's what CDI has to say about the SSDs state:

 

[leclod]

Does the Patriot toolbox help, for example can it empty the cache ?  

Edited August 24, 2025 by leclod

[Incendor]

That just displays some device and SMART info, but doesn't seem to have any other functionality.

 

 

(sidenote btw: I really appreciate that you don't just bash and hate on the idea itself or my choice of hardware or anything like that but instead offer serious help and approaches to solve this <3)

[Kilrah]

Interface is just straight through SATA so won't have an effect.

Might be slow drive, a lot of SSDs slow down significantly on large writes like game installs, and more so when almost full. Shouldn't be apparent on reading.

 

Can't seem to find performance reviews on that drive, only reports that it's unreliable 

[Incendor]

I've done some researching and apparently this SSD is just trash tier... no DRAM, small SLC cache, etc... 
I'm now getting a slightly older Samsung Pro model, will test again and report back

[daygeckoart]

Run a CrystalDiskMark benchmark to check the write speed of your drive. I'm guessing it's Steam that is slow

[Incendor]

17 hours ago, daygeckoart said:

Run a CrystalDiskMark benchmark to check the write speed of your drive. I'm guessing it's Steam that is slow

[YoungBlade]

49 minutes ago, Incendor said:

For a cheap, DRAM-less SATA SSD, that's about what I would expect.

 

If all you were doing was browsing the Internet and writing the occasional document, this would be more than enough. And for simply playing games off of it, outside of recent, demanding titles, it's probably fine, too.

 

But installing big games is going to overwhelm the SLC cache and performance is going to be pretty bad, possibly worse than a HDD.

 

If you want to be able to install games on demand, rather than pre-installing them before the LAN, you'll have to get a faster drive. Samsung Pro should do the trick.