Samsung 840 Evo SSD Performance Degradation

[cubercaleb]

Where the hell is the performance degradation anyway? It doesn't look like anything. On top of that they only tested one ssd. If they want to be conclusive why not test a thousand?

[virtualTune]

 Please tell me more about how TLC NAND is a wise choice.

 

At this price point we now have the Crucial MX100 with a solid controller and MLC flash, yet still people flock to 840 EVO in droves, why?

amongst the people in the forum: because Linus has promoted the crap out of them

[Vrbas]

Used defraggler on my 840 evo and it did increase performance pretty noticeable. About 100mb/s

Restarts and startups are almost instant again. I have noticed them slowing down over time.

I'll put some screen shots when I get home. Seems like defraging is the only solution right now. Otherwise a clean install is the other.

[Belgarionbg]

 since its just happening on the EVO drives then TLC might not be the culprut since the pro and the standard model is also TLC.

Well, this is not true. The Pro is using MLC.

 

 

[qwertywarrior]

Well, this is not true. The Pro is using MLC.

 

 

yes i stand corrected

 

but still since the standard 840 is TLC and doesnt suffer from the issue

then it could be the queued TRIM issue

[TheGosuStandard]

Decided to test my 250gb 840 EVO:

 

 

 

[mooseman]

 

 

On Sata2... The drive shows this extremely slow (~1MB/s) speed when trying to copy old files using explorer.

 

I very much regret buying 2 of these EVO drives. They are the worst storage choice I've ever made after buying dozens of drives from various manufacturers.

[algoat]

I read the entire thread on overclock and there were a lot of examples of this happening specifically on the EVO series drives.  An interesting theory was posted by Brainsplatter:

 

EVO bug theory in short:
- Flash cells can only sustain a limited number of write cycles (writing requires erasing the flash cell)
- If all static data/files would stay in the flash cells to which they have been written to originally, the remaining flash cells would have to endure all the write cycles for changing data and would quickly wear out
- That's why all SSD reorganize old data and writes them into different flash cells, in order to spread the necessary erase cycles as evenly as possible over all flash cells. This is called wear leveling

And if the EVO has a bug in the wear leveling which causes the old data to be rearranged in a disadvantageous configuration for reading (e.g. they are all put into the same flash block so that there is no parallel block reading possible), that would explain the results we see here.

[Vrbas]

On Sata2... The drive shows this extremely slow (~1MB/s) speed when trying to copy old files using explorer.

I very much regret buying 2 of these EVO drives. They are the worst storage choice I've ever made after buying dozens of drives from various manufacturers.

Defrag the drive and see if it increases performance. It did for me.

[jaggysnake57]

people flocked to the evo because it was a verry good ssd for the money and this was backed up by many site and reviewers all over the web.  has this been confirmed yet?

[Frikken]

Damn and I just got mine Friday. Should I return it and look for another drive?

[Texhnlyze]

One of the reasons I never bought a 840 Evo when people strongly recommended it to me. I got a 512 850 pro.

[Guest]

I have a 120GB 840 Evo. Interesting topic. I did the FileBench test. My Evo is used as my boot drive (Windows 7) and as my games (Steam) partition. Therefore, since it is not a "data drive", there is usually not too old files. At least, not as much as my 500GB WD Black.

 

The issue is happening on my Evo as well. For exemple, it is happening on most Skyrim files. I haven't played Skyrim for many months and it was the first game I have downloaded after getting the drive last Christmas. I jump from >450mb/s on Civ5 files to ~40mb/s on Skyrim files. On my boot partition, it is pretty random. Some files are slow (old) and some are fast.

 

I am sure Samsung will address this issue in a new firmware. I doubt this is something not fixable. If it is, then the new 850 Pro are interesting...and 10 years warranty.

[RazeG3SG1]

Damn and I just got mine Friday. Should I return it and look for another drive?

I definitely would do that if I were you. Get a Crucial MX100 man.

[ajoy39]

I wonder if the 840 pro will experience this sort of thing.............

highly unlikely, different type of flash used. 

[ajoy39]

Guess that explains this then:

 

do you have trim enabled? try running it manually and see if that helps. 

[The Benjamins]

Just did a test on my 840 (not evo or pro) and my old file reads were like 40 MB/s after a defrag now its saying random reads are 500+ MB/s so maybe that's why my boot times are slowing down. I have 10.74 TB of writes to my SSD and it should be ok for over 500TB so my life spand seems to be fine.

[unsubscribed]

I did same test on my both Evo 250GB drives. Results are just as others show. Mind you I did same test on Crucial M4 that I had for few years and same slowdown in the beginning of this boot drive is clearly visible. Samsung 840 Evo was purchased just a month back though.

Trying to get them replaced with Intel. In future I would rather go stable and trusted than cheap, fast and cheerful for a month. Lesson learned.

[dan93]

Did anyone contact samsung about this?

[Guest]

I'm reading the replies and see people bashing Samsung and how this product is cheap. I disagree. The 840 Evo is a fantastic product even if there is this issue. It is probably something they can fix over a firmware update so guys, stop bashing Samsung. If Samsung does not address the issue in the next months, then we can bash them. There would be not point not to fix this (if it is fixable), since the 840 Evo is still under warranty.

 

SSDs are still new to the computers world compared to the good old hard drives. And, SSDs use much more electronics than the hard drives, so there is much more programming. Issues happens. Don't you remember OCZ and their SSDs with the Sandforce BSODs ? Or Crucial few years ago with their M4 that was restarting each hour after 5000 power on time ? I think the Evo issue is quite minimal compared to these. I can stil continue to use my computer properly even if some files are a bit slower.

 

I am not happy about it, but I am not mad either. I'll just wait for the Magician to let me know that there is a new firmware available. Until then, I'll make sure to backup my data properly, just in case

[MoonSpot]

@hojnikb as the expert (imo) care to weigh in?

[Tygron]

I only skimmed the OP and I looked at the first couple posts.

I have an 840pro in my system, and the other day my system would just not boot. Everything was slow as hell and completely just broken. Somewhere in the middle of that my main HDD's pagefile (or the file that tells the computer where things are on the drive, I thought that was what it was called) was just lost somehow so it shows as empty (doing recovery now) and i've had to re-install Windows. Doing that took FOREVER for it to try to do anything, but once Windows was installed it seems like it's doing fine.

 

I thought this was a problem with something else but maybe this is related.

Also the PC had no problems until I restarted the computer for updates (with the PC being on nonstop for a few weeks since the last restart, having never been fully off for a month or so) and a couple wonky things that were happening. And then it just started going downhill.

[Priller]

I tried it with my older 840 Pro just to see what results I would get. I figured since it is the smaller size it should preform the worse out of the Pro line of SSDs. 

 

While the top speed isn't up there it does hold it's speed throughout.

 

 

[MEC-777]

I have the non pro/evo 840 128GB SSD. Have never noticed any slow downs. Still boots/restarts very quickly. I've had it for a year now and have never run defrag on it.

 

Guess the non pro/evo 840's are safe from this issue.

[HippY]

until there are fix for this I will not get a 840 Evo..