Samsung 840 EVO Performance Degradation on Old Files

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midimockup

Junior Member
Sep 19, 2014
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Hello
I would just like to throw my hat into the ring and say that I too am experiencing major read slowdowns with the Samsung 840 EVO when accessing old files. I am hoping that Samsung provides a firmware fix because I have 5 of these drives in my studio.
 
Coup27

Coup27

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2010
2,140
3
81
I was a bit surprised when reading this so decided to test it out for myself and I can confirm this issue exists. I found a 433MB video that was last modified 6 December 2013. I copied it to desktop and the speeds were a constant ~45MB/sec. I have attached a screenshot.

Untitled.jpg


I then ran a CrystalDiskMark test straight after and both reads and writes were ~500MB/sec. RAPID is not enabled.

Not really a big issue but I don't understand why it's present. I expected access times and speeds to be consistent.
 
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Star_Hunter

Junior Member
Sep 19, 2014
3
0
16
I contacted Kristian Vatto and he is aware of the issue and is looking into it. He was going to be on the phone with Samsung later today.
 
mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
20,378
15,070
136
I don't think the Pro has the problem, I have an 840 PRO 256GB and I just copied one of Quake 3's files (457MB) over to the HDD, a file copy UI didn't even get a chance to appear. I also ran Process Explorer with elevated privs to keep an eye on throughput, a single spike and that was it.

Admittedly I don't know what the working definition of an old file is, but I'm fairly certain that file has been untouched since it was copied to the SSD at the end of Feb this year, and plenty has gone on the SSD since then.
 
C

CakeMonster

Golden Member
Nov 22, 2012
1,621
798
136
Interesting. If Samsung has confirmed a fix is on the way, and frankly if it took this long to be discovered for such a massively popular SSD, I would not call it a big issue. I'll be looking for the update.
 
Seba

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,599
259
126
So, will it take a few months after the fix is released to confirm if it works or not, no? Unless it somehow instantly cures the old data slow reading problem.
 
Hellhammer

Hellhammer

AnandTech Emeritus
Apr 25, 2011
701
4
81
Seba said:
So, will it take a few months after the fix is released to confirm if it works or not, no? Unless it somehow instantly cures the old data slow reading problem.
Click to expand...

Depends on the nature of the issue. Too early to say anything yet, but I hope to know more next week.
 
*NixUser

*NixUser

Member
Apr 25, 2013
29
0
0
This is a considerable issue and should be fixed properly. And I hope Samsung gets it right, otherwise the brand may be tainted (except for Pro).
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,571
10,206
126
Perhaps this may prove that TLC NAND is, in fact, unsuitable for SSDs, if the cell's charge degrades after a month of dormancy, and has to be recovered via extensive ECC manipulations.
 
BFG10K

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,002
126
Coup27 said:
Not really a big issue but I don't understand why it's present. I expected access times and speeds to be consistent.
Click to expand...
Actually this is a huge issue - your file copy is running at about one third the performance of any modern HDD, which is appalling performance for an SSD.

Even my 5400RPM Green is much faster than that:

Copy.png
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
VirtualLarry said:
Perhaps this may prove that TLC NAND is, in fact, unsuitable for SSDs, if the cell's charge degrades after a month of dormancy, and has to be recovered via extensive ECC manipulations.
Click to expand...
While possible, it seems off that the old files seem to not be read at random/varying speeds, for that kind of situation. It could be that, it just seems to be too much of a pattern for that to be more likely than something else (plus, some user should be experiencing growth in remapped sectors, if it's having to try enough error-recovery that it drops in speed that much). I could easily see some aggressive write-limiting optimizations ultimately causing it, for instance.
 
F

Freddy1765

Senior member
May 3, 2011
389
1
81
I knew something was wrong with my reads! Noticed ~30 MB/s speeds some months ago but I didn't really wonder about it.
Thankfully I just formatted my system drive 3 weeks ago so that should still be performing, but my secondary EVO (which has my games on it) is screwed for now.

By the way, I did some experimenting and found a possible work-around, which is to transfer the old files to another drive, delete them, and transfer them back again.
It's a pretty poor "fix", but I guess it will have to do as a temporary measure until Samsung sends out the firmware update..
 
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Freddy1765

Senior member
May 3, 2011
389
1
81
Until Samsung releases a fix for this issue I wouldn't buy an 840 EVO.
MX100 is a decent alternative.
 
uberman

uberman

Golden Member
Sep 15, 2006
1,942
1
81
Freddy1765 said:
Until Samsung releases a fix for this issue I wouldn't buy an 840 EVO.
MX100 is a decent alternative.
Click to expand...

MX100 is Crucial, I just took a look at them. Thanks, for the model I'm looking at it's $30.00 cheaper than the Samsung EVO. The name reminds me of Corsair. I hope they have no connection to Corsair.

I've bought three (Corsair) USB 3.0 flash memory thumb drives, they were all advertised as hot rods, large and fast. All were over $70.00 each and all have died by 90 days.
 
Hellhammer

Hellhammer

AnandTech Emeritus
Apr 25, 2011
701
4
81
uberman said:
MX100 is Crucial, I just took a look at them. Thanks, for the model I'm looking at it's $30.00 cheaper than the Samsung EVO. The name reminds me of Corsair. I hope they have no connection to Corsair.

I've bought three (Corsair) USB 3.0 flash memory thumb drives, they were all advertised as hot rods, large and fast. All were over $70.00 each and all have died by 90 days.
Click to expand...

Crucial has nothing to do with Corsair. It's Micron's subsidiary that focuses on the retail market and Micron is one of the companies that manufacture the actual NAND that is used in SSDs.
 
h9826790

h9826790

Member
Apr 19, 2014
139
0
41
Freddy1765 said:
By the way, I did some experimenting and found a possible work-around, which is to transfer the old files to another drive, delete them, and transfer them back again.
It's a pretty poor "fix", but I guess it will have to do as a temporary measure until Samsung sends out the firmware update..
Click to expand...

I think you can simply defrag the SSD. In fact, defrag a SSD for about every 6 months is not a bad idea, and it helps to improve or maintain the SSD's performance. No matter it's a Evo or not.
 
L

LoveMachine

Senior member
May 8, 2012
491
3
81
h9826790 said:
I think you can simply defrag the SSD. In fact, defrag a SSD for about every 6 months is not a bad idea, and it helps to improve or maintain the SSD's performance. No matter it's a Evo or not.
Click to expand...

It will fix the issue for some files, but many system files won't get moved, and they relate to overall system "snappiness". The only true fix (according to the Toms thread) is a backup/system restore.
 
Coup27

Coup27

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2010
2,140
3
81
BFG10K said:
Actually this is a huge issue - your file copy is running at about one third the performance of any modern HDD, which is appalling performance for an SSD.
Click to expand...
Fair point. I was being a bit selfish with my view only considering my own usage.

Although an issue, it is certainly not worthy of how wappy people have gone over this. It's not fatal like SSD bugs used to be and as far as I am aware, there has been no cases of corruption or data loss. People have been living with this bug for months blissfully unaware and now all of a sudden people are reloading their systems or defragging it to restore performance instead of waiting another couple of weeks for a fix.
 
TridenT

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
Yeah, I'm having this issue too. 250GB Samsung 840 EVO. Sucks. I'm copying 13GB of pictures at balls slow 20Megabytes/s. It takes a second for each photo. I just realized my drive was kinda full and I needed to transfer some stuff over. Looked at the PCPer video about the issue and was like, "Maybe I'm not crazy for thinking things have been loading slow lately..." I'm going to try the MyDefrag read/write whole drive option.

It's so stupid and crazy. When I copy them back to my Samsung 840 EVO from my Western Digital 1TB GP HDD, 65-70MB/s read speeds. It's slower than a 6+ year old first gen 1TB 5400RPM hard drive! D:
 
BonzaiDuck

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,326
1,887
126
I've got the "Pro," but I'm glad I take periodic clones to hard disk.

Who knows what might happen later on? So FAR!! Everything seems to be tip-top!
 
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