Solved SSD benchmark better with OS installed?

antspants

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Halo Thar!

Wondering if you can advise. I recently bought 2 x Samsung 840 EVO's (250GB) 1 for the Win*.1 OS and one as a backup for the OS Restore Image.

I just did a benchmark (4 actually) after optimising the drives and noticed a big difference in the results.
The SSD with the OS resulted well (as far as I can see)

CDrive-SSD.PNG



The secondary (Empty at the time of benchmark) didn't fair as well as the OS drive.



Secondary-SSD.PNG



Do you think i'm neglecting something in Win 8.1? I treated both drives the same, bought them together, have been polite before violating them (bought them flowers and chocolate) Bios shows no difference.

Any ideas? Benchmark used was the native Samsung Magician latest build.
 

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Are both drives running at SATA3 speeds? Did you do the firmware upgrade before installing the OS?
 

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I went in search of firmware before installing, apparently none available, confirmed by Samsung software "Magician" As for the speeds, yeah as far as I can tell, 6gb's ports (Intel Z87 6Gb/s connectors as apposed to the ASMedia connectors)

I'm just getting used to this Maximus VI bios, nothing like ive ever seen before. Been 3 years since my last board.
 

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Are they both on the same Intel (shared) controller? If so, you could try moving the data drive to the ASMedia controller and see what happens. My uneducated guess is that when you test the OS it is not sharing but when you test the data drive, it is sharing. Also, your performance benchmarks are outstanding IMHO. I also thought there was a firmware update available for your model so do you have the specific model code available?
 

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Thanks 2cents. I also thought there was a firmware avail, so I read, but apparently not

Model MZ-7TE250

I shall try as you suggest later, my wife will beat me to death with my own computer if I wake her at this hour. (Thats her in my sig)

Id better ask, same controller? you mean physically or by configuration in bios? yeah, not sure, I cant see boot up, cant work out the bios yet to hide the logo on boot. It might say in the BIOS, cant check atm because im watching .. Im working
 

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    2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO (OS / Other)
    1 x Kingston 120G HyperX SSD (Swap)
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Intel and ASMedia port connections are shown in the image below for the Maximus VI mobo:

contr.jpg

More clear now? No guarantees but certainly worth a try.
 

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    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
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    Samsung 840 EVO
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So you mean controller as in port? each SSD I have has its own 6gB/s port, cdroms on ASMEdia as well as a couple of old Terrabyte HDD. Ill swap the secondary in the morn. Ill have to move a HDD as I have no ports left .

Very decent of you to help! I'll post back.

Thanks :D
 

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    Intel Core i7 4770K LGA1150
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    Asus Maximus VI Formula
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    Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 CMY32GX3M4A1866C9 1866MH
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    2 x Crappy GeForce GT 640 2GB DDR3
    Sound Card
    I haz lollies ..
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x LG / 2 x Samsung 21 Inch
    Screen Resolution
    Crispy
    Hard Drives
    2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO (OS / Other)
    1 x Kingston 120G HyperX SSD (Swap)
    3 x Seagate SATA III 2TB Barracuda (Data Drives)
    1 x Seagate SATA III 1TB Barracuda (Media to XBox)
    1 x W/Digital SATA II 300G VelociRaptor (Image)
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    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
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    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
So you mean controller as in port?

No. Each controller has a set of ports that can take X number of SATA connections:

The Intel SATA controller can take up to 6 SATA connections and the ASMedia SATA controller can take up to 4 SATA connections. More clear now?
 

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    Intel G2020
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    ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0
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    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
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    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
hmm it says EXT0BB0Q is the firmware online, magician says EXT0BB6Q and that its the latest?

firm.PNG

Theres actually 2 model codes on the box

One is a UPC Model MZ-7TE250
One is a EAN Model Code MZ-7TE250BW


cant see a manufacture date.

EDIT

Funny, on this page it says mine is the latest? Silly buggers

Samsung SSD (Solid State Drive) 840 series | Samsung SSD Website
 

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    Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 CMY32GX3M4A1866C9 1866MH
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    I haz lollies ..
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    2 x LG / 2 x Samsung 21 Inch
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    2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO (OS / Other)
    1 x Kingston 120G HyperX SSD (Swap)
    3 x Seagate SATA III 2TB Barracuda (Data Drives)
    1 x Seagate SATA III 1TB Barracuda (Media to XBox)
    1 x W/Digital SATA II 300G VelociRaptor (Image)
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Ill swap the secondary in the morn. Ill have to move a HDD as I have no ports left .

You mean everthing is occupied? All 6 Intel ports and all 4 ASMedia ports?. If so, I'm not sure I made such a great suggestion. In fact, it might make it slower depending on what's located where? It might be a better idea to tell me what is running on all 10 SATA ports before you go through the trouble of moving everything around...
 
Last edited:

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    Samsung 840 EVO
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    400w
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    57/11
hmm it says EXT0BB0Q is the firmware online, magician says EXT0BB6Q and that its the latest?

Maybe a typo? I wouldn't pursue it any further because it sounds like you are on the latest IMHO.
 

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    Samsung 840 EVO
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    57/11
I agree, don't mess with the Magician (lol)

As for the ports, yeah, I have a vast array of HDD that are occupying all the ports. They shall go to Drive heaven after my wife gets over my upgrade at which point I can grab some fast 3tb drives to replace all the 500gb slow ones that I've had for ... forever

It would be no problem to disconnect one from the ASMedia and try the SSD in it. Takes 1 min. I shall do it in an hour, currently having to finish some work. Although one would only assume that with one SSD on an intel 6Gb/s port, an identical drive on another 6Gb/s port would perform the same, if not better being that its basically empty.

Ill get on it.
 

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    2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO (OS / Other)
    1 x Kingston 120G HyperX SSD (Swap)
    3 x Seagate SATA III 2TB Barracuda (Data Drives)
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Although one would only assume that with one SSD on an intel 6Gb/s port, an identical drive on another 6Gb/s port would perform the same

Not necessarily so because all drives on the same controller are in a shared arrangement. So, your Intel controller must respond to all 6 drive activities and the same goes for your Asmedia contoller as well. Another difference is when you run the benchmark on the OS drive, only one drive is involved; however, when you run the benchmak on your data drive, two drives are involved (eg, the benchmark software on the OS drive is addressing the data drive). My feeling is/was, if they are both on a shared (busy) controller, that might have an effect on your benchmarking scores; however, if the data drive were moved to a less busy controller, it might improve your benchmarks.

I'm also concerned that you may have to make BIOS configuration changes when attempting to do this test because every port is full so that's why I said I might have made a mistake in suggesting this test because I definitely did not think you were using all 10 SATA ports. In summary, you might be better off to just leave it "as-is" because your benchmarks are already meeting the manufacturer's throughput on the data drive as well (I think). Also, I don't believe any improvement (if realized) will translate into anything you can realize (eg, notice) in your normal daily operations.
 

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    Samsung 840 EVO
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    400w
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    57/11
Further research reveals the benchmarking of your SSD model may produce varying results for specific reasons unknown at this time.

Read this article:
Samsung SSD Benchmarks [Solved] - Samsung SSD - Storage

Look at the significant differences noted in the Passmark Benchmarking results posted today for your SSD:

testscores.jpg

Note that the top score shows that particular SSD benchmarking 4+ times faster than the rest.

In summary, I think it might best best to do nothing at this point based on the article and the inconsistent benchmarks.


Good luck with your decision.

my2cents
 

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    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
    PSU
    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
I doubt you can see that performance drop by naked eye. Tests are not very reliable either because different type of SSD controllers handle compressible and un compressible files differently. Overall performance drop in everyday work, can be hampered by too many slow HDDs installed, noticed specially while searching and copying / moving files or when data for programs installed on SSD is placed somewhere else on the HDDs.
 

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@CountMike: Thank for chiming in on this issue!
@antspants: I have more information on why that one drive (in the previous image) appears to be 4x faster than the rest:

It has been reported that some benchmarking programs are unable to handle the proper benckmarking of the Samsung 840 series. This was originally reported by Passmark and has since been fixed with their latest benchmarking software release of 8.0.1030. Any earlier version could produce bogus/inflated test scores as shown in the image previously provided. Anyone interested in benchmarking their own Samsung 840 can download their latest (corrected) version here:

PassMark Performance Test download page

It has a 30 day full trial period so that should give one enough time to do a proper analysis,
 

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  • OS
    Windows 8.1
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    Intel G2020
    Motherboard
    ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0
    Memory
    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
    PSU
    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
The Samsung Magician Software (stock software with drives) benchmark of Non OS drive (As we talked about)
In an Intel Z87 and then in an ASMedia controller

comparison-NonOS.png

As for the bogas results, thanks guys, I'll have a read and try the latest Passmark out of interest. And get back here.
 

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  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
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    CPU
    Intel Core i7 4770K LGA1150
    Motherboard
    Asus Maximus VI Formula
    Memory
    Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 CMY32GX3M4A1866C9 1866MH
    Graphics Card(s)
    2 x Crappy GeForce GT 640 2GB DDR3
    Sound Card
    I haz lollies ..
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x LG / 2 x Samsung 21 Inch
    Screen Resolution
    Crispy
    Hard Drives
    2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO (OS / Other)
    1 x Kingston 120G HyperX SSD (Swap)
    3 x Seagate SATA III 2TB Barracuda (Data Drives)
    1 x Seagate SATA III 1TB Barracuda (Media to XBox)
    1 x W/Digital SATA II 300G VelociRaptor (Image)
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    This one time at band camp ...
Just don't test it to death, during speed tests a lot of writing is going on.
 

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    40/2 Mbps
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Yeah agreed, thanks Count. Ive only benchmarked as many times as the images ive shown. Thanks for the concern :)


EDIT
Holy crap, passmark is way over my head.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    0i812
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 4770K LGA1150
    Motherboard
    Asus Maximus VI Formula
    Memory
    Corsair 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 CMY32GX3M4A1866C9 1866MH
    Graphics Card(s)
    2 x Crappy GeForce GT 640 2GB DDR3
    Sound Card
    I haz lollies ..
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x LG / 2 x Samsung 21 Inch
    Screen Resolution
    Crispy
    Hard Drives
    2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO (OS / Other)
    1 x Kingston 120G HyperX SSD (Swap)
    3 x Seagate SATA III 2TB Barracuda (Data Drives)
    1 x Seagate SATA III 1TB Barracuda (Media to XBox)
    1 x W/Digital SATA II 300G VelociRaptor (Image)
    PSU
    Silverstone 1500w
    Case
    NZXT Phantom 820 White Full Tower
    Cooling
    Noctua NH-D14
    Keyboard
    Logitech G19
    Mouse
    Logitech G700 / Logitech T650 Touchpad Thingy
    Internet Speed
    ADSL 2+ (Australian version ... lol)
    Browser
    All of them
    Antivirus
    Nortons IS
    Other Info
    This one time at band camp ...
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