SP3 SSD, possible firmware bug, same as just fixed in another Samsung drive.

Anonymous
2014-10-20T22:49:51+00:00

I've just had to update the firmware in another device that had a Samsung 840EVO SSD because they had a serious firmware bug with it.  Out of curiosity I tested the Samsung drive in my Surface Pro 3 and it looks like it has exactly the same issue (the SP3 drive is closely related to the 840 series I believe, but an OEM version.

The test is simple, just look at the read rate across the drive.  Older data (OS, installed apps) suffered from terrible read performance after a month or so.  Newly written data is fine.

As you can see, much of the drive is down to 50MB/s now.  It should be a fairly level line right the way across at about 350+MB/s.  This test was run with AC power connected and nothing else running.

If this is the same issue as the 840EVO, the good news is it can be corrected with a firmware update and refresh of the data.  Bad news would of course be Microsoft need to look into it first, then get the Samsung engineers looking into it.

Perhaps some other people could run the test too, and post results.  Remember the drive needs to be a month or more old, so that the data can have been sitting there only being read during that time.

Further details of the bug and the fix that Samsung released can be found here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8617/samsung-releases-firmware-update-to-fix-the-ssd-840-evo-read-performance-bug

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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Anonymous
2015-09-30T22:01:46+00:00

Hello all

We wanted to let you know that an update to resolve this is still being worked on.  Please continue to post your experiences and technical details.

Mod Edit: Samsung SSD Optimization Utility for Surface Pro 3 now available.

Best regards

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-11-11T04:58:34+00:00

    SP3 128GB. Owned for almost two months.

    Prior to manual TRIM

     Post manual TRIM

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-11-11T22:25:19+00:00

    SP3 128GB. Owned for almost two months.

    Thanks!  But for anyone else please note that it is just the performance graph as your system currently is that is what we need to see.

    Doing an optimize or TRIM on it's own won't help since your system does that while in use anyway, every week and for every file you delete.  Also there is no need to run DiskFresh, unless you really want to.  The performance graphs before running that already seem to be clearly showing the problem I originally posted about is present and that is what we could do with more examples of.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-11-18T18:53:14+00:00

    Here's my surface i7 256gb I bought in August in Vancouver Canada

    Before

    After

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-11-20T14:41:39+00:00

    Here's my surface i7 256gb I bought in August in Vancouver Canada

    Thanks AnthonyYNg!

    Another great example of the performance being suspiciously low on a drive a few months old.

    Still no sign of any real interest from the Surface team.

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