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
    2014-11-08T15:28:32+00:00

    That is an outstanding catch -- thanks.  Never occurred to me.  A TRIM program must be run against the full drive (although I'd settle for the big standard Windows C partition) notifying the drive of all idle space on the drive.  Otherwise (and I'd guess that ctitanic's graph above shows this) the drive will see as TRIMmed space only the areas occupied by files that are deleted subsequent to the DiskFresh.  So I too, like ctitanic, would like to learn the specific manner in which you accomplished the TRIM.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-11-08T14:00:47+00:00

    Sorry I should have been more clear, I ran an "Optimise Drive" from the drive optimisation dialogue (previously the defrag dialogue). I'm guessing when DiskFresh runs, it bypasses the standard filesystem stack and reads/writes the entire drive block by block without being aware of the actual contents of the drive. Therefore, no TRIM commands are sent to the drive, so from the drive's perspective the entire drive appears to be in use. Optimising the drive sends TRIM commands to renotify the drive of which parts of the drive are in use and which are free space, so its wear levelling algorithm can function properly. It appears to also make a big difference to the read speed of the free space regions.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-11-08T13:37:31+00:00

    Sorry I should have been more clear, I ran an "Optimise Drive" from the drive optimisation dialogue (previously the defrag dialogue). I'm guessing when DiskFresh runs, it bypasses the standard filesystem stack and reads/writes the entire drive block by block without being aware of the actual contents of the drive. Therefore, no TRIM commands are sent to the drive, so from the drive's perspective the entire drive appears to be in use. Optimising the drive sends TRIM commands to renotify the drive of which parts of the drive are in use and which are free space, so its wear levelling algorithm can function properly. It appears to also make a big difference to the read speed of the free space regions.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-11-08T13:34:21+00:00

    This is how mine looks few weeks after the refresh.

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