Extremely slow SSD in Surface Book

So what should we do. Since this seems to be a common problem, maybe this is nominally defective so getting a replacement won't help. Really need an official answer.

OK, we've been investigating this issue for a few days now, but I'm too tired to write it all up. Anandtech will be mentioning this issue in their review.

You guys should make sure Search Indexing is completed/paused when you run tests. Search for "Indexing Options" -> make sure it says "Indexing complete". If not, hit Pause. Then, re-run the tests. SI runs like wild for the first few days of getting a computer and will muck up any SSD performance tests.

But, actually, there are some serious issues going on with the SSDs and it looks like hardware. The short version is that all of you have Samsung SSDs, the TLC-based PM951 drive. It's a really weak drive in terms of writes, especially the 128GB model. A spinning hard disk writes faster than the PM951 128GB--it's not software. Samsung rates it at only 150MB/s sequential writes.

We've got lots of evidence. I'm too tired to re-write it all--Anandtech will give a better report. But, just read these threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3r3dbi/the\_128gb\_surface\_pro\_4\_models\_use\_perhaps\_the/

http://www.overclock.net/t/1578968/reddit-ms-surface-book-ssds-use-samsung-tlc-terrible-write-performance/0\_30

http://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-surface-book/390898-nvme-ssd-very-slow-write-speeds.html

OK, maybe I'll just copy what I wrote in an earlier thread.

128GB PM951 ($1500 Surface Book)

Sequential read: 600MB/s

Sequential write: 150MB/s

Random read: 140K IOPS

Random write: 37K IOPS

256GB PM951 ($1700, $1900, and $2100 Surface Book)

Sequential read: 1000MB/s

Sequential write: 280MB/s

Random read: 250K IOPS

Random write: 74K IOPS

512GB PM951 ($2700 Surface Book)

Sequential read: 1050MB/s

Sequential write: 560MB/s

Random read: 250K IOPS

Random write: 144K IOPS

OP, just like ttsoldier mentioned, you're experiencing the normal performance of the 128GB PM951.

I don't understand why Microsoft would offer this drive in a $1500 notebook; this 128GB drive has the slowest sequential writes that I have seen of any SSD in the past four years. Literally, spinning hard disks write faster than this drive. That 6TB spinning disk writes @ 215MB/s.

You know what's most aggravating? There are much faster 128GB SSDs (all non-NVMe) that have been available for years. Sure, in any one line of SSDs, the 128GB model is the slowest (or whatever the lowest capacity is). But, in general--128GB SSDs can hold their own. Just not this one.

But, I suspect Microsoft didn't expect users of the lowest-end model to really be copying lots of files (even though they paid $1500 for their system). Honestly, though, this SSD is an embarrassment to 2015 SSDs and a bad mark on PCIe NVMe drives.

To make it even worse, this uses TLC NAND from Samsung. I still haven't forgiven Samsung for the issues they caused in the 840 EVO and the 840 (which, I think, is still unpatched). I don't know if it's the exactly the same NAND, but Anandtech wrote this earlier this year:

At the heart of the issue was the drive’s relatively uncommon 19nm TLC NAND, which given the combination of small feature size and tighter requirements of TLC, eventually resulted in the drive having to slow down and re-read cells to properly read the charge-decayed cells....

Ultimately Samsung’s second fix is a bit of a brute force solution to the problem, but at this point there doesn’t seem to be anything Samsung can do about 19nm TLC cell charge decay other than to refresh the data, as the problem is intrinsic to the NAND itself.

Dang, Microsoft: this is the NAND you chose to put in your $1500 laptop? I hope they got crazy strong assurances from Samsung that this won't be happening in their premier 2015 laptop.

And, to make matters worse, it's the sequential write speeds that are weak. You know, exactly the speeds to degrade over time when the drive gets more full.

But, as always, Microsoft is happy to charge you $2/GB (roughly) to upgrade your Samsung TLC SSD to another Samsung TLC SSD.

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In the end, most users won't notice or care. But, Microsoft...in their reveal...literally edits Adobe Premier Pro on stage and raves about how fast movie files copy from the external hard drive.

It's a shame that they decided to put such bad storage in "Ultimate" laptop.

its funny surface pro 3 faster than surface book