Extremely slow SSD in Surface Book

Anonymous
2015-10-27T23:45:14+00:00

I am experiencing very poor SSD writing performance in my Surface Book. It's i5 dGPU 8GB RAM and 256GB storage model. Installing applications and copying files have been really slow. Windows 10 is updated to the latest. Has anyone having the same?

Disabling BitLocker slightly helped (10~20%) but not very much.  

Surface | Surface Book | Performance and maintenance

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-17T17:29:53+00:00

    Has this issue been resolved? Any official response from Microsoft?

    It seems that the Toshiba Hard Drives are faster - is this right?

    Is 512GB the best option for optimum write-speed?

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-11-17T17:33:43+00:00

    It won't be resolved since this is Microsoft's poor choice of hardware in their premium machine.

    For more information, read the review from Anandtech where they explain what happened.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-11-18T00:47:01+00:00

    I was having the exact problem as OP in the morning, with virtually the same excruciatingly slow 4K write, but rebooted and reran the benchmark and got something a bit more sensible:

    This specified symptom may not be a hardware issue per-se, but something in the drivers or firmware. On i5/8GB/dGPU/256GB model.

    Microsoft have definitely jibbed us with the PM951 bait and switch (definitely should have been a SM950 level) but the slow write speed issue seems intermittent.

    If it keeps happening, sending it back, which would be a great disappointment because it is a great piece of hardware otherwise.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-01T04:54:41+00:00

    I was having the same issue BUT I found the solution!  You should install the Samsung NVM Express Controller.  I doubled my write speed to 264MB/s and 96.84MB/S for 4K write. 

    Download here: http://ssd.samsungsemi.com/ecomobile/ssd/update15.do?fname=/Samsung_NVMExpress_Driver_rev10.zip

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-12-03T23:20:57+00:00

    I was having the same issue BUT I found the solution!  You should install the Samsung NVM Express Controller.  I doubled my write speed to 264MB/s and 96.84MB/S for 4K write. 

    Download here: http://ssd.samsungsemi.com/ecomobile/ssd/update15.do?fname=/Samsung_NVMExpress_Driver_rev10.zip

    Thanks JoshuaManns. This seems to have worked for me. Was seeing 0.8 MB/s 4K writes before, but now I'm seeing 75.18 MB/s. Still nothing close to my 1TB Intel 750 in my desktop, but it shall suffice.

    Is there any issue with going out and buying a better NVMe SSD, or is there a lack of hardware or software compatibility for some reason?

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