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
    2015-12-07T08:17:12+00:00

    iFixit has a tear down of the Surface Book and it looks like the SSD isn't soldered. It is a Samsung PM951 SSD in the model they tore down.

    Still not sure if it is actually replaceable, but looks like it may be.

    https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Book+Teardown/51972#s113703

    It's not soldered, but it'll be treacherous even opening up the Surface Book.

    All of you talking about AS-SSD: that's just a bug. AS-SSD has that bug WITH ALL NVMe SSDs IN WINDOWS 10. That is not the low performance we're talking about.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-06T07:24:54+00:00

    iFixit has a tear down of the Surface Book and it looks like the SSD isn't soldered. It is a Samsung PM951 SSD in the model they tore down.

    Still not sure if it is actually replaceable, but looks like it may be.

    https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Book+Teardown/51972#s113703

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-04T16:12:21+00:00

    Contact Microsoft and demand a replacement/repair. Do you have Complete Warranty? Even if you don't, they still will fix. Hardware is covered for a year anyways, right?

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-04T16:04:15+00:00

    I asked at the Microsoft Store whether it was possible to user-upgrade the SSD.  They said that it was not possible as the SSD is soldered in.  I'm not 100% sure that is correct, but maybe someone here knows.  Are both the RAM and the SSD soldered to the motherboard on the Surface Book?

    Also, is it even possible to open the case on the Surface Book?

    And, would there be any reason NOT to install that Samsung express driver?  Could it be incompatible with the Surface Book in any way?  Why wouldn't MS have used it initially if it makes such an improvement?

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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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