Intel 660p NVMe 2TB - low 4k write/read on Dell 7490

[MMike20]

Hi,

I just installed Intel 660p NVMe 2TB in Dell 7490 and 4k write/read score is way below what I have seen in all reviews:

https://imgur.com/a/XcUzbvg

https://imgur.com/a/oivNLyY

https://imgur.com/a/XhN1cqp

According to reviews, I should get easly 50-60MB/s / 130-140MB/s - http://www.thessdreview.com/featured/intel-ssd-660p-m-2-nvme-ssd-review-1tb/3/

Laptop is set in BIOS at Raid On (instead of AHCI), the system is fresh, the drive is empty. I do tests on battery but I set Power Management to the highest setting, so I doubt that it is the reason.

I found some NVMe driver at Intel's webpage but this driver doesn`t see the disk at all even though 660p 2TB is on the support list LOL I installed Intel Rapid Storage drive but i didn`t change anything.

Thanks in advance for some advice.

[n_scott_pearson]

Are you planning to use RAID or Optane Caching? If not, you should not have RST enabled.

...S

[MMike20]

I have changed Raid On to AHCI in BIOS and installed fresh Windows 10 again. The same story. But since I have come across some topics where people said that they have got perfectly fine speeds in Safe Mode but half 4k in Normal Mode, I tried myself and it seems that in Safe Mode, the drive has got full speed:

Crystal Disk Mark in Windows Safe Mode:

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1981.152 MB/s

Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1910.724 MB/s

Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 😎 : 973.402 MB/s [ 237647.0 IOPS]

Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 😎 : 953.787 MB/s [ 232858.2 IOPS]

Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 286.274 MB/s [ 69891.1 IOPS]

Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 260.536 MB/s [ 63607.4 IOPS]

Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 55.741 MB/s [ 13608.6 IOPS]

Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 136.854 MB/s [ 33411.6 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [D: 0.0% (0.2/781.2 GiB)] (x4) [Interval=5 sec]

As you can see it`s spot on as per reviews. I checked AS SSD as well and is faster then in Normal Mode, it`s still off when comparing to reviews (it has still got less than 100MB/s 4k Write).

But going back to Normal Mode and 4k is again half speed...

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ssd-speed-halved-when-running-outside-of-safe-... - this guy, has got exactly the same problem with Intel drive, but with Samsung it works fine.

I have managed to install Intel NVME driver from Intel`s site but the score is even worse...

I am starting to regret this drive, there was Micron 1100 512GB SATA m2 installed in my laptop out of the box, and it had better 4k than this Intel NVMe.

[n_scott_pearson · Accepted solution]

I know that, in the Intel NUC products, this issue was fixed with a BIOS upgrade. Does Dell have a newer BIOS available? Have you asked Dell about this issue? The 660p Series SSDs do have a firmware upgrade available. Do you have this installed?

...S