Intel SSD 530 NAND Write Problem

[fZhan14]

Hello, everyone:

I bought an Intel SSD 530 120G for my laptop several days ago. It worked well with the OS Win8.1 Pro x64.

When I paid attention to the NAND writes, something make me confused.

The situation is as follow:

The SSD with the OS is the first(primary) Disk, and the HDD is the second one. I have moved the cache of IE, chrome and Firefox to the Hard Drive using IE setting or mklink command, and verified it correctly. With the explorer working, the written data stream from cache is produced in the HDD partition theoretically, also I have got this conclusion through the System's Resource Monitor and the Diskmon from Microsoft website. When I cached several Movies embedded in any explorer without other operation separately, there are lots of written data traffic produced in the HDD partition, and just little data wrote in system disk(SSD), it's no doubt. Finally, each test(using one kind of explorer) improved less than 200Mb in Total Host Writes which is normal for system operating, but this process also consumed about 3Gb SSD's Total NAND writes in total in the CrystalDiskInfo 6.0.1. Also I have got the same result with the newly Intel SSD Toolbox, AIDA64 3.20 and CrystalDiskInfo 6.0.1. In fact, this written data traffic produced by explorer's cache in HDD is calculated into the SSD's total NAND writes.

Actually I'm not care of the SSD's wear, and I'm sure it couldn't reach the limited lifespan with normal usage until next generation product arrives. This accidental discovery confused me now, and the result above make me suspect the theory, Putting IE/Chrome or System cache into other medium/drive saving your SSD's wear.

Q:Here, I want to know what makes this strange condition happen, the drivers, system's bug, bad support for old mainboard, the system's setting&config or the special system log?

Testing condition:

Thinkpad R400(GM45 motherboard)/P8700/8Gb RAM/Intel 530 SSD+Hitachi 7k500/Intel 5300 AGN/Win 8.1 Pro X64 with the Win 8.1's Default config and drivers, except trunning the service Superfetch off mannually.

I could make sure the location of explorer cache(IE, Chrome, Firefox) in HDD, also the written data traffic in HDD, and the vast imprived NAND writes in SSD simultaneously.

Thanks for your help.

[AFíla]

Hello,

I have the same problem, my Intel 535 series 120 GB SSD was installed on 7.10.2015 and after nearly two months of use it has written to NAND more than 11,5 TB (see bellow) and health has dropped to 97%. The firmware revision is RG20, Intel Drive Toolbox is offering RG21_120 firmware revision. Is there any possibility to know, what is included in this new firmware version ? Will it solve too high NAND writes ? Thank you.

Ales

[jbenavides]

Hello ales.fila,

There are different aspects involved in your questions and the SSD data you provided, so I would like to address them and also take the opportunity to summarize some of information that has been mentioned in previous posts.

1. Write Amplication Factor

Your drive has around 4.2 TB of Total Host Writes, and 11.5 TB of Total NAND writes. In this case, the Write Amplification Factor is 2.7 which can be considered normal.

As you can see from previous posts, the WAF for these drives normally ranges between 1 or 4; and in some cases it may even reach 8 or 10 to 1.

Write amplification happens due to the nature of NAND flash memory, as a data block must be erased before new data can be written to it. This requires extra operations as data is moved, possibly more than once, when new data is written to the drive. This extra movement of data blocks may involve erases and writes to accommodate a single host write request.

The Intel® SSD 530 and Intel® SSD 535 Series have built-in features to minimize the write amplification factor (WAF). However, this can be higher or lower in different systems, since the WAF depends on the type of workload. In general, small random writes tend to create the largest write amplification values.

Running TRIM on the SSD may help reduce WAF; this is normally enabled by default on the file system with Microsoft® Windows 7 or later, but you can also use the Intel® SSD Optimizer from Intel® SSD toolbox to run TRIM "on demand".

Write amplification varies from system to system, and it can be reduced using external tools and workarounds as was mentioned by other users in this thread:

For more information about WAF, you can check the http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/ssd-technology-terminology-guide.... Intel® SSD Technology Terminology Guide, Page 17.

2. Total Host Writes and Health Status (Endurance)

The main thing we noticed in the log is that your drive has 4.2 TB of host writes. You mentioned that it was installed about 2 months ago (actual power on hours count is 213 hours); so, the amount of writes is exceeding the Endurance rating of this SSD, this will cause the expected useful life to be reduced significantly. This is confirmed with the Media Wearout Indicator, as it has decreased in 2 units (from 100 to 98). Still, the SMART attributes show that the drive is healthy as it does not have any errors that would relate to problems in the drive.

As noted in the http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/ssd-535-spec.html Intel® Solid-State Drive 535 Series (2.5-inch) Product Specification, page 12, the Intel® SSD 535 Series 56GB and 120GB will have a minimum of five years of useful life under client workloads with up to 20GB of host writes per day. The models with larger capacity (180GB, 240GB, 360GB, 480GB) are qualified to 40 GB of host writes per day. Also, you will find the description of each SMART attribute in pages 22-24 of the Product Specification.

We would like to add that the 535 is a consumer SSD, if you need a drive for Write intensive applications, you might want to consider a SATA drive from the http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/data-center-family.html Intel® SSD Data Center Family.

3. Firmware release notes

The list of changes included with new firmware versions can be found in the https://downloadmirror.intel.com/18363/eng/Intel_SSD_Firmware_Update_Tool_2.1.1_Release_Notes_328292... Intel® Solid State Drive Firmware Update Tool Release Notes. As you can see in page 6, the new firmare version RG21 does not include any improvements related to NAND Writes, however, it is strongly recommended to prevent unexpected behavior.

[TYan3]

https://ptpb.pw/IogR https://ptpb.pw/IogR

Seems I am lucky enough NOT to have the issue.

[TYan3]

Hmm I can actually see the issue occuring to me too now.

Apparently this has something to do with how the firmware and Windows work together, coz I'd been using this SSD with Linux only and judging by the number I don't think it happens to me with Linux. I started using it with Windows recently.

Attached are two pairs of screenshots of Crystal Disk Info. One is captured before I touch any setting, one is captured after I disabled TRIM according to this:

http://mywindowshub.com/check-enable-disable-ssd-trim-support-windows-10/ Check and Enable or Disable SSD TRIM Support in Windows 10 | MyWindowsHub

and completed a power cycle for that (see the power count).

You can see from the screenshots that each pair spans around 2 hours and there's no noticable Host Write (I completely idled my computer in the 4 hours, with network connection disabled). However, NAND Write increased at a rate of around 1GB/hr.

No idea what the write is actually for, or whether it is really NAND write or just somehow the count is being fiddled. But in any case it's unfortunate that Intel doesn't give a damn care about it (the original post is from 2013! ).

[AFíla]

Hello again, I can provide another disk of my collegue. He uses it for regullar office workload but NAND writes are horrible and health percentage is dropping by one per week. See screen (sorry for Czech interface). Is it still considered as normal behavior ? Thank you.