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.

[MMill20]

It has been 8 months since I posted here about this issue. This computer has seen light use, so the total writes are not high, but the write amplification is.

Look at this most recent interval I observed:

Host Writes: 316.66

NAND Writes: 1058

Now ~2 hours later:

Host Writes: 316.75

NAND Writes: 1070

Here are some of my numbers from a while ago when I was tracking this more regularly:

162.41

523

163.22

527

163.88

535

165.28

540

166.72

548

170.41

582

You get the idea. The write amplification can be huge during non write heavy use, occasional large 'actual' writes obfuscate the issue somewhat.

I have all but given up hope that this will be fixed, but it is good to see some recent activity here.

[VPety]

Hi Jonnie,

I'm also not experienced in windows scripting. Maybe some of windows power users could do that. There are two important notes about the script: 1) it must read small file directly from drive, i.e. without OS caching; 2) it must read a small amount of data quite often, in my case it reads 512 bytes 8 times per sesond.

And I'd like to repeat my question: is there any possibility to disable DevSleep feature?

[Jose_H_Intel1]

We are still investigating.

We appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime.

[idata]

Hello Joe@Intel,

Any news on your investigation?

I my case (240GB 530), after 1 year, it reports 4.5TB host writes and 19.3TB NAND writes

Thanks

[jbenavides]

Hello,

The difference you noticed is referred to as "write amplification". This is 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 Series have built-in features to minimize the write amplification factor (WAF), in your case, it is approximately 4 to 1. 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.

For more information, you can check the following documents:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/ssd-technology-terminology-guide.... http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/ssd-technology-terminology-guide....

http://www.flashmemorysummit.com/English/Collaterals/Proceedings/2011/20110810_T1B_Cox.pdf http://www.flashmemorysummit.com/English/Collaterals/Proceedings/2011/20110810_T1B_Cox.pdf