Windows 10 Disk 600p Heavy Disk Queuing Issues

[JLock2]

I'm having some quite heavy disk queuing issues with my new 600p under Windows 10 Pro OEM.

Scenario 1:

- Running World of Warcraft in quite high settings

- Streaming FRAPS at 60fps in 2k res to disk (usually runs between 70-130mb/s)

- Once the file has hit around 16GB the issue arises

Scenario 2:

- Running Intel SSD Toolbox Full Diagnostic Scan (no errors from the scan)

Both Scenarios:

- Drive is primary disk

- No memory paging enabled

- No other applications running

- Bog standard install of Windows 10

System specifications:

- Intel m.2 600p 512GB

- Intel Core i7 6800k - Overclocked by 17% running at approximately 4Ghz

- Asus X99-A II, Intel X99

- 32GB (4x8GB) Corsair DDR4 PC4-25600 (3200) - Clocked at 2800

- NVIDIA GTX 1080

- 850W EVGA BQ, 80 PLUS Bronze

System Information:

- Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (Version 10.0.14393)

- Standard SATA AHCI Controller Driver 10.0.14393.206

- Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller 10.0.14393.351

- Standard NVM Express Controller 10.0.14393.206

System Tuner:

- No ready boost

- No Defragmenter- Superfetch/Prefetch - Feature is optimized

Drive Details:

- PCI + Subsystem Vendor: 8086

- Serial Number: Available if required

- Model Number: INTEL SSDPEKKW512G7

- Firmware Revision: PSF100C

- ... More available if required

I've spent most of tonight trying to diagnose the issue with little avail. I've spent about 5 hours Googling around and everything others have mentioned has simply not worked for me.

Side note: I'm a software engineer so if you need anything more technical please ask.

Thanks,

James

[idata]

JamesTheMage,

Great! I will go ahead and check all this information with our engineering team.

Please keep checking back, we'll update the thread as soon as we can.

Best regards,

Carlos A.

[JLock2]

Thanks, Carlos, but what's the usual response time for these issues?

I also want to note that I've completely wiped the computer down and done a fresh installed, but the issue persists.

[idata]

JamesTheMage,

We have checked with our additional resources, and they're recommending for you to check with http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/OEMs.html Asus* to see if the 600p has been validated for your motherboard. We have tested this drive with similar boards (but not your exact model, yet), and so far were unable to reproduce the issue.

It may also be good to ask them if your M.2 Slot shares it's PCIe* bandwidth with any other slots or devices. As it is not uncommon for motherboard manufacturers to compromise in this way, and in some configurations it can be quite a problem.

To discard the possibility of your drive itself being a defective unit, would it be at all possible for you to test this SSD on another motherboard?

Best regards,

Carlos A.

[JLock2]

Hey Carlos,

Thanks for the continued support. I've been in touch with ASUS who said they tested the board with the 600p and did not experience the issues I'm experiencing. Unfortunately, I don't have a spare board to hand which can support the 600p. Could you advise my next course of action? I have opened a support case with the company I purchased the drive from, but obviously it's hard to distinguish if the issue is being caused by the SSD or the Motherboard.

See attached for my conversation with ASUS.

Thanks,

James

[RJoha5]

This must be a known problem with the Intel 600p SSD. When the SLC cache on the 600p runs out (about 12GB on the 512GB) the drive becomes stupendously slow, like slower then an USB2 thumb drive. Why does the drive becomes slow? Because it needs to constantly copy from the SLC part of the drive to the TLC part and it seems like Intels implementation of TLC 3D NAND is super slow.

I have the 256GB version and saw this behavior when i downloaded a game from steam. Steam pre-allocates the space it needs so it doesnt run out of diskspace while downloading. When steam had allocated about half of the game the drive became really slow, and i saw this stuttery behavior in taskmanager.

quote from pc perspective (256GB)

After ~6GB of file creation, the 600p's SLC cache was saturated, and once that happened, it slipped into a stuttery behavior where short bursts of 300 MB/s were sprinkled among multiple seconds of very low (<20 MB/s) write speeds.</span>