Decreased SSD Performance in Windows 10

As the title says, I've seen decreased performance in Windows 10 vs Windows 7 when it comes to my SSD. I was getting 38MB/s in 4K Random Reads in Crystal Disk Mark with Windows 7, but that's dropped to 29MB/s in Windows 10. Has anyone else seen the same trend? Any advice or experiences on which AHCI Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) driver to use for Windows 10 for best performance? The only Windows 10 RST driver appears to be a RAID driver, so I'm not using that one. I'm using 12.9.0.1001 RST driver, which I think is the latest AHCI driver on the Intel website. The system doesn't seem slow though with Windows 10, but I would like to see 4K performance increase back up to the 38MB/s that it used to be under Windows 7.

EDIT: I tried uninstalling RST and using a Microsoft driver that was installed automatically, but 4K performance was even worse.

 

A 4K 'score' in a synthetic benchmark is not 4K performance.

If you do not see a slow down in actual use, I would tend to ignore the synthetic 'scores' that bm's provide.

 

Thanks for the reply. How come CrystalDiskMark 4K random performance is not indicative of real world performance of an OS? I thought I always read that 4K random read performance was a good indication of how snappy an SSD might perform in a typical OS environment. Yep, I'm not worried about the fact that the score is lower in Windows 10 because it still feels fast in the OS, but I just want to try & maximise the SSD performance if I can, given that the 4K read seems to be so low in Windows 10.

 

Any benchmark is not indicative of real world performance because it can (and will) be gamed, biased and have it's own built in weaknesses and assumptions of what is what and who is who in the real world of how any component is actually used.

Is this an upgrade to Win10 or a clean install?

What SSD is this and how is it used? How was it setup (clean install or cloned)? And, is it OP'd?

 

robbo99999, try running Intel driver update utility , and it would be great if you answer tilleroftheearth's questions . I would also add that benchmarks role in diagnosing software problems, notably driver issues, is not to be underestimated.

 

4k read/write is more about iops. Unbuffered iops is about how responsive the OS feels and/or transferring allot of small files. At 29mbs you are unlikely to notice a difference.

 

which ssd or pcie ssd has the best 4k or iops performance? just wondering because i do a ton of heavy workloads with video editing and having multiple programs open with a ton of different high quality video clips. some people say to use multiple drives for cache, project, and export, but i'd rather just do everything on the same drive so 4k matters the most

 

It's the 840 Evo SSD in my sig, it's the same one I used for Windows 7. I did an in-place update that failed, so I had to do a Reset using the Windows 10 USB installation media - this worked fine, and I did a sfc scannow, which left some Microsoft Edge Hash Mismatches unresolved - a google suggested that this was expected with Windows 10 & was ok. OP'd amount is the same as it was in Windows 7, just under 10% - I have increased this to 12% a few days ago when I read that it can improve IOPS. I know you often suggest something like a 35% OP, but I don't have the space for that. My main point is that it was fine under Windows 7 for 4K random reads, but has decreased under Windows 10.

Thanks, I ran that and then it told me it's already run that program before - I'd forgotten I'd run this shortly after installing Windows 10.

Yeah, I'm not losing any sleep over it, just seeing if I can optimise it back up to 38MB/s again for 4K reads.

 

While I agree that benchmarks aren't always reliable and can be gamed, it's a larger dip in performance (even on a synthetic) than I would have expected from an OS upgrade. Like Robbo99999 I can't help but wonder if something else is up. If you have access to imaging software and can safely do so, it would be interesting to see if a clean install (unless that's what you meant by reset) would make any difference.

OPing helps in that your SSD can write new data without having to first erase an old cell (it has a known pile of empty cells to write to). It's possible that performing an OS upgrade and reset afterwards (far more writes than you'd normally perform) means that your SSD was still TRIMing out cells to be deleted and you might see better performance if you were to test later. I'm not an SSD expert though and I don't have a sense of how long it takes to settle after a period of unexpected extensive writes. Hopefully one of the experts that's already posted in this thread can clarify.

 

Thanks for the response, it's a good idea of yours to try a clean install & I can do a Macrium Reflect image back up to restore everything to it's current state if I want. I ran the Crystal Disk Mark just now to see if my SSD had recovered from the abuse it received during the Windows 10 upgrade & subsequent Reset (not clean install) - it's the same 29MB/s, so my SSD had recovered previously when I ran it a number of days ago too.

I'd like to hear from other people who have upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 - have you noticed a significant reduction in 4K performance (Crystal Disk Mark)?

 

Sheer curiosity on my end: how do your HD Tune scores/graphs compare?

The reason for this question? For the very short period of time that I had W10 running on one of my machines, HD Tune graphs were outright horrendous, yet the machine felt quite snappy. The graphs were so bad that I thought - until I reverted to W7 - that the SSD itself was going haywire, but that was not the case.

 

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with my SSD, I'm thinking there might be something 'wrong' with Windows 10, in as much as it's giving low benchmark 4K Read scores - and like you I'm not finding Win 10 slow at all. I don't have HD Tune, but ran some other benchmarks: AS SSD Benchmark, and Anvil Benchmark, they were both slower at about 23MB/s (6100iops) (Crystal Disk Mark was 29MB/s). I'm messing with different Throttlestop versions now and the C3 Autodemotion settings on it. (I briefly saw 37MB/s for Crystal Disk Mark 4K testing just now - I think Windows 10 and the CPU power is not being used effectively for 4K random - testing with new Throttlestop version now).

EDIT: Tested with a newer version of Throttlestop version 6 rather than version 4, and toggled the AutoDemotion settings off & back on again, getting about 32MB/s in 4K Crystal Disk Mark now, not quite the 38MB/s I was seeing with Windows 7. I think it's a Windows 10 CPU power thing - I noticed the best individual 4K test results were seen when there was a higher momentary blip in CPU usage - I just don't think it's making proper usage of my CPU resources to drive the SSD in the 4K tests - that's my hunch. I think we need a new AHCI Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver for Windows 10, I don't think the current one is working very well.

 

It is a bit of a nuisance to image, clean install, test, go back, etc, so I wanted to say we all appreciate you doing so. It's great that everything still feels snappy, but it's worth keeping an eye on. It might run all that much smoother when a new IRST driver is released. I'm sure for most people it's frustrating (for good reason), but I tend to enjoy the experimentation process that comes with a new OS.

It's good that you re-ran the test as well, my original guess regarding the drive still clearing up cells was likely incorrect.

 

The reason why I like HD Tune - which is a freeware for a test run - is the fact that it shows consistency of the drive itself once you learn how to read it which is not all that difficult. I'd love to know what you'd come up with when you have 15 minutes to spare for downloading and running it.

That thought has crossed my mind as well. Furthermore, my test system was running 10 degrees C hotter at idle without any reason that I was able to pinpoint.

Very good train of thoughts. I'm honestly surprised that this hasn't gotten more of a mention amongst all the other - mostly well-deserved IMO - rage against W10.

 

The fix is so simple. Just go back to Windows 7 and let other people beta test Windows 10 for now.

 

Oh I've done exactly that. The curiosity - however - is still killing this old cat on several aspects including the ludicrous HD Tune performance graphs that I've seen in W10.

 

As previously postulated, it probably has something to do with Windows 10 wonky CPU utilization. Over on the benchmarking side, Fox and I know that the physics performance is down, in some cases worse than Windows 8, and we have no idea why/what changed in the kernel to do this.


What is certain is that Windows 10, like Windows 8 before it, is a half baked product that is sickening a lot of computers.

 

Ah, I haven't tried doing the clean install yet - as you say it's a bit of pain to do so - I might try doing that when I feel like tinkering with it for an extended period of time, and I'll report back here again with results if I ever do that. For the moment I'm holding out for an AHCI Windows 10 Intel Rapid Storage Driver being released.

 

I'll try running HDTune later and will update this post with the results. I don't have Windows 7 results to compare against though for HDTune. I do have a vague recollection that I ran HDTune once on Windows 7 (and then deleted it) - I think I got wonky results with it, and when I researched it I think I concluded that it's an old program that somehow is no longer fully compatible and causing issues (or was that HDTach?!).

EDIT: Ran HDTune Benchmark at 8MB block size: got 513MB/s average. There's nothing wrong with Sequential Reads in Windows 10 on my SSD anyway (although slightly decreased). It's the 4K Random Reads that are low. Bring on a new Windows 10 AHCI Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver I say! Although I'm skeptical that if a Windows 10 AHCI driver is released that it won't support older chipsets like the 6 series that I'm using - so wouldn't be any use anyway! It's not something that's gonna make me move from Windows 10 though, because it's only 32MB/s vs 38MB/s for 4K reads & it still feels snappy - just wish that they could retain the efficiencies of a previous OS when upgrading to a new one!

 

Ended up here after a search encountering similar issues with a Samsung 840 EVO on Windows 10.
It ran well after installing Windows 10 but in the last few weeks stuff like GTA V started to behave oddly, seeing issues with textures taking ages to load.

I swapped the drive for an 850 PRO but still see reduced performance figures in CDM, Samsung Magician and HD Tune..

CDM


Samsung Magician


HD Tune


Something's definitely not right somewhere!

 

Yeah, that's very slow indeed! And that's the 850 Pro right? Samsung Magician isn't compatible with Windows 10 yet, so I would go ahead and uninstall Magician - you might have been able to get it to work with an older version of Magician that some people have tried, but perhaps incompatibilities with Magician are causing you problems, I'd uninstall that. HDTune is also an unreliable test I think, or try it at 8MB block size. What's your system, your laptop?

 

Indeed. Those numbers/graphs are pretty horrible.

 

Roll back from Windows 10. Best Answer Of The Year.

You were busted with your pr0n? Your cat pisses in your shoes? Your wife cheated you with a bum? Roll back from Windows 10!
It might not fully resolve your problems but it's minus one small irritation when you are extremely vulnerable to those due to bigger ones.
And it won't spy you when you browse for "buy a gun" to shoot monitor/cat/bum.

 

HAHAHA so true Win 10 sucks!

 

Think @Mr. Fox tested Win 10 and got worse ssd performance in benchmak tests than with Win 7 and 8. The same results also for @Matrix Leader with his AW18 and Win 10. There are not many bench tests Win 10 win over previously Win 7/8 .

 

Spying us is performance demanded task. MS had indeed to work hard to find best optimizations for fine tuned kernel about what they wrote in every marketing material. Except they didn't tell they spoiledused all gains and plus some more for injecting total spyware so people wouldn't notice performance drop in everyday tasks.

 

It is impossible to optimize a new OS for good performance when the programmer must think more about the main target for the operating system... Everyone should understand this. Has anyone been given something that is for free and works excellent without giving anything back? The main goal is Win STORE.