Here is my PC situation. The motherboard is an ASUS Prime B450M-A II. The storage posts are one M.2 socket 3 and four  SATA 6Gb/s ports provided by the B450 chipset. On the motherboard, there are SATA6G 5/6 ports, but they share bandwidth with the M.2 slot.

So, I installed Samsung 970 EVO Plus on the M.2 slot for the OS and system. Then, I can use only four SATA ports for my Blueray Bunner, two WD HDDs, and one Crucial SDD.

I still have a Crucial SDD I want to install on my PC.

I am looking at the chance of converting PCIe to SATA. I know there are some products that work on it.

I ordered on AliExpress. It took about ten days to my front door.

$10.99.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the motherboard has one PCIe3 x16 and two PCIe2x1. It limited my choice to hunting the SATA adapter. I have to look for the PCIe2.0x1 to SATA adapter.

I open the PC case. Insert it into the PCIe 2.0×1 slot. Connect the SATA data cable. Connect the power cable.

 The next picture includes all the drives in the PC.

I believe that the adapter is powered by the Asmedia ASM1061 chip.

When I power on the PC, I don’t need to install anything.  Windows 11 finds the driver automatically.

The SSD connected to the SATA adapter is Crucial MX100 256GB, which I bought ten years ago. Let me run an AS SSD Benchmark test.

I tested another Crucial SSD which connects to the motherboard directly. Crucial BX200 240GB, which I bought eight years ago.

The score is very close.

I am happy with this eleven-dollar upgrade. It gives me an option to use my old computer parts.

The post PCIe to SATA adapter appeared first on David Yin's Blog.

The highlight part of the back is 5 YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY. I like it.

It looks the same as the 250GB one I bought 5 years ago.

Here are a few features of the SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2 2280 1TB.

• PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4, NVMe 1.3 (My PC interface is PCIe Gen 3.)
  
• Cache: Samsung 1GB Low Power DDR4 SDRAM
• Garbage Collection: Auto Garbage Collection Algorithm
• Warranty: 5-Year Limited Warrantyor 600 TBW Limited Warranty

And the performance is announced as below:

Sequential Read
Up to 3,500 MB/s
Sequential Write
Up to 3,300 MB/s
Random Read (4KB, QD32)
Up to 600,000 IOPS
Random Write (4KB, QD32)
Up to 550,000 IOPS
Random Read (4KB, QD1)
Up to 19,000 IOPS
Random Write (4KB, QD1)
Up to 60,000 IOPS

I just did a test with AS SSD software.

The result is based on Windows 11 Pro 23H2, and Samsung SSD Driver.

Another test is based on CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4c.

This result looks more match to the official performance info.

I will have another post about how to replace the M.2 SSD on a single M.2 slot motherboard without reinstalling the OS.

The post Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB appeared first on David Yin's Blog.

I replaced the original WD WD10SPZX 1TB 2.5″ HDD, which is way too slow when booting or using it on Windows 11. OK let me show you how the Crucial P2 NVMe 500GB SSD.

The price is US$39.99 on Amazon.com.

• Capacity: Up to 2TB with sequential reads or writes up to 2400MB/s/1900MB/s
• NVMe PCIe interface, marking the next step in storage innovation
• Includes SSD management software for performance optimization, data security, and firmware updates
• Backed by a limited 5-year warranty or up to the max endurance rating of 150 TBW

The above description is copied from the Amazon product listing page.

Here are what I received and pictured.

Open the box and took inside out.

Let me show you the empty slot which Dell reserved for upgrading.

Installed the SSD into the slot.

After installing the new SSD and removing the old HDD. I made a fresh installation of Windows 11 on it. Then, I did the SSD performance test.

Actually, I did two rounds of tests. The first round used Microsoft’s generic Windows 11 in-box NVMe driver, stornvme.sys. The second round is to use Micron NVMe PCIe Controller driver, Micron is the mother company of Crucial. The driver is mtinvme.sys.

These two tests have very close test results. I think the generic driver is good enough.

The overall score is 2733.

The overall score is 2983.

Please be noticed that the reading speed is 1630MB/s. But the product description page said “sequential reads or writes up to 2400MB/s/1900MB/s“.

Why?

I did a lot of searches and found some posts on the computer hardware forums. They said the Dell Inspiron 15 has the limitation of the NVMe port. The maximum is 1800MB/s. Someone said because the laptop is running in GT2(I don’t understand it).

Anyway, there is no place to config or change the settings to make the NVMe get the Full Speed.

Now I would like to post more pictures of the installation and tests.

The post Crucial P2 NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB appeared first on David Yin's Blog.

Now, after the update, I did the test again and see the difference.

First, the firmware update notice is on the Samsung Magician software.

So now the Firmware of My Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe 250GB SSD is updated from 1B2QEXM7 to 2B2QEXM7.

The first test is run on the old AS SSD Benchmark 1.8.5636.37293. All others are the same as before.

It looks like the performance is decreased so much. It is 2025. Last time I test it, it is 3178.

OK. I run the test on AS SSD Benchmark the V2.0.6812.41776. It is 3384. It was 3632 before. No much difference.

Then I go to the Samsung official Support site. Found the NVMe driver has a newer version. I was using 3.0. Now it is 3.3. I download it and install it. Then restart the PC. Install the latest AS SSD 2.0.7316.34247

Run the test again.

I can tell the AS SSD Score is dropped by about 20%.

Right now, I can not feel the difference, but the testing tells the big changes.

Before I end this post. I closed most of the windows on my PC, except 2 Firefox Browser. Re-run the test again. It is better now.

Now the performance is dropped by 12%.  The most of difference is contributed by 4K read and write.

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After I installed the new Samsung SSD and migrate the system disk to it. The default NVMe driver is Windows 10 builtin driver.

Microsoft Standard NVM Express Controller

Driver version: 10.0.18362.1

Driver date: 6/21/2006

It can be confirmed on the Samsung Magician software. Under NVMe Driver, it shows Microsoft.

The test result based on AS SSD Benchmark 1.8.5636.37293.

The score is 3178.

Later I found AS SSD Benchmark has a new version. V2.0.6812.41776.

Then I run the test on the new AS SSD Benchmark software.

The score is 3632.

I did some research on the Internet. Tried to find any tips to optimization. I install the Samsung NVMe Controller instead of Microsoft one.

Samsung NVMe Controller

Driver version: 3.0.0.1802

Driver date: 2/12/2018

I downloaded it from the Samsung official support site.

I run the AS SSD Benchmark testing again on the new driver.

The result is a little bit of improvement.

The score is 3797. About 5% increase.

When I use my old Crucial MX100 250GB SSD, I also did the test. The benchmark is 723 only. The difference in score is huge. But in real-life use, I feel nothing almost.

I watched a lot of Youtube videos about side by side comparison on NVMe M.2 vs SSD vs HDD. Just forget the HDD. I mean just compare NVMe M.2 and SSD.

Even the AS SSD benchmarks are 3797 vs 723. The following facts are interesting.

• Boot time is hard to find the difference.
• Game launch test is almost the same fast.
• Copy big files to the same disk. NVMe M2 is faster than SSD.
• Video editing. NVMe M.2 is faster.

So my conclusion is that it is not really worth to upgrade a SATA SSD to an NVMe M.2 SSD. If you are doing an office job or playing small games on your desktop, keep using your old SSD.

The post AS SSD Benchmark Test on Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD appeared first on David Yin's Blog.

It is not always happened. Click OK. The result is  done.  But, there are some testing files left in the c:\AS-SSD-TEST42\ folder. You can delete them manually.

If it happened, you just need to run the execute file with Administrator right.

ps: The picture above is from the Internet.

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The testing tool is AS SSD Benchmark 1.9.5986.35387. It is latest one when I download it from the official site.

The result is not as good as I thought. I will check it later and see if it is any way can improve the performance.

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