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Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with Intel processors => X99 Motherboards => Topic started by: kozak79 on November 03, 2015, 05:41:26 am

Title: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: kozak79 on November 03, 2015, 05:41:26 am: So I got the new Samsung 950 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD, Popped it into the M.2 Slot and ran a benchmark:

Sequential Read : 835.475 MB/s
Sequential Write : 726.472 MB/s

Drive rated to:

Sequential Read : 2,500 MB/s
Sequential Write : 1,500 MB/s

Is this a limitation of the X99 chipset or this particular board (GA-X99-UD3)?
Title: Re: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: Aladin on November 03, 2015, 11:54:56 am: Well, the product page states up to 10 Gb/s (max) which is 1.25GB/s or 1250 MB/s.
You're not that far, your confusion is probably coming from bytes (B) and bits (b), 1 byte is 8 bits. Marketing communication tend to prefer "bigger" numbers.

Some other brand of motherboards claim to have up to 32Gb/s with M.2 which would not be the bottleneck.
Title: Re: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: kozak79 on November 03, 2015, 12:06:03 pm: When I check the Samsung Magician Utility, it shows that M.2 is using x2 out of x4 PCI-E lanes and is running at 5Gbps out of 10Gbps. Does this motherboard not support 4 pci-e lanes for M.2 drives?
Title: Re: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: absic on November 03, 2015, 07:51:23 pm: If you check the specs for this motherboard the M2 slot is rated as PCIx2/1, that is why you are getting the speeds that you are.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5138#sp

If you want the M2 card to run at its full speed then you could invest in a PCI M2 adaptor card that plugs into one of the PCI slots on the motherboard.
Title: Re: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: kozak79 on November 03, 2015, 09:48:08 pm: Quote from: absic on November 03, 2015, 07:51:23 pm
If you check the specs for this motherboard the M2 slot is rated as PCIx2/1, that is why you are getting the speeds that you are.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5138#sp

If you want the M2 card to run at its full speed then you could invest in a PCI M2 adaptor card that plugs into one of the PCI slots on the motherboard.

Thanks, wasn't sure if it was limited to just 2 lanes. Ordered a Pci to M2 adaptor.
Title: Re: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: kozak79 on November 16, 2015, 02:36:00 pm: Just an update... I bought the Lycom M.2 to PCI-E 4x Adapter and am now getting:

Read: 2602 MB/s
Write: 1535 MB/s

I just wish the M.2 Port on the motherboard was 4x so I didn't have to get an extra adapter.
Title: Re: X99-UD3 M.2 Samsung 950 Pro Slow performance
Post by: trading10 on December 21, 2015, 04:12:54 am: Quote from: kozak79 on November 16, 2015, 02:36:00 pm
Just an update... I bought the Lycom M.2 to PCI-E 4x Adapter and am now getting:

Read: 2602 MB/s
Write: 1535 MB/s

I just wish the M.2 Port on the motherboard was 4x so I didn't have to get an extra adapter.

I got the Samsung 950 pro working (sort of) as my system drive using the same PCIe adapter in a 4x slot,and Magician reports the same as your system - 5Gbps of a max of 10Gbps and running as x2.

My system is a Dell Optiplex 7020 running windows 7 Enterprise 64bit, which only has 1 16x PCIe and 1 4x slot. The 16x is occupied by the video card.

I would like to know if you found out why yours reports getting half of the max shown in Magician. X2 instead of x4.

PS. For anyone interested, I say 'sort of' working because I get a 'no hard drive found' warning during POST that pauses until you press F1 to continue, and then Windows 7 loads fine. I could only get windows to install by disabling UEFI boot mode in the BIOS. Drive is partioned as GPT. Samsung NVMe drivers were needed during the windows 7 install before it would recognize the drive.