Solved! Slot and compatibility confusion

[craftech]

I am a video editor.
I have tried researching this before buying and am getting nowhere.
MB - GA-Z97X-UD3H BIOS F7

i5-4690K OC to 4.2GHz

32GB DDR3 @667

EVGA GTX 900 in PCIeX16 slot

SIIG Firewire card in PCI slot

NOTE: *PCIeX8 shares with PCIEx16. PCIEx4 shares with PCIeX1. All PCI1 will be unavailable when PCIx4 is installed. Set BIOS to X4 if use PCIX4 card.

Intel SATA SSD 730 240GB in a SATA slot.

Three hard drives in SATA slots including slots 4 and 5
M.2 PCIe free

*Note: M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed. [You can only use one of these at a time]

OS Windows 7 Pro. UEFI
MY editing software will NOT run on Windows 10.

I would like to have either an NVMe Scratch Drive (working drive) for files I am editing in conjunction with my existing SSD SATA OS drive and then move them over to my hard drives for storage or reverse the two if I can boot from the NVMe which I don't think is possible'
But, it doesn't appear that the MB will recognize NVMe in slot M.2 only AHCI.
I think that leaves only a PCIe add-in card to hold the NVMe SSD, but the slot configuration confuses me.

Can any of you
1. Let me know if an add-in card will work in my setup and am I right to think they are pretty much all the same?
2. If my only option is a scratch or working drive NVMe (no boot drive NVMe) which one would give me the best throughput assuming my setup wouldn't limit it's potential?
Thanks,
John
Craftech Productions

 

[NewMaxx]

I installed the trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel and it doesn't show the Transfer Mode. Unless you have to may for the registration key first. NOt sure. Uninstalled it. I'll move the adapter around and get back. What about CSM in the BIOS with Windows 8 Features enabled?

Might be a Windows 7 limitation then. In HDS it would be under the Information tab for the drive, then under Properties it's listed as Negotiated Transfer Rate. Although I'm sure it's PCIe 2.0 x4. You'll see proper results in the faster slot.

 

[craftech]

Might be a Windows 7 limitation then. In HDS it would be under the Information tab for the drive, then under Properties it's listed as Negotiated Transfer Rate. Although I'm sure it's PCIe 2.0 x4. You'll see proper results in the faster slot.

I looked in the Device Manager and it lists it as a SCSI device. I copied the hardware ID list to the Crystal Disk Info ini file, but it still didn't show up. There is a lot to be said for a real device driver supplied by the manufacturer.

 

[NewMaxx]

I looked in the Device Manager and it lists it as a SCSI device. I copied the hardware ID list to the Crystal Disk Info ini file, but it still didn't show up. There is a lot to be said for a real device driver supplied by the manufacturer.

It's a pitfall of NVMe with Windows 7. The SSD's controller, which is what takes the driver, will be listed under Storage controllers in Device Manager, not Disk drives. I can assure you that the vast majority of drives use the Windows 10 stock driver without issue. NVMe is straight PCIe. SCSI is a separate way of interfacing, for example with enclosures or virtual disks, but I can understand the frustration.

In any case, your drive is performing as expected from what I see. Using the faster slot will get sequentials up to what are on the box.

 

[craftech]

It's a pitfall of NVMe with Windows 7. The SSD's controller, which is what takes the driver, will be listed under Storage controllers in Device Manager, not Disk drives. I can assure you that the vast majority of drives use the Windows 10 stock driver without issue. NVMe is straight PCIe. SCSI is a separate way of interfacing, for example with enclosures or virtual disks, but I can understand the frustration.

In any case, your drive is performing as expected from what I see. Using the faster slot will get sequentials up to what are on the box.

You were right(again). Here are the results after moving it to a GPU slot x8
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2018 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : https://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 3132.659 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 2973.076 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 895.984 MB/s [ 218746.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 812.221 MB/s [ 198296.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 737.944 MB/s [ 180162.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 689.367 MB/s [ 168302.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 56.345 MB/s [ 13756.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 366.351 MB/s [ 89441.2 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [V: 0.0% (0.1/953.9 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2020/01/18 17:28:04
OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

The random speeds (which I think are probably more important for rendering) went up to a point
where I think it will make a difference. Will try rendering a project I just did last week that took around
two and a half hours.
Thanks again NewMaxx
Regards,
John

 

[NewMaxx]

Going over the chipset will increase latency, so yes using CPU lanes instead will improve small I/O (4K) IOPS as well. The results look good to me.

 

[craftech]

Going over the chipset will increase latency, so yes using CPU lanes instead will improve small I/O (4K) IOPS as well. The results look good to me.

Estimated rendering time is around two and a half hours. Same as with the SSD OS drive to the hard drive last week Maybe it will increase. Four cores may be a limitation.
I'll experiment and if I get brave I'll clone my SSD OS drive to the NVMe and try it the other way around.

John

 

[NewMaxx]

Biggest gains will be seen with editing/scrubbing with the improved latency, bandwidth is generally not a huge limitation, and yes CPU performance remains the #1 bottleneck followed by DRAM (bandwidth + capacity).

 

[craftech]

Biggest gains will be seen with editing/scrubbing with the improved latency, bandwidth is generally not a huge limitation, and yes CPU performance remains the #1 bottleneck followed by DRAM (bandwidth + capacity).

Is there a utility to monitor throttling if it occurs from heat?
UPDATE: Estimated rendering time just fell to one and a half hours. It is rendering at 75% of real time. So far so good.

 

[NewMaxx]

Is there a utility to monitor throttling if it occurs from heat?

You can use Resource Monitor (built into Windows) to check disk usage. I doubt you're hitting its limits. Keep in mind, TLC-based drives are only fast for (relatively) short periods due to SLC caching and then fall to TLC speeds. It's pretty hard to throttle a drive like the Rocket because of that. Although in my opinion you're probably bottlenecked elsewhere, the 1TB Rocket has a steady state write performance around 1 GB/s which would be pretty extreme for consumer usage. (for example you might only need half of this for 4K+ according to LTT, which a fast SATA SSD can manage)

 

[craftech]

You can use Resource Monitor (built into Windows) to check disk usage. I doubt you're hitting its limits. Keep in mind, TLC-based drives are only fast for (relatively) short periods due to SLC caching and then fall to TLC speeds. It's pretty hard to throttle a drive like the Rocket because of that. Although in my opinion you're probably bottlenecked elsewhere, the 1TB Rocket has a steady state write performance around 1 GB/s which would be pretty extreme for consumer usage. (for example you might only need half of this for 4K+ according to LTT, which a fast SATA SSD can manage)

Maybe an MLC would have been better for video editing, but then again yesterday nothing worked in W7 at all so I don't want to sound spoiled. I've shaved nearly an hour off of a 2.5 hour rendering time. That's nothing to scoff at.

Forgot about Resource Monitor. Haven't used that since Windows XP. It certainly has improved. Thanks.
John

 

[NewMaxx]

MLC's generally overpriced. If you want a MLC-like drive with TLC, you're looking at the WD SN750, which is what I have for that actually. I got lucky with the $99 (1TB) deal at TD a bit ago but it's been on sale often lately. It has very consistent and fast TLC write speeds due to its overall design. The 970 EVO Plus can edge it out but costs way more. The 970 PRO (MLC) is generally not worth the cost. Next in line would be an E12 drive like the Rocket.

As for Resource Monitor and disk usage: disk usage is not a flat MB/s kind of thing. It's not even a flat maximum performance type of thing. To quickly elaborate: for example, writing tons of small (4K) files could have 100% drive usage at very low MB/s. Or if you're doing sustained writes outside the SLC cache, 1000 MB/s could be 100% drive usage even though the drive hits three times that within SLC (with it also saying 100%). For this reason if the drive is throttling it'll be pegged at 100%. My guess is you won't be at 100% though.

 

[craftech]

MLC's generally overpriced. If you want a MLC-like drive with TLC, you're looking at the WD SN750, which is what I have for that actually. I got lucky with the $99 (1TB) deal at TD a bit ago but it's been on sale often lately. It has very consistent and fast TLC write speeds due to its overall design. The 970 EVO Plus can edge it out but costs way more. The 970 PRO (MLC) is generally not worth the cost. Next in line would be an E12 drive like the Rocket.

As for Resource Monitor and disk usage: disk usage is not a flat MB/s kind of thing. It's not even a flat maximum performance type of thing. To quickly elaborate: for example, writing tons of small (4K) files could have 100% drive usage at very low MB/s. Or if you're doing sustained writes outside the SLC cache, 1000 MB/s could be 100% drive usage even though the drive hits three times that within SLC (with it also saying 100%). For this reason if the drive is throttling it'll be pegged at 100%. My guess is you won't be at 100% though.

Doesn't look like it is throttling. There is little or no activity on the C drive. The NVME drive is the only one that looks active with an average around 60% of the way up from 0, and peaks near but not quite reaching the top (Queue Length of .01)
CPU usage is at 100% for all four cores. Come to think of it when I was using XP with an earlier version of the editing program rendering pegged the four cores of that CPU at 100% as well.

 

[NewMaxx]

That sounds about right, yeah.

 

[craftech]

That sounds about right, yeah.

Sabrent has a Rocket Control panel and a Sector Size Converter Utility. I installed them both and neither utility can find the drive. "No Rocket Found".
That means no firmware update either if it becomes available.

 

[NewMaxx]

Sabrent has a Rocket Control panel and a Sector Size Converter Utility. I installed them both and neither utility can find the drive. "No Rocket Found".
That means no firmware update either if it becomes available.

Yeah, your device is basically in SCSI compatibility mode. I can't guarantee you a Samsung drive would be any better due to how the hotfix works; you can find threads where 970 EVOs are listed as SCSI under Windows 7 for example. Limitation of the OS.

I should say that you don't need to worry about firmware with these drives. The original update - 11.0 to 12.1 - did make for more consistent SLC performance. After that, there hasn't been any major changes. Newer drives will be on 22.x. This is fairly typical with NVMe drives. People who are used to older SSDs don't understand this - it's because NVMe devices by design follow a standard and you're dealing with a direct PCIe connection. Enterprise drives are an exception though.

As for the sector size converter - 512e or 4Kn are the options. 4Kn is technically superior but most drives still come as 512e (which has better compatibility). Keep in mind that these TLC drives tend to have 16KB page file sizes - smallest unit a SSD can write - and therefore this distinction is not really relevant.

 

[craftech]

Yeah, your device is basically in SCSI compatibility mode. I can't guarantee you a Samsung drive would be any better due to how the hotfix works; you can find threads where 970 EVOs are listed as SCSI under Windows 7 for example. Limitation of the OS.

I should say that you don't need to worry about firmware with these drives. The original update - 11.0 to 12.1 - did make for more consistent SLC performance. After that, there hasn't been any major changes. Newer drives will be on 22.x. This is fairly typical with NVMe drives. People who are used to older SSDs don't understand this - it's because NVMe devices by design follow a standard and you're dealing with a direct PCIe connection. Enterprise drives are an exception though.

As for the sector size converter - 512e or 4Kn are the options. 4Kn is technically superior but most drives still come as 512e (which has better compatibility). Keep in mind that these TLC drives tend to have 16KB page file sizes - smallest unit a SSD can write - and therefore this distinction is not really relevant.

What I read (from some Amazon customers) was that cloning failed with some of these drives because it uses (or used) 4k byte sectors and has no 512 byte emulation (512e). Then I read that they fixed it on newer ones, but they still provide the utility to convert it if you need it. Without the utility I don't know of any way to tell what it has if I decide to clone it.
I usually use Aomei Backupper Pro for all my drive clones and it always works. Instead of a backup I clone drives instead and put them away every few months. It does HDD to SSD no problem and vice versa. I don't know if it would run into an issue with the byte sector size so I would like to know what size my Sabrent is.

 

[NewMaxx]

Yes, the Rockets used to come in 4Kn. I contacted Sabrent over this and they brought out a conversion utility but also changed newer drives to 512e. This ONLY impacted cloning from 512/512e to the drive - it was still possible to backup data or image. I was also contacted by an Acronis rep who made sure to update their software to support it, EaseUS updated theirs, etc. I've had a relationship with this drive a long time... (like back to when the warranty was 1-year by default and after contacting them they changed to standard 5-year with reg)

Run msinfo30; go to Components, Storage, Disks; find the Rocket and divide bytes (Size) by Total Sectors. It'll be 512.

 

[craftech]

What I read was that cloning failed with some of these drives because it uses (or used) 4k byte sectors and has no 512 byte emulation (512e). Then I read that they fixed it, but they provide the utility to convert it. Without the utility I don't know of any way to tell what it has if I decide to clone it.
I usually use Aomei Backupper Pro for all my drive clones and it always works. Instead of a backup I clone drives instead and put them away every few months. It does HDD to SSD no problem and vice versa. I don't know if it would run into an issue with the byte sector size so I would like to know what size my Sabrent is.

Yes, the Rockets used to come in 4Kn. I contacted Sabrent over this and they brought out a conversion utility but also changed newer drives to 512e. This ONLY impacted cloning from 512/512e to the drive - it was still possible to backup data or image. I was also contacted by an Acronis rep who made sure to update their software to support it, EaseUS updated theirs, etc. I've had a relationship with this drive a long time... (like back to when the warranty was 1-year by default and after contacting them they changed to standard 5-year with reg)

Run msinfo30; go to Components, Storage, Disks; find the Rocket and divide bytes (Size) by Total Sectors. It'll be 512.

I ran msinfo32 and it clearly stated that Bytes/sector are 512. Great. I really like the page you have here: https://www.reddit.com/user/NewMaxx

1. I downloaded and ran Phison nvme flash id and id 2 , ran them, chose the drive number, and both issued an error of unable to identify+ possible incompatible driver. Does it only work with Windows 10? Or does the driver included in version 2 have to be installed first? And if so, is that the driver for the drive or the storage controller?

2. "Fernando" developed a generic Windows 7 digitally signed driver (OFA Generic NVMe Driver). Have you seen that page?

Recommended AHCI/RAID and NVMe Drivers

Preliminary notes: Many AHCI and RAID users are unsure or don’t even know, which AHCI/RAID driver will give them the best results regarding stability and performance. They either don’t have the time or are not interested to do intensive tests comparing the different types and versions of the...

www.win-raid.com

John

 

[NewMaxx]

I have my own subreddit over there as well (/r/NewMaxx) that covers anything flash-related. Still working on the Wiki for it.

1. You have to use the included driver. This driver is for the SSD's controller so it would appear under "Storage controllers" in Device Manager. Installing this manually can be a PITA because Windows won't want to install it, have to do it manually. That is: right-click the NVMe controller (generic), Properties, Driver tab, Update Driver, Browse, Let me pick, Have Disk, Browse, then point to the driver/inf. Never tried it on Windows 7.

2. I'm well aware of Fernando and his great work. The OFA generic NVMe driver is the same as provided with the VLO tool, feel free to use either one.

 

[craftech]

I have my own subreddit over there as well (/r/NewMaxx) that covers anything flash-related. Still working on the Wiki for it.

1. You have to use the included driver. This driver is for the SSD's controller so it would appear under "Storage controllers" in Device Manager. Installing this manually can be a PITA because Windows won't want to install it, have to do it manually. That is: right-click the NVMe controller (generic), Properties, Driver tab, Update Driver, Browse, Let me pick, Have Disk, Browse, then point to the driver/inf. Never tried it on Windows 7.

2. I'm well aware of Fernando and his great work. The OFA generic NVMe driver is the same as provided with the VLO tool, feel free to use either one.

Thanks. Keep up the great work on that website page. Tried the driver and the flash utility then it worked. THEN, I tried the Sabrent control panel and that saw the drive as well. Wait for this: I tried Crystal Disk Info and it saw the drive. [Transfer Mode: PCIe 3.0 x4 | PCIe 3.0 x4.]
I am one happy camper thanks to you. You have made my Sunday NewMaxx.
Regards,

John
EDIT: Crystal Disk Mark won't run on it now. Maybe it needs a reboot. No. Doesn't run. Tried ATTO and it took a long time to load. Results were really bad. HDDScan showed around 460,000KB/S for the NVMe and around the same for my SATA SSD. Crystal Disk Mark never loads no matter how long I wait.
You said the OFA generic driver is the same so I guess I have to roll back to the Windows driver.

 

[NewMaxx]

It's a generic driver, it's actually for Realtek, it will let you scan the drive but might not perform properly. I'm not aware of a Phison-specific driver. There's stornvme which is the Standard NVM Express Controller driver for Windows 7/8/10, Intel RST (Intel and some SMI drives), SMI, Samsung, and then the generic/OFA/Realtek. Haven't checked Marvell. The standard driver will perform normally but may not expose through SSD tools on Windows 7 (it does work on 8/8.1/10) due to the hotfix limitation.

And before you ask: yes, it's possible a manual/extracted install of other drives - Samsung, Intel, SMI-based, Realtek, and maybe Marvell - would work. Phison just happens not to have custom drivers because, again, NVMe is a standard, this is on Microsoft.

I think someone over at H had the same performance issues as you did with the OFA (on Windows 10 for him), I think he ended up removing the driver.

 

[craftech]

It's a generic driver, it's actually for Realtek, it will let you scan the drive but might not perform properly. I'm not aware of a Phison-specific driver. There's stornvme which is the Standard NVM Express Controller driver for Windows 7/8/10, Intel RST (Intel and some SMI drives), SMI, Samsung, and then the generic/OFA/Realtek. Haven't checked Marvell. The standard driver will perform normally but may not expose through SSD tools on Windows 7 (it does work on 8/8.1/10) due to the hotfix limitation.

And before you ask: yes, it's possible a manual/extracted install of other drives - Samsung, Intel, SMI-based, Realtek, and maybe Marvell - would work. Phison just happens not to have custom drivers because, again, NVMe is a standard, this is on Microsoft.

I think someone over at H had the same performance issues as you did with the OFA (on Windows 10 for him), I think he ended up removing the driver.

I updated the driver. Pointed to the Standard NVM Express Controller. Crystal Disk Mark still won't run. I rebooted. Same thing. Deleted it and extracted it again. Won't scan the drive. So I updated the driver back to the miniport driver again and uninstalled it (including all software). Rebooted. Windows found the Standard NVM Express Controller again, Crystal Disk Mark took forever to start and here are the results:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2018 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : https://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 73.899 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 7.576 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 25.177 MB/s [ 6146.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 8.087 MB/s [ 1974.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 29.241 MB/s [ 7138.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 7.604 MB/s [ 1856.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 1.762 MB/s [ 430.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 2.506 MB/s [ 611.8 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [V: 2.8% (27.0/953.9 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2020/01/19 15:44:16
OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

I hosed something messing with the driver, but not sure how to fix it. Reapply the hotfix? Maybe the controller on the NVMe was damaged.

 

[craftech]

Delete

 

[NewMaxx]

The OFA driver is just for scanning, but as I said above a guy on W10 did the same thing and had the same issue. Can read what he went through here.

tl;dr he ended up reseating it or something along those lines

 

[craftech]

The OFA driver is just for scanning, but as I said above a guy on W10 did the same thing and had the same issue. Can read what he went through here.

tl;dr he ended up reseating it or something along those lines

I'll read that, but I ended up doing the following.
1. Delete existing files on NVMe
2. Quick Reformat
3. Uninstall Standard NVM Express Controller
4. Re-boot
5. Results:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2018 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : https://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]
* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 2932.616 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 2687.535 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 455.033 MB/s [ 111092.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 8,T= 8) : 819.733 MB/s [ 200130.1 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 455.839 MB/s [ 111288.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 720.177 MB/s [ 175824.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 29.661 MB/s [ 7241.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 371.569 MB/s [ 90715.1 IOPS]

Test : 1024 MiB [V: 0.0% (0.1/953.9 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]
Date : 2020/01/19 16:10:58
OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why? Who knows. I'll read that link. It's good that there are threads like these for others with similar issues to read. I feel really good about that and the above and beyond help from people like yourself.
Thank You
John