SSDs as USB devices.

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Hi, and greetings from Australia,

Is there anything that can be done about SSDs being so slow when used as a USB device?
I just bought a 1TB Samsung unit and was hoping to use it just for backups but was very disappointed to find out it doesn’t perform any better than an HDD, particularly when transferring large files.

Thanks for any help,
Mauri.

 
Moderator’s Note: Welcome to AskWoody, Mauri. Please, familiarise yourself with our Lounge Rules.

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Mauri wrote:

Is there anything that can be done about SSDs being so slow when used as a USB device?

I have a 512GB Samsung T5 SSD connected to USB port and it I copy files at ~1Gbps.
Just recently I have copied 172GB to the drive and it took 27 min.

The speed depends on your motherboard/USB type : USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, USB-C…

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Hi, and thank you for the reply.

It seems my aging ASUS X99 Pro board only supports USB 2 and 3, would that be a major limitation? One would think even with USB 3 an SSD would be a lot faster than an HDD…

Thanks again.

Cubase Pro 11.5 x64 with jBridge | WaveLab Elements 10 | i7 5930K @ 4.7GHz (stable) | ASUS X99 Pro | 32GB RAM | | W10 x64 Dual Boot on 2 SSDs plus 3 SSDs for samples and project/audio files | Fractal Design Define R5 case | Noctua NH-D15 | AMD Radeon RX 580 | Vox ToneLab SE | Mackie HR624 MKII nearfield monitor speakers | 2 x UAD2 Solo PCIe | RME HDSPe AIO | 2 x 24" LED monitors...
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You have USB3 on that mobo so speed should not be an issue. What cable are you using to connect the SSD?

cheers, Paul

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Mauri wrote:

One would think even with USB 3 an SSD would be a lot faster than an HDD…

Internal or external HDD ? HDD on SATA II or SATA III ? HDD with 5400 or 7200.. RMP ?
What speed do you get copying to the SSD ?

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Excellent question!

@Mauri has to indicate the bottleneck of this system.
Example: When copying from HDD to SSD via USB you have 3 critical juctions with different bitrates. The lowest is USB 2 (50MBps), then HDD, then SSD. HDD with 7200 RPM can do about 150MBps, so copying can get realistically about 50 MBps because of USB 2.

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HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Hi,

@Paul, I’m using one of these, see below,
https://www.simplecom.com.au/simplecom-sa201-usb-3-0-to-sata-external-adapter-cable-converter-for-2-5-ssd-hdd.html

I’ll have to get back to 5723 Alex a little later…

Thanks everyone!

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That unit should be fine. Are you sure you plugged it into a USB 3 port – the blue ones.

Download CrystalDiskMark to test the speed and let us know.

cheers, Paul

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[Mauri]

@Alex5723

I’m not sure what speeds I’m getting because writing small files, up to several hundred MB,  seem to be very fast but large ones, say, over a GB actually hang the writing process and even cause the computer to freeze as well.
I’ll keep trying and let you know what happens…

Again, thank you everyone.

Cubase Pro 11.5 x64 with jBridge | WaveLab Elements 10 | i7 5930K @ 4.7GHz (stable) | ASUS X99 Pro | 32GB RAM | | W10 x64 Dual Boot on 2 SSDs plus 3 SSDs for samples and project/audio files | Fractal Design Define R5 case | Noctua NH-D15 | AMD Radeon RX 580 | Vox ToneLab SE | Mackie HR624 MKII nearfield monitor speakers | 2 x UAD2 Solo PCIe | RME HDSPe AIO | 2 x 24" LED monitors...
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• This reply was modified 3 years ago by Mauri.

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Small files will take more time to move. I was able to speed things up slightly by zipping them all together in on zipped file…but that took time too.

Have you seen this and would it help:

https://www.howtogeek.com/410353/how-to-optimize-usb-storage-for-better-performance-on-windows-10/

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[Mauri]

Mauri wrote:

@Alex5723

I’m not sure what speeds I’m getting because writing small files, up to several hundred MB,  seem to be very fast but large ones, say, over a GB actually hang the writing process and even cause the computer to freeze as well.
I’ll keep trying and let you know what happens…

Again, thank you everyone.

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by Mauri.

It could be that your Simplecom converter is chocking when transferring large files.
Put your Samsung SSD in a USB 3.1 enclosure and connect directly to your PC.

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@Mauri.

Your anti-virus app that checks every file may also take more time to check big files and slow the writing process.
Try disabling the Anti-virus just as a test when copying a large file.
You can also check CPU load in Task Manager while the copy file is in progress.

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Firstly, thank you all for your input, ‘much appreciated but I’m reaching the point where I think I’ll just leave this issue for now. Maybe I’ll tinker around and see if I can improve things a bit.
Thanks again,
Mauri.

@Alex5723,

Disabling the antivirus makes no difference and I’m not at the moment able to test in a USB 3.1 enclosure.

Another odd thing, the the copy/paste process hangs for sometime when it hits large audio files and sometimes does not recover freezing the File Explorer. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that some of those audio files are extremely high bit rate 24bit or 32bit floating point resolution making them double the size of a .wav CD quality file.

If you would like to know more about this see the link below.

https://www.sounddevices.com/32-bit-float-files-explained/

@anonymous

Guest,

Yes, I’ve tried those ideas and perhaps there was a very small improvement but not significant. Thanks anyway.

@PaulT,

I ran CrystalDiskMark and the difference between my System drive Samsung SSD 860 EVO and the USB drive, Samsung SSD 860 QVO is absolutely massive, but it seems I can’t post screenshots here…

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Although I put your name under your avatar, you posted the above as “anonymous.”
That is why you could not attach a screenshot.
If you log in, you can attach files. 🙂

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Mauri

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[Mauri]

@PaulT,

I ran CrystalDiskMark and the difference between my System drive Samsung SSD 860 EVO and the USB drive, Samsung SSD 860 QVO is absolutely massive, but it seems I can’t post screenshots here…

Correction, I was shown how to add the attachments, thank you!!

 

 

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• This reply was modified 3 years ago by Mauri.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ascaris

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Just saw this in the newsletter… I missed the original post.

Whoops– I tried to hit quote there, but missed and hit Thanks.  Not that I mind thanking anyone, but it doesn’t make much sense in context!

Mauri wrote:

I ran CrystalDiskMark and the difference between my System drive Samsung SSD 860 EVO and the USB drive, Samsung SSD 860 QVO is absolutely massive, but it seems I can’t post screenshots here…

Those numbers are problematic in both cases.  The 860 Evo is a SATA SSD, but you’re showing numbers far higher than the fastest NVMe drive currently available. There is probably some kind of caching program in use, perhaps Samsung RAPID mode from Magician.

As for the other one, those numbers are slow even for an external conventional hard drive.  That performance you’re seeing is typical of a USB 2.0 connection.  For whatever reason, your USB connection is operating at USB 2.0 speed.

If this is Windows 7, it could be that your USB 3.0 drivers are not installed.  The OS doesn’t do this automatically… if you don’t manually install them, it operates at USB 2.0 speed.  Win 8 and 10 should work with USB 3 out of the box.

If that’s not it, either the adapter is really USB 2.0, or the USB port is USB 2.0.  Narrowing that down will suggest the next step!

 

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Audio files are just files and your hard disk moves them at the same speed as any other file.

Check the USB port you are using is USB3 – plug it into a port on the back of the motherboard.
Check the speed on a different PC.
If it is still the same then it’s likely the USB adapter is either bad or not what it was advertised as.

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

Mauri

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[rc primak]

It looks like something in the adapter or the internal to external USB bus is not working as advertised. Possibly check for USB driver issues? I am very suspicious of the external adapter’s UASP Mode. That is very non-standard. I would try a more direct pure USB 3.0 or 3.1 connection. This may need a different external adapter.

-- rc primak

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by rc primak.

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SSD for backup makes little sense to me.

SSD wears on writes, not on reads.
Backup is 99% writes
Using SSD for backup sounds like a short life use to me.
SSD for an OS makes a lot more sense because the vast majority of use will be reads.

Use a 7200 rpm external 3.5″ disk for long lasting, reliable and fast backups.

CT

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It would depend, of course, on how much writing you’re actually doing. If you use incremental images and there is not much change on the drive(s) being backed up, it could last a really long time.  If you wrote a full 1TB backup image every day, you could use up the 1TB 860 QVO’s rated life in a year.  That’s too short for my liking, in that case.

It’s still not ideal to use a SSD for backups, though, even if write limits are not an issue, if the drive is to be left in unpowered storage for extended periods of time.  SSDs can supposedly start to forget their data in a year or two of unpowered storage (more so if the drive is stored in hot conditions, but less so if the drive was written under hot conditions).  Magnetic hard drives retain their data much longe,r.  I’ve had HDDs that haven’t been used in 15 years that can be plugged in and used with no read errors.

If you do mostly incremental backups, backups can be quite speedy even with a HDD.  I always use incrementals where possible, and whether I was using True Image, Aomei Backupper, Macrium Reflect, or Veeam, I’ve always been able to restore them, and I’ve restored a lot.  I do a lot of things I know are risky with my PCs because I can recover from them with backups, and while I do break things, I also learn from it.

Of course, any backup is better than none, but I wouldn’t use a SSD or other flash device (like a thumb drive) for main backup purposes.  It might work as a conditional backup (the kind I do before I am going to do something risky, for example, rather than the periodic ones) device, since you want to get the backup done fast so you can go wreck things, and the short shelf life of the backup won’t matter.

 

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Canadian Tech

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The OP didn’t mention – is the USB attached SSD always connected – will it be connected when Windows Defragger’s scheduled defrag does an Optimize (Trim) operation on the device. If it’s being connected on demand it may not be trimmed on a regular basis. I hope the OP “Safely” disconnects the SSD (with the usb port plug,) not pulling the SSD from this Sata head Dock.

If always connected, check power settings, I notice Windows will like to spin down a secondary or usb hard drive with a Sleep timeout value and persist with these settings
on a PC with an SSD(s). How and if it affects SSD’s I can’t answer, maybe someone can here, I just set the timeout to zero.

I’d also get drive health – run Samsung Magician. It may not always be able to detect a
usb connected SSD, it seems to depend on the PC and the enclosure itself. Get the SSD
drive health and Smart Table statistics (watch out for overheat conditions –
190 Temperature Exceeds Count).

Also the OP didn’t state if he was using NTFS, exFat, or Fat32 (since he stated he
writes many small files), a search of Ntfs vs Fat32 vs exFat performance can reveal some performance differences. Also of note how “many” files is many small files – both SSD and hard drives can get slow if you’re writing 50,000+ files into a single folder, logic would dictate splitting up numerous small files into separate folders.

A search of ‘ssd write amplification factor’ may help describe why SSD’s, as they age, degrade in performance.

In a pro audio environment I’d assume there would be a fair amount of USB peripherals
connected to the computer. If it’s loaded, perhaps the OP has one of those 8 or 16 port mega-usb hubs, there’s a potential for a lot of bandwidth to share.

Check your Windows System Event Logs for Disk Errors (though with so many
storage devices in your system it may not always be clear which storage device Windows may be referencing, as USB storage device (and internal memory card readers) errors are not categorized by drive letter. Typically I just start by process of elimination – if I disconnect a storage device does the error goes away, or does the event log error persist?

 

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I did see if you tried different USB ports on the system or tested the drive with a different system.

One thing I do for copying files to external drives when GUI copies have issues is use the command prompt with “robocopy.exe” instead.  It has a /np switch that can reduce load even more while copying.  You can copy the directory, sub-directory chain or a specific file.

As to the GUI copy fail on large files it sounds like a buffering or chipset incompatibility issue.  They can be difficult to fix.

My experience is that after AV, incompatibilities issues between the chipset in the system and the USB drive chipset can cause issues on large copies.  Getting a USB connector with a different chipset may work.

One last place is to look in Device Manager at the Universal Serial Bus controller and find the connection chain for the drive and disable power management.  These usually show as as a USB Mass Storage Device.

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Thank you PeterJ. I had not thought of the power mgmt feature on the USB controllers. Apparently it is by default turned on. On desktop computers that is absolutely senseless.

CT

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Not ALL USB3 slots are blue. I have an HP laptop (2014) where they were still black. I queried it with HP at the time and they said that either that was a new “standard” and not fiully implemented yet or the manufacturer (in China) had not yet got the blue sockets or were using up old supplies of the black ones.

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Not sure if this is applicable but I have had similar issues with one particular brand of USB hub.  The drive, a Samsung T5, was very fast directly plugged into the Dell laptop USB port, but when connected through the hub it was slower.  I replaced the hub with one that was about 3X the cost of the original, and vast improvements were noted using Crystal Disk.

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I have 4 internal Samsung SSDs and a external 500GB T7. I have found occasionally when doing large writes that the drive(s) will slow down. Usually that can be fixed with a Trim. I am looking into Trims on my machine right now. Win 10 doesn’t seem to be doing them automatically.

If you have one of the cheaper Samsung SSDs (QVO or EVO) they may have a limited cache. On a large transfer if you overrun the cache then the transfer rate will slow down on these drives. Samsung Magician (their drive management software) has some benchmarking and tests of the drives. It will also indicate if your drive firmware needs updating. If you haven’t got it then you need it. Samsung also suggest that you leave about 10% of your drive not allocated for files at the end of your drive. That might possibly affect performance if you don’t have it. See the image of the allocations on one of my drives.

Bob

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Windows 10 does TRIM correctly.
See this thread for details on testing TRIM.

cheers, Paul

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Hi all, I hope everyone is well…

Thank you very much for taking part in this topic, it has somewhat moved beyond me but I really appreciate everyone’s participation and willingness to help.

One thing I suspect is maybe the culprit of my issue is caching, when moving large files (more than a GB) the speed for several seconds is peaking at some 470MB/s then sharply slows down to around 40MB/s. If that is the case there’s not much that can be done abut it.

Thank you guys, you’re the best!

Mauri.

Cubase Pro 11.5 x64 with jBridge | WaveLab Elements 10 | i7 5930K @ 4.7GHz (stable) | ASUS X99 Pro | 32GB RAM | | W10 x64 Dual Boot on 2 SSDs plus 3 SSDs for samples and project/audio files | Fractal Design Define R5 case | Noctua NH-D15 | AMD Radeon RX 580 | Vox ToneLab SE | Mackie HR624 MKII nearfield monitor speakers | 2 x UAD2 Solo PCIe | RME HDSPe AIO | 2 x 24" LED monitors...
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