Samsung 990 Pro IOPS are low

Xinimer said:

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Just installed a 990 pro 1tb last night with a fresh install of Windows 10. Updated all of my drivers and firmware then ran multiple benchmark tests on Samsung Magician. The results as you see above are off. The Sequential Read and Write are perfect but the Random Read IOPS are only 46% of the advertised speed and the Random Write IOPS only about 10% of the advertised speed.

I reformatted multiple times since and have even run a benchmark using CrystalDiskMark in safemode to rule out software interference and the results are the same. Consistently around 50% and 10% of the advertised speed.
I have tried using it in the M2.1 and M2.3 slot, no difference.
No other HDD or SSD are connected.

My motherboard MSI Meg X570 ACE - MEG X570 ACE | Motherboard | MSI Global

CPU R5 3600,

64GB of ram running at 3200mhz (tested at 2133mhz and no improvement) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082NXPZ2V?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

4090 Gaming X trio

Is this drive likely defective? Any help would be appreciated.

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Probably has to do with your motherboard. what m2 slot are you using? I'm not an expert in m2 slots but it looks like you are limited by the x4 speed.

lexer said:

Is the SSD connected to the M.2 slot of the CPU ?

That board has three M.2 slots. One is directly connected to the four exclusive PCI-E lines of the CPU and the rest are shared with the PCH lines.

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I tried it in both the M2.1 and M2.3 slot. The M2.1 is the benchmark image in my original post. The M2.3 slot actually had "slightly" slower sequential read and write speeds (about 5%) but the IOPS were exactly the same.

Simkin said:

A new firmware update has just been released for the 990 (3B2QJXD7)

Having that said, 980 PRO and 990 PRO are not "defective" atleast not on my system, both my drives (980 & 990 2TB) have been working without any issues, Read/Write IOPS is also normal.

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Just installed the new firmware, about a 5% increase in IOPS but still underperforming especially in Write. Attached newest benchmark.

ITAngel said:

I have a 980 and it doesn't have that issue so must be a firmware-related issue with some of the drives. I always update the firmware of all my M.2 Samsungs which I have currently 3 on my system. Worse case re-install the Samsung utility software to me share is showing the information correctly.

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I tried CrystalDiskMark to bench the drive as well. It showed readings consistent with Samsung Magician. I've also done 4 reformats reinstalling Windows 10 and Samsung Magician each time. No backups from Onedrive or syncing or anything like that. Completely clean installs. No change.

ShaunStyle said:

Probably has to do with your motherboard. what m2 slot are you using? I'm not an expert in m2 slots but it looks like you are limited by the x4 speed.

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I'm not an expert either but I feel like this isn't the case seeing as how I am hitting the proper Sequential speeds for the drive. I feel like that means its in a slot that "SHOULD" be able to achieve the proper IOPS but again I am no expert and maybe you're right.

Xinimer said:

I get what you are saying, and I will certainly try to benchmark it as a storage drive. However, my friend runs a 970 Pro as his Windows 10 drive and his Random Write IOPS are literally twice what mine are on this 990 Pro. Just over 300,000 vs my 180,000. I'm very skeptical "the numbers will be fine" not having it as a Windows drive because clearly it isn't performing properly if a 970 under similar conditions is putting out twice the numbers. I'll give it a try though

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I did a quick test on mine and this is the result I got:

A far cry from the 1.5mln IOPS write advertised.

I also tested my Fury Renegade 2TB game drive and it gets a little more than the advertised 1mln IOPS read and write as its not accessed at all by any background tasks.



Who knows what background processes your PC is running when testing the IOPS. Could be more, could be less but they will always hinder write IOPS as long as the drive is an OS drive.