Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1tb SSD running a lot slower than expected

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Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1tb SSD running a lot slower than expected

Hello,

I have recently installed the Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1tb SSD into my mid-2014 MacBook Pro using a sintech nVME adapter card. The firmware is the latest version which supports Apple, and I have managed to get this working in my MacBook. I ran a BlackMagic disk speed test on it and it's average read/write speeds are coming out at: Write - 900Mb/s and Read - 995Mb/s. This is a lot different to the 3000Mbs/3500Mbs advertised speeds.

One thing that I thought could be the issue (please correct me if this is wrong) is that I did a Time Machine restore from the stock SSD that was in the MacBook onto this new SSD. Would this affect the performance of the new SSD?

Does anyone know of a way to speed this drive up at all? Or is it simply the age of the MacBook that throttles the speed of the SSD?

Many thanks,

John

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Feb 3, 2021 7:46 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 3, 2021 9:42 PM in response to Headstock12

Let the SSD have time to clear the SSD's write cache and allow the SSD time to finish all its internal maintenance. SSDs can slow down after writing GBs of data in a short period of time. Plus Spotlight may be indexing the drive as well which may impact the results. Longer speed tests will most likely result in slower SSD write speeds since the SSD's small write cache will become exhausted after about 30 - 40 seconds.

I'm not certain what the maximum throughput is for the MBPro 2014's NVMe SSD connection.

You should either enable TRIM or at least uncheck "Put hard drive to sleep when possible" located in the Energy Saver System Preferences which will allow the SSD's maintenance & garbage collection routines time to run when the SSD isn't being actively used.

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Answer 2

Feb 5, 2021 4:06 PM in response to Headstock12

Looks like they changed Energy Saver to Battery, but I don't think the new Battery System Preference has this option or they moved the setting to another location.

Here is an article describing TRIM:

https://www.lifewire.com/enable-trim-for-ssd-in-os-x-yosemite-2260789

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing)

To enable TRIM launch the Terminal app and run the following command (press the "Return" key at the end of the line to execute the command):

sudo  trimforce  enable

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Answer 3

Headstock12 Author

Level 1

12 points

Feb 4, 2021 12:34 AM in response to HWTech

Hi HW Tech,

I cannot find an Energy Saver option in System Preferences, even after using the search bar. I am using Big Sur if that makes difference. Also, how would I enable TRIM (and also - what is TRIM?)?

Many thanks

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Answer 4

hdahl100

Level 1

4 points

Feb 19, 2021 5:46 AM in response to Headstock12

I'm not sure the 2014 model will support those speeds, with a 5GT/s hard drive interface?

On my 15" 2015 model I can get up to 2300Mbs, but it has a 8GT/s hard drive interface.

(assuming you have a 15" model. The 13" model is crippled by only two lanes, so it's not going to be much faster than an old SATA-disk.)

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Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1tb SSD running a lot slower than expected

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