# Samsung EVO 850 drive performance problem...



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

Hi - I recently bought an 500gb external drive and enclosure to stream samples from.
I have finally managed to move everything across (perhaps 150gb) and everything is now in its place. It seems to load east west patches faster than normal...
However was just playing some Komplete instruments for the first time and noticed spikes on the disk playing one note of a single patch...like going to 90-100% in the red on kontakt 5.6.1
I downloaded blackmagic's disk speed reader and the drive is coming up with a woeful reading of around 40MB/s read and write. I mean it's so slow this 5GB stress test may never finish. Something is obviously not right. The drive is formatted ExFAT, I wonder if that's a problem. My I/O buffer in logic X is set low (512) and the CPU is under no stress at all.
I have spent lots of time getting to this point, so am hoping for a quick fix....please let it be quick.....
Thanks for any advice!


----------



## synthpunk (Oct 19, 2016)

What connection ? USB 2/3 ? Could be a data bottleneck ?


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

synthpunk said:


> What connection ? USB 2/3 ? Could be a data bottleneck ?


Thanks a lot- I'm using USB 3 on an iMac. Any easy fix come to mind?


----------



## synthpunk (Oct 19, 2016)

Disconnect any other non essential usb3. Retest.


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

synthpunk said:


> Disconnect any other non essential usb3. Retest.


Thanks...but just an ilok and a midi keyboard...will try though!


----------



## synthpunk (Oct 19, 2016)

Rebooted system ?


----------



## synthpunk (Oct 19, 2016)

Can you test the drive on another computer from B/M speed test, no DAW running ?


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

synthpunk said:


> Rebooted system ?


Yes, no change.


synthpunk said:


> Can you test the drive on another computer from B/M speed test, no DAW running ?


Will be able to tomorrow, thanks for your ideas @synthpunk

This is very strange... hope I can get it sorted and get back to a stable system.


----------



## passsacaglia (Oct 19, 2016)

Oh,Logic / mac user. My first thought, why exfat and not Mac OS Journaled as formated drive? 
Some ppl had problems which they got rid of when re-formatting. I'd say that could be one issue for some users... Good luck!!


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

passsacaglia said:


> Oh,Logic / mac user. My first thought, why exfat and not Mac OS Journaled as formated drive?
> Some ppl had problems which they got rid of when re-formatting. I'd say that could be one issue for some users... Good luck!!


Yes, I wondered about that...do you think it could be the reason for such poor performance though? I'm reading 10 times slower than they should be. I can try this.


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

I am now moving everything off the drive to reformat from ExFat to Mac OS extended journaled. I can't see this having any effect, but it's the only idea I have at the moment. 

Please, if you have any other suggestions, let me know. Thanks.


----------



## TGV (Oct 19, 2016)

First thing: turn off Spotlight for your external disk. That's a resource hog.

Second: how long did it take to copy the 150GB? That should give you an estimation of the speed. If it's in the 40MB/s ballpark (i.e. it took a bit over an hour), then that might be the limit, which can be imposed by any of the hardware components involved. Open Activity Monitor's Disk panel to see what the OS thinks the read speed is.

Third: if copying went faster, the red meter might just indicate something else. Try to see if you can get more voices, and try to use notes that have not been cached yet.


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

TGV said:


> First thing: turn off Spotlight for your external disk. That's a resource hog.
> 
> Second: how long did it take to copy the 150GB? That should give you an estimation of the speed. If it's in the 40MB/s ballpark (i.e. it took a bit over an hour), then that might be the limit, which can be imposed by any of the hardware components involved. Open Activity Monitor's Disk panel to see what the OS thinks the read speed is.
> 
> Third: if copying went faster, the red meter might just indicate something else. Try to see if you can get more voices, and try to use notes that have not been cached yet.



Many thanks. 
The transfer of files from samsung evo 850 to my iMac hard drive took around 35-40 minutes for 115.9 GB. 
The activity monitor said about 40 mb/s, though I assume that is referring the internal disk...

Can you think of any other reasons the drive is so slow...and it is slow right? Most benchmarking I saw look around 400mb/s read and write. I mean, I got this particular drive because it was well-received here and elsewhere...


----------



## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Oct 19, 2016)

I have one on SATA 3 on a Windows machine. The SSD came with a utility disk and one of them was software that turns on some kind of turbo mode. I forget the name. It made a huge difference on mine. I would think there would be a Mac version as well.


----------



## synthpunk (Oct 19, 2016)

I'm betting its the formatting, that your case or cable is not truly usb3, or a faulty drive.


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

So I cleared the drive, reformatted from ExFat to Mac OS extended journaled. Also put in a single partition (recommended on some computer forum) and then changed from 'master boot record' to 'GUID partition table'. Restarted and...am now getting 400+mb/s read and write! 
Put the samples back on and now the same kontakt patch that spiked the disk is reading...0% disk activity.
Sincere thanks to all who helped with this, I know the albion V thread was much more engaging... Hopefully this record might help someone in the future who has a similar problem.


----------



## passsacaglia (Oct 19, 2016)

Great mano! 
ps what enclosure are you using, uasp support?


----------



## jjmmuir (Oct 19, 2016)

passsacaglia said:


> Great mano!
> ps what enclosure are you using, uasp support?


Hi-it's just an inexpensive 2.5" USB3.0 enclosure. Maiwo K2503D. Don't think it supports UASP. To be honest though, I'll be delighted if it works as is. I guess I can always get something better later if need be. Thanks again.


----------



## ag75 (Oct 19, 2016)

jjmmuir said:


> So I cleared the drive, reformatted from ExFat to Mac OS extended journaled. Also put in a single partition (recommended on some computer forum) and then changed from 'master boot record' to 'GUID partition table'. Restarted and...am now getting 400+mb/s read and write!
> Put the samples back on and now the same kontakt patch that spiked the disk is reading...0% disk activity.
> Sincere thanks to all who helped with this, I know the albion V thread was much more engaging... Hopefully this record might help someone in the future who has a similar problem.


Indeed changing from ExFat to Mac OS extended Journaled with really help with speed.


----------

