@davidm71 - Not sure what blue LED/Link light you're talking about? The model I have just has a simple white LED that comes on and lights up the Plextor logo on the card face, but that's just always on. Then there's some Red LED's along the top edge that are just activity related and flash when the drive is in use. No other LED's or link lights that I can see.

@Fernando - Did all those, rebooted and reran the benchmark.



Definitely some improvement in Read/Write speeds, but IOPS are still about the same. Not a big deal, at this point I'm pretty happy with the speeds. :) Thanks again for all the help.

Should I have Intel RST installed (I do have v14.6.0.1029 installed right now)? Have you found that hurts or helps?

@MeatballB
Your ANVIL score is quite acceptable even specifications says 2500/1400 and 280/240 for R/W Sequential and Random respective tests.
Is it possible for you to get a CrystalDiskInfo screenshot such as this one with the yellowed infos to compare these two NVMe SSD 1TB PCIe V3.0 X4 solution ?

@100PIER - Looks like everything matches on those highlighted areas other than 'Unsafe Shutdowns' as I've got a less since the drive is relatively new.

@MeatballB
Thanks for the screenshot.
I observe that even with a new SSD the specific SMART parameter '0D' "Unsafe Shutdowns" does progress and even when using MS native NVMe driver like you do.
This does seem true for any NVMe SSD manufacturers (Samsung, Plextor, etc..) on the planet.
So, do we have to incriminate W10 driver or any other Bios software/firmware components ?
For me it is a myster I observed for more than one or two years now.

@MeatballB

The blue logo I refer to is the preboot logo posting on the screen right before the bios starts up. Its kind of like those legacy video cards displaying their brand before boot. At least my Plextor card behaves that way. You might not see it either because it flies by too fast at post or not displayed on Uefi. Anyhow I read that Plextor cards down grade their link speed on unsupported hardware. Could be affecting your performance. Too bad theres no way to check if your at pcie 1.1 or 2.0 or 3.0 mode.

@davidm71 - Ah...yeah, I have seen that a few times, but it goes _really_ fast and I can't see anything. Though I do think I'm getting PCIe 3.0 mode, at least according to CrystalDiskInfo. And according to the ASRock Motherboard specs all 3 x16 slots are PCIe 3.0 compatible, only the 4 x1 slots are PCIe 2.0.

@MeatballB

Oh yeah right. It gives you that info. Ill have to check mine. Thanks.

@davidm71
It is very easy to check all the PCIe details (max/current values) for your SSD NVMe with HWINFO64 tool such as done for this screenshot (see yelowed informations).

@100PIER

Very interesting. Thank you.

@Corradodave I tryied you asus file but does not worked. Security verification failed. Can you help me? I have a asus maximus VI formula too.

@Fernando Thanks for the tip. I did that. Now should I change any bios option? Because now i see the ssd in the windows installation, but it does not allow to install windows there.

Thanks so much Fernando. I checked all the bios settings and burn an windows 10 uefi image with the nvme drivers and now it worked.


Thanks again.