Head Scratcher: Steam reading and writing on 2nd SSD is slow AF

[Lionheart]

Steam is making my 2nd SSD operate slow. At 5mb/s the SSD is said to be at 100% capacity, which i know is not true.

The way it's setup, Steam is operating on the SSD drive C: and there's a couple of games on that drive, which work perfectly. The rest of my games on another SSD drive, D: Those launch but throttle my SSD to 5mbs read or write.

This problem affects:
- Gaming
- Loading
- Verifying files
- Backing-up games

Things i've tried:
- Move the game to another drive - no problem.
- try another game launcher - no problems
- test SSD speed (nominal results (550mbs)
- test SSD temperature (nominal results 28C)
- test all temperatures - no related issues
- Change game settings - wasn't the issue.
- Reinstall Steam - didnt solve
- Format entire PC - didntt solve

I would appreciate the help.



Full specs:

MOBO Asus Maximus Ranger VIII

Intel i7 6700

RAM 16GB Hyperx Fury

VGA Gigabyte 2070 super

PSU Thermaltake 750W

OS: Windows 10

STORAGE: 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs
--C: |OS, and program files/application| Kingston SH103S3480G (480GB)
--D: |More storage for Steam| Kingston SA400S37960G <<< where the problem lies
--E: (storage) HDD by WD 2TB
--F: (storage) HDD by WD 1TB

[Mr Happy Penguin]

I had a similar issue recently. Any game launched with Steam was taking 10x as long to load as it should. I couldn't even load into a match in PUBG. All games are installed on a samsung 960 EVO. OS, apps, and Steam are on a Kingston V300. Benchmarks shown normal performance on the samsung and kingston drives. Minecraft with 200+ mods also loaded at normal speed from the same drive.

Restarting Steam would fix the issue until the next reboot. Currently I manually start Steam as a workaround. I also disabled the overlay in case it was causing an issue.

Full system specs:

CPU: Intel Xeon X5690
RAM: 24GB DDR3
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080
SSD (OS): Kingston V300 120GB
SSD (Games): Samsung 960 EVO 500GB NVMe
OS: Windows 7 x64

[Komrade]

Messaggio originale di Iceira:

there are some old harddisk rules, you most have 50% free on where OS sytem is. or it will waste to to locate free space, but i know disk is faster today but its still there and a good rule to know the lesser space free the more time it will search for it before it can dump it. but SSD should not have this issue. but you seem to struggle with it ( and problem with SSD firmware upgrade is it require to be empty before it can do it. and thats why many cant upgrade its firmware. if bug is fixed in the firmware upgrade.

other know mortherboard fact you might want to test this move active disk to each controller so max output is reach per controller, this was know as sharecable , but with USBcable then they dont share cable but it could be a BUS issue per controller so try test if that is the issue
only people with RAID should not do this or you will brake RAID on 2 difffrent controller, i only mention this so someone dont get a cleaver idea and screw it all up.

and watchout for old saying slowest drev actual set the speed on cable if you have other older disk types. share cable to a controller

also seen before interference from 1 disk that could be a sign it for tear down untill it burnout if we even can call it that at SSD well elotronic shutdown drev fail, they all say SSD are so stable but i bet people with 24hours pc online dont seem them as stable . apox every 4years drevs die. and imo that not good enough.


ps.
MOBO Asus Maximus Ranger VIII
and ofc, you have check that all is update in driver and Bios

50% empty? No, that's ridiculous, it's 20% minimum for boot drives and 10-15% for secondary drives.

[Crashed]

What kind of flash memory technology does your SSD have? TLC and QLC drives can have an extreme drop in write performance if a lot is being written at once.

[Lionheart]

Messaggio originale di Mr Happy Penguin:

I had a similar issue recently. Any game launched with Steam was taking 10x as long to load as it should. I couldn't even load into a match in PUBG. All games are installed on a samsung 960 EVO. OS, apps, and Steam are on a Kingston V300. Benchmarks shown normal performance on the samsung and kingston drives. Minecraft with 200+ mods also loaded at normal speed from the same drive.

Restarting Steam would fix the issue until the next reboot. Currently I manually start Steam as a workaround. I also disabled the overlay in case it was causing an issue.

Full system specs:

CPU: Intel Xeon X5690
RAM: 24GB DDR3
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080
SSD (OS): Kingston V300 120GB
SSD (Games): Samsung 960 EVO 500GB NVMe
OS: Windows 7 x64

Thank you for confirming i am not alone. My temporary solution was to move the games affected by the bug to the primary SSD or another HDD for older games.


i hope to try your solution soon.

[Iceira]

Messaggio originale di Crashed:

What kind of flash memory technology does your SSD have? TLC and QLC drives can have an extreme drop in write performance if a lot is being written at once.

i can agree with that not all SSD is as fast as some think they are. and in stability same can be said. problem is then try update those drev they require to be empty , and that is not possible then system is there.

[Midnight Fawn]

Maybe worth downloading and install the Kingston SSD manager to check for any issues with it..?

https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager

[Lionheart]

Messaggio originale di Midnight Fawn:

Maybe worth downloading and install the Kingston SSD manager to check for any issues with it..?

https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager

Done that. Showed 100% health and no problems.

[Crashed]

Messaggio originale di Lionheart:

Messaggio originale di Midnight Fawn:

Maybe worth downloading and install the Kingston SSD manager to check for any issues with it..?

https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager

Done that. Showed 100% health and no problems.

My NVMe SSD is is great health according to S.M.A.R.T. however its performance will tank if I push it too hard.

[Lionheart]

Messaggio originale di Crashed:

Messaggio originale di Lionheart:

Done that. Showed 100% health and no problems.

My NVMe SSD is is great health according to S.M.A.R.T. however its performance will tank if I push it too hard.

i understand. does it go all the way down to 2m?
Im having this issue with only some games. Namely, GTA5, Conan Exiles, Cities Skylines. Arma3.
Not having problems with Civ 6, Assetto Corsa, Tropico 6.. They run at full speed 350m+

[Soy La Comadreja]

I'm having the exact same issue and with some strange moves there, look.

Non steam games i have on my 2nd ssd like Genshin impact loads instantly while steam games like gta v and halo infinite takes forever to load while on my friend's pc, gta v opens even faster on his HDD (i'm sad...) and halo infinite suffers from something REALLY strange...

The game usually takes like 35 seconds to load (my friend's hdd takes the same time) but i had some... Like 5 or 6 times where i launched the game... AND IT LOADED INSTSNTLY, NO LOADING SCREEN AT ALL AND ONLINE GAME STARTED LIKE SUPERRR FAST

I'm starting to get sick about this

[Lionheart]

Messaggio originale di Soy La Comadreja:

I'm having the exact same issue and with some strange moves there, look.

Non steam games i have on my 2nd ssd like Genshin impact loads instantly while steam games like gta v and halo infinite takes forever to load while on my friend's pc, gta v opens even faster on his HDD (i'm sad...) and halo infinite suffers from something REALLY strange...

The game usually takes like 35 seconds to load (my friend's hdd takes the same time) but i had some... Like 5 or 6 times where i launched the game... AND IT LOADED INSTSNTLY, NO LOADING SCREEN AT ALL AND ONLINE GAME STARTED LIKE SUPERRR FAST

I'm starting to get sick about this

Yea. Some SSDs don't agree with some steam games. GTA5 is one of them. That's the best i can explain it. Move your GTA5 to another disk, any other disk will probably be fine, even HDD. I haven't had this problem since i did that.

[Crashed]

Messaggio originale di Lionheart:

Messaggio originale di Soy La Comadreja:

I'm having the exact same issue and with some strange moves there, look.

Non steam games i have on my 2nd ssd like Genshin impact loads instantly while steam games like gta v and halo infinite takes forever to load while on my friend's pc, gta v opens even faster on his HDD (i'm sad...) and halo infinite suffers from something REALLY strange...

The game usually takes like 35 seconds to load (my friend's hdd takes the same time) but i had some... Like 5 or 6 times where i launched the game... AND IT LOADED INSTSNTLY, NO LOADING SCREEN AT ALL AND ONLINE GAME STARTED LIKE SUPERRR FAST

I'm starting to get sick about this

Yea. Some SSDs don't agree with some steam games. GTA5 is one of them. That's the best i can explain it. Move your GTA5 to another disk, any other disk will probably be fine, even HDD. I haven't had this problem since i did that.

And at the same time I install Final Fantasy XV to NVMe because the file structure means extremely long loading times on HDD. On the flip side Doom Eternal is well optimized to load from HDD.

[Lionheart]

Messaggio originale di Crashed:

Messaggio originale di Lionheart:

Yea. Some SSDs don't agree with some steam games. GTA5 is one of them. That's the best i can explain it. Move your GTA5 to another disk, any other disk will probably be fine, even HDD. I haven't had this problem since i did that.

And at the same time I install Final Fantasy XV to NVMe because the file structure means extremely long loading times on HDD. On the flip side Doom Eternal is well optimized to load from HDD.

A diffrenet SSD will give a different result. My Samsung Evo SSD works well with steam but the the very old HyperX one doesn't.

[Brohonestly]

I have the same issue. Even older Source engine games take a long time to launch and load a map. My secondary SSD utilization spikes to 100% even though R/W throughput is only ~1MB/s. Moving the game install folders to my primary drive (an operation which also takes WAY longer than it should) fixes the problem. It seems to be exclusively a Steam issue. Really hoping for an explanation or fix considering this issue is clearly several years old.

[Șogan]

Same problem.How did you fix it?If you fix it after 5 years...