Very slow SX8200Pro, any ideas why?

[whodiini]

My original 2TB SX8200pro, with the fast controller and NAND died. So I did a RMA and got a replacement from Adata. It was somewhat straightforward, and I got back after a few weeks a replacement. First I looked at the chips and noticed that instead of a SM2262EG, it was the slower SM2262G. The NAND is labeled adata, so I dont know what kind of NAND it is. So I installed it, formatted it and ran blackmagic speed test. It returned 1200 MB/sec read and write, consistently! That is about half the speed I got previously! So this is what I tried to do to try to speed it up.

1) Verified that the SMART data is OK. Verified current firmware. (Should be since I got it from Adata).
2) Tried it on 2 separate systems: a) Studio Max b) Intel 2018 mac mini. Same results. Nothing else is using the badwidth of the thunderbolts.
3) Checked system info. Shows as thunderbolt, shows as 40 Gbps. 2 channels.
4) tried bothy extended and APFS formats. no difference
5) Changed enclosures. a) Acasis b) Orico both are intel thunderbolt chip based.
6) Tested other NVme in those enclosures with the same thunderbolt cables: a) a MSI NVMe 4 has ~ 2400MB/sec b) a P31 gold has 2000MB/sec write, 2500 MB/sec read

I cant think of anything else to do. The SX8200Pro consistently R/W at 1200 MB/sec, which is half expected speed.

Any ideas other than contacting Adata for a RMA on this RMA.

Thanks

 

[satcomer]

I say you got a dud or the cable is bad!

 

[whodiini]

well I tried everything. I even did a disk santize wipe, then ran it under a windows laptop to make sure it wasnt an mac compatibiliy issue. I ran CrystalDiskMark, and the sequential !M Q8T1 test ran just about half what it supposed to.

Read ~ 1788 MB/sec, write 1370 MB/sec. This is a bit faster than 1200 MB/sec I got on the mac, indicating some difference in how the speed test is done,.But it is half the speed it is supposed to be.

back to RMA again!

 

[whodiini]

I did a RMA, got a new replacement with the same degraded controller. This replacement benchmarks the same as the one I sent back. My conclusion is that these newer SX8200Pro run very slow on both macs (1200 MB/sec) and PCs (R/W 1700/1300 MB/sec). At that speed, they are not worth buying. Since I am stuck with the one I have, I will either put it into a USb 3.1Gen2 enclosure at around 1000 MB/sec performance but cheaper enclosure, or a envoy express (enclosure limits to 1500 MB/sec) at 1200 MB/sec. Not worth wasting a TB3 enclosure for this.

My lesson was that getting the cheap and great performing original SX8200Pro was not worth it. Will be sticking to name brand like Hynix P31 gold on sale in hte future.

 

[whodiini]

As a reference, I pulled my 1TB Adata SX8200Pro with the original fast controller SM2262ENG and labeled micron NAND and checked performance to compare with this new 2 TB Adata version. Reads on the original (fast) components are 2x faster than the latest version: This confirms that the new Adata SX8200 Pros are very slow. Interestingly, the writes are about the same....

 

[frou]

I had a SX8200 Pro in a TB3 enclosure over 2 years ago and it also benchmarked slow like that.

 

[whodiini]

I had a SX8200 Pro in a TB3 enclosure over 2 years ago and it also benchmarked slow like that.

1200 or 2400 MB/sec read speeds?

 

[frou]

1200 or 2400 MB/sec read speeds?

IIRC it was around 1200. 2TB model. I happen to have a photo of the drive itself and can see it had a SM2262ENG controller.

 

[whodiini]

IIRC it was around 1200. 2TB model. I happen to have a photo of the drive itself and can see it had a SM2262ENG controller.

That is the fast controller. My original was also ENG controller and it was 2400 read speed, just like my 1TB.

 

[frou]

When I saw my slow benchmark, I assumed there might be some kind of suboptimal negotiation between the TB3 Enclosure and the Mac. But didn't look into it further. I eventually sold the whole thing for unrelated reasons.

 

[whodiini]

Most likely suboptimal firmware. Tried different enclosures, didnt change. Until they revise the firmware, I would not recommend it with macs.