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rondocap

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 18, 2011
542
341
2019 Mac Pro with the newer version of the sonnet m.2 pcie 4x4 card. Drives start fast in large file transfers, but then slow down A lot. Pcie lanes seem ok, Vega ii gpu and io card only.

card is in the x16 5th slot

1. 4tb inland nvme platinum
2. 2tb adata x8200 nvme
3. 1tb Samsung 980 pro
4. 1tb Samsung 980

any idea? the apple ssd stays on Max speed with large transfers or benchmarks.

1. Is it the cache or a tlc issue? The Samsung pro should be fastest
2. Possible pcie speed issue?
 

JJL2026

macrumors member
Jun 1, 2021
52
27
I didn’t understand a word you said. Was it shorthand, or names of computer internals that just are way above me?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
All TLC NAND drives will slow down the throughput to real rate of the TLC NAND after the SLC cache is full. You can do nothing about that besides getting a drive with bigger caches/better controllers.

BTW, Samsung 980 PRO is TLC while the 970 PRO was MLC and the drop from the SLC cache to the MLC NAND was almost imperceptible in real life with the previous generation.
 

rondocap

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 18, 2011
542
341
All TLC NAND drives will slow down the throughput to real rate of the TLC NAND after the SLC cache is full. You can do nothing about that besides getting a drive with bigger caches/better controllers.

BTW, Samsung 980 PRO is TLC while the 970 PRO was MLC and the drop from the SLC cache to the MLC NAND was almost imperceptible in real life with the previous generation.
What are the drives you’d recommend that keep the speed as high as possible for large transfers? 970 pro?
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
What are the drives you’d recommend that keep the speed as high as possible for large transfers? 970 pro?
970 PRO is one of the few M.2 blades that was made from MLC, is Mac compatible and is probably the only one that still easily found.
 

mBox

macrumors 68020
Jun 26, 2002
2,363
86
970 PRO is one of the few M.2 blades that was made from MLC, is Mac compatible and is probably the only one that still easily found.
I have a few of these in my 7, 1.
I am getting on avg 5100 r/w.
Is this normal?
And how large of a file do I need to test this slow down at the end issue?
Is there an app I can just use?

Thanks in advance.
 

tsialex

Contributor
Jun 13, 2016
13,455
13,601
I have a few of these in my 7, 1.
I am getting on avg 5100 r/w.
Is this normal?
And how large of a file do I need to test this slow down at the end issue?
Is there an app I can just use?

Thanks in advance.
Any file transfer bigger than the SLC caches will throttle down to the real TLC NAND throughput, open the data sheet of your blade to know the size of it. No benchmark tool needed, even a big enough Finder transfer will show it.
 
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