Re: Gigabyte BIOS Upgrade F11b BETA solved a lot of diffuse hardware problems

>>>> Using that tool, '(05) Reallocated Sector Count' was displayed for the
>>>> 500GB Samsung EVO SSD, but not for the 500 GB Seagate Barracuda SSD. 
>>>> It's connected to a different controller, a PCIe (x1) SATAIII card.
>>> Sorry, I thought that 500GB Seagate Barracuda was a HDD.
>>>
>>> The HDTune tool is too old to display SSD tables properly.
>>>
>>> You were probably using some Toolkit to get that number,
>>> and maybe the Toolkit has the SMART table in it somewhere.
>>>
>>> My SSD samples here, tend to have rounded numbers,
>>> like 256GB or 512GB, rather than 250 and 500 values.
>>>
>>> The red glow, means SATA commands are coming in. The drive
>>> can still be writing, as it rearranges the data, but the
>>> LED does not light while this is happening. Any LED glows,
>>> indicate your OS is doing something. You would need to
>>> probe further, to figure out whether the operations are
>>> read or write. (Task Manager has I/O columns you can turn
>>> on for this.)
>>>
>>> The SSD has a processor inside, and it is running for as
>>> long as the drive has power.
>>>
>>>    Paul
>>
>> Thanks again Paul,
>>
>> I'm still trying to solve some performance issues. Here is:
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 Shizuku Edition (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
>>                            Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> * MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
>>
>>            Sequential Read :   181.235 MB/s
>>           Sequential Write :   156.012 MB/s
>>          Random Read 512KB :     2.018 MB/s
>>         Random Write 512KB :   150.887 MB/s
>>     Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    26.341 MB/s [  6431.0 IOPS]
>>    Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    38.755 MB/s [  9461.7 IOPS]
>>    Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   127.105 MB/s [ 31031.5 IOPS]
>>   Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   106.460 MB/s [ 25991.2 IOPS]
>>
>>   Test : 50 MB [D: 21.7% (101.2/465.8 GB)] (x1)
>>   Date : 2021/04/10 15:58:02
>>     OS : Windows 8.1 Pro [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)
>>
>> Test of Seagate Barracuda. Note anomalous Random Read 512KB :     2.018 
>> MB/s. Could this low number indicate problem with Seagate Barracuda or 
>> with cable. I'm using a 7 conductor cable, 2 pairs +/- data, 3 ground. Is 
>> my Seagate damaged? Is my cable insufficient? What about 'twinax'? Maybe 
>> my Startech PCIe SATA controller is to blame.
>
> I did "not much of a test here", on a Win8.1 setup and
> crystaldiskinfo 3.0.4 and the 512KB results are just
> a bit lower than the sequential. There's no huge dive
> like in your 2.018 MB/s result.
>
> It's not PIO mode, because that would affect read and write.
>
> It's not error rate, because the other results are
> too good for that. Why would it just ruin the 512KB stuff ?
>
> I'm sure by now, you've compared your exact model number,
> to graphs already published on the web. And I bet theirs
> don't dip like that.
>
> You do see the occasional ATTO that is out-of-sorts. Where
> one particular transfer size is not as good as it could be.
> But I don't know if that would be 512KB - it would usually
> be some smaller transfer size.
>
> See if you can dig up someone elses results for your drive.
>
> And if it were AHCI versus non-AHCI, I doubt that would do it
> either. There is a good chance a 512KB read or 512KB write,
> would be one "transaction" and multiple packets. Rather than
> being some crazy series of tagged queue requests to do the
> job.
>
> The cabling is usually pretty good. Only if the cable
> is kinked, with a permanent pinch mark, would I be
> concerned. This sometimes happens when importing cables,
> the cables are wrapped in a bundle, and if some weight
> falls on the bundle, the cable could get crushed.
>
> There is a counter in SMART for CRC errors on the cable.
> But that counter would be for only one of the two
> directions. On a CRC error, there is likely a retransmit
> request. I don't think it's an ECC, and repaired on the
> spot.
>
> I can't think why that would be.
>
>    Paul

Thanks for your thoughts. Here is a picture from Wikipedia. "Cross section 
of a SATA 3.0 cable, showing the dual Twinax conductors for the differential 
pairs." 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinaxial_cabling#/media/File:SATA3-TwinAxCable.jpg

Better class 6 Ethernet cable is twinax. I would think better SATA 3 cable 
should be twinax. What do you think? I can't find such cable anywhere, just 
7 conductor.