Why did my Crucial X8 Portable SSD writes jump more than 300% after Reformat?

[c627627]

Crucial X8 Portable SSD.
So I copy/paste and Windows is saying 40MB/s writes. That's very slow for this drive.

I nuke it with a quick format. All of a sudden more than a 300% write jump to 125MB/s.

Other than reformatting, what else could have been done? I noticed that there were a bunch of FOUND.001 etc. hidden files on it by the way, pre-format...


EDIT: I dug out the original USB C cable that came with the drive, and woe, 650MB/s. Can anyone recommend a good USB-C to USB--C cable that is at least 3FT long, but preferably 4ft... The catch is the original cable is so short..

I now remember what happened. I did order a slightly longer USB-C to C cable from Amazon capable of higher speeds - but the drive was always needed to be repaired with it, so I guess it's very important which cable you get...



.

 

[Blaylock]

Several factors could be at play here. I'm certainly no expert in this area but from what I know Sequential R/W is always faster than Random R/W. It's quite possible that a freshly formatted drive will R/W as sequential instead of random as there isn't much on it. Just a guess. Other factors like RAM caching, cables, and even ports can, and do, play a role as well.

Try running CrystalMarkDisk with the two different cables and see what the results are. I prefer CMD over Diskbench as the results are more detailed, though Diskbench is great for just overall speed.

 

[EarthDog]

so I guess it's very important which cable you get...

Indeed.

What kind of a special USB C cable do these new Portable NVMe SSD drives use?

I just purchased the new Crucial X8 portable NVMe SSD. It comes with an (extremely short) cable that is less than 1 foot long. Okay so if I use any other cable, the transfer speed absolutely plummets. But when I use the 9 inch original cable it came with to transfer USB C to USB C - it is...

www.overclockers.com

EDIT: Rereading the first post... lol........

1. I haven't bought that long of a cable before (18" is what I have now for my SE900). I got lucky and just entered 40 Gbps, found the length needed at a reasonable price and viola! Here are 1ft+ (couldn't set a higher minimum) cables that are rated at 40 Gbps....

Amazon.com : type-c to type-c 40gbps

2. The FOUND.001 are typically files created from corruption and recovered from like checkdisk or something. Makes sense if the cable you were using at one time was causing errors...

 

[Woomack]

One tip for the future. If the enclosure fails for any reason (I had that problem), then inside is standard M.2 2280 PCIe SSD. It should be the P1 series, but maybe they changed it. When the warranty expires, then you can use it on a desktop/laptop PC or replace the enclosure with anything from the market (no idea about bandwidth). If there are any problems under warranty, then of course contact Crucial support. They usually replace everything in 5-7 days.

My X8 was working with quite a long cable, but only one per 5 or 6 had bandwidth above ~150MB/s. Another thing is that Thunderbolt 3/4 ports may cause it to work slower than high-speed USB-C ports. Keep that in mind while testing external USB-C drives.

 

[c627627]

The original cable that came with it is doing 650MB/s but it's only a foot.

This is about finding a reliable cable because I'm pretty sure the one I got affordably DID handle high speeds but may have caused drive corruption.
SO rather than a generic Amazon search, I think it's more about finding out on forums which affordable 3-4 foot cable people can vouch for?

High speeds. Affordable... and NO drive corruption.

 

[dejo]

I would also consider a potential alignment issue. You can check that with AnvilPro or AS SSD benchmarks

 

[EarthDog]

which affordable 3-4 foot cable people can vouch for?

I can't vouch for any at that length. Sorry. I know my Sabrent brand cable works like a champ!