Recently degraded performance on RST RAID0 (Win10, M.2, Z370)

[Litch]

I built my PC a year ago to be quite performance-oriented - An i7-8700k with dual M.2 SSDs in (RST) RAID - and it was really quite quick - zero hesitation on any task, running any application was immediate; it was a real workhorse, a pleasure to use.

But as of about a week ago, it really bogged down to an abysmal speed - Chrome hesitates with mouse clicks - pauses during cache checks... Running small programs and even opening the "Save File" dialogue in various applications could be measured in seconds, when before it was instantaneous... Something was very wrong.

At this point I wasn't aware it was storage-related, so I did the usual stuff:

• Uninstalled everything that I had downloaded in the last 2 weeks (Mostly CAD / other design software)
• Downloaded and ran 2 x AV packages (McAfee, Malwarebytes - nothing, promptly uninstalled them)
• Ran a CPU bench - seemed ok.
• Ran a Disk bench - HMM.....

ATTO Bench results, this is the second test I ran - 3MB/s on 512B request?!?

The numbers were all over the place, writes outperforming reads, and vice-versa - every time I ran it, it changed. I checked TaskManager, but it showed no other process had significant disk activity.

So I thought the issue might be with the dual M.2's - so I ran the benchmark on the other array (quad 160GB Intel SSDs, also in RAID0) - but got the same result, abysmal performance in the lower block-request sizes.

Since that appeared to be substandard performance - but I couldn't remember what it did a year ago when I benched it - I went back to UserBenchmark at tried again, and that confirmed my suspicions - both arrays were doing very badly compared to what I was used to.

• Today's results: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/17882520
• 2018 results: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/9103297

(Note the disk results appear in reverse between the pages).

So - where to from here? What could cause the RST array to slow down like that?

[Leonardo_C_Intel]

Hello Litch

Thank you for posting in the Intel Community.

I order to look into the behavior that you are having please provide me the following information:

Please attach to this thread the TXT file the Intel® System Support Utility will generate: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility

Steps to save the report:

1.   Run the utility.

2.   Click on “Scan” to get the scanned system.

3.   Once the scan is complete click on “next”.

4.   Use the “save” option, save the report to your desktop.

5.   To attach a file, you must click the “Attach” option on the bottom left-hand corner of the response box.

Please follow the instructions below to run the Intel® RST system report

1.   Open the Intel Rapid Storage Technology user interface (Start > Programs > Intel > Intel® Rapid Storage Technology).

2.   Click the Help icon.

3.   Click the System Report icon.

4.   Click Save to your desktop.

5.   To attach a file, you must click the “Attach” option on the bottom left-hand corner of the response box.

Please provide me with a picture of disk management.

Regards,

Leonardo C.                        

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Litch]

Thanks Leonardo - Attaching as requested.

[Litch]

...and the SSU Report, appears I can only attach 1 at a time.

[Litch]

Disk Management

[Leonardo_C_Intel]

Hello Litch

Thank you for the information.

After reviewing your system reports I noticed that you are using Intel® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise 16.0.2.1086 can you tried installing the driver version provided by MSI* the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) of the motherboard?

Reference link:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z370-TOMAHAWK#down-driver&Win10%2064  

The behavior that you are having can be because of the software version installed on the system.

in case you still have the same behavior after completing the update you can also try starting your system with a clean installation using the drivers provided by the OEM.

NOTE:

Before making any changes on the system we recommend completing a back up of all your files to avoid losing data.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Leonardo C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[Litch · Accepted solution]

That's not the answer - those drivers have been used from the beginning.

[EDIT]

It has been resolved.

I performed a BIOS update (V14->V17) and uninstalled the storage drivers (Device Manager -> RST Premium controller -> Driver -> Uninstall, then auto-installed them). Rebooted.

Performance in ATTO Benchmark immediately picked up to 20x the performance previously seen.

[Leonardo_C_Intel]

Hello Litch

I am glad to hear that the behavior has been resolved.

Regards,

Leonardo C.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation