[ttsoldier]

That's a great point. I was surprised why so many people had turned it on (I thought it was more of an enterprise feature), but the Microsoft account bit seems to be the "culprit".

Bitlocker is an important variable, but from the benches I've seen, it mostly affects 4K speeds and not so much sequential speeds.

Are you saying that logging in with a Microsoft account enables bitlocker?

I'm using a local account right now and it's off.

When I sign in with my ms account, I don't want it on...

Bitlocker IS more geared towards enterprise users...

[ikjadoon]

Err, I don't know; that guy who posted earlier said it. I don't have a Surface Book yet and my current laptop doesn't have a TPM chip. And this guy (@ 7:29):



Gives a tip that you should turn it off. So....presumably....it was turned on by default?

EDIT:

OK, yup, Windows 10 automatically enables Bitlocker (started with Windows 8.1) if your device has the necessary hardware. You have to opt-out.

Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true:

• The Windows device must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems. Older Windows PCs wont support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default.
• When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is initialized on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up.
• The PCs user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsofts servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled.

[lancorp]

Are you saying that logging in with a Microsoft account enables bitlocker?

I'm using a local account right now and it's off.

When I sign in with my ms account, I don't want it on...

Bitlocker IS more geared towards enterprise users...

Why do you say that? You think everyone doesn't have important personal information on their computers? Anyone with a super thin and light device like a Surface Pro is more susceptible to it being stolen. I'd sure sleep better at night knowing that if my SP3 or SP4 fell into the wrong hands, all my email, contacts and stored website passwords were safe from prying eyes and hands!

[ttsoldier]

Why do you say that? You think everyone doesn't have important personal information on their computers? Anyone with a super thin and light device like a Surface Pro is more susceptible to it being stolen. I'd sure sleep better at night knowing that if my SP3 or SP4 fell into the wrong hands, all my email, contacts and stored website passwords were safe from prying eyes and hands!

Well. To each their own

[lancorp]

Well. To each their own

I agree with that more than your first assertion.

[Daniel Rubino]

Although I prefer Bitlocker no doubt turning it off can have significant improvements, at least in benchmarks (not sure about 'real world' feel just yet)

[Yonic Boom]

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable leaving my data unencrypted, but that is a pretty big jump.

[ttsoldier]

Here's mine

i5/8gb/512ssd

Attachment 115758

Mine was done with bit locker off. This was before I logged into my sp4 with my microsoft account.

[ikjadoon]

Mine was done with bit locker off. This was before I logged into my sp4 with my microsoft account.

Exactly! That's what irks me really bad. A 512GB model getting half the sequential write speed of a 256GB model. That's just absurd. :(

Those Bitlocker-off Toshiba results are what I expected out of a PCIe NVMe drive released in 2015. I had no idea getting such results would require such hoops: being a lucky enough to get a Toshiba drive + disabling Bitlocker.

Regarding security impact: good point and an important consideration to weigh.

[Daniel Rubino]

Mine was done with bit locker off. This was before I logged into my sp4 with my microsoft account.

Legit question: Build 10240 or Insider build 10586? I'm on the latter and as today demonstrated, there are some enhancements with TH2.

[ttsoldier]

Legit question: Build 10240 or Insider build 10586? I'm on the latter and as today demonstrated, there are some enhancements with TH2.

10240.

[ikjadoon]

The pitifully performing PM951 128GB mystery is solved. Spoiler: it's the same issue that was on the 128GB Surface Pro 3's, except that TLC 19nm NAND was released in 2012 on SATA and now we're on TLC 40nm V-NAND released in 2015 on NVMe. What stayed the same? Oh, yeah...T-L-frigging-C.

You guys seen this yet? Crucial's first TLC SSD? It's not the Year of the Sheep, guys, but the the Year of going back 5 years in SSD performance.

At least we should be thankful Microsoft didn't pick this drive (keep scrolling):



Also, the M.2 850 EVO results results seem correlate strongly: the PM951 is the "OEM" NVMe-enabled 850 EVO. Note how weak the M.2 120GB is, the moderate improvement but still weak the 240GB is, and the normal performance of the 500GB.

So, looking at the 120GB Samsung 850 EVO, let's see: it uses a single 128GiB chip (greatly decreasing parallelization):



Samsung, in analysis, decided that it was OK to butcher the 128GB model because these big TLC NAND chips would finally allow them to release affordable 1TB and 2TB SSDs. Looking at the above performance, we can see how badly the 120GB drive was affected. Fewer chips seemingly affect TLC drives way more than MLC drives because the 128GB 850 Pro has no issues like this.

So, why wasn't there an uproar with the Samsung 850 EVO 120GB model? It's as ****ty as the PM951.

Ah, it supports TurboWrite (the SLC cache in the 850 EVO that allows it to put up decent numbers, at least up to 3GB transfers):



Samsung masks this terrible write performance with TurboWrite (turning ~3GB of the TLC into a super-fast SLC cache). Problem is, on the PM951, it doesn't have TurboWrite, so we're stuck with the original TLC performance.

Just for arguments sake, this is why people still have issues recommending TLC NAND: most consumer workloads fit just fine into that ~3GB SLC cache on the 850 EVO. But, even on those, if you push them, the 3GB cache runs out and you get the original poopy performance:



Again, all these issues only affect Samsung TLC drives. But, these affected the original Surface line, too, because they use the PM851! I wondered...Turbo Write will definitely help these pitiful PM951 drives, too, (and let Samsung advertise a 500MB/s write speed instead of the more honest 150MB/s and 330MB/s). Did the PM851 (the 840 EVO drive) ever get Turbo Write? Maybe in the beginning, it wasn't ready, but they enabled it later? From the PM851 tech. sheet:



Noooopee. hahaha, got a little optimistic, didn't I?

Maybe we are crazy lucky, guys. Now, with the Toshiba XG3, Microsoft is finally waking up and giving us a normal SSD drive. I hope you guys with Toshiba drives have a death-grip on them because I'm getting real jealous, haha.

[ikjadoon]

Quick question, Daniel. On your Toshiba XG3, would you remind running a quick AS-SSD test? The download link is at the very bottom.

I'm curious on the write speeds.

[Daniel Rubino]

Quick question, Daniel. On your Toshiba XG3, would you remind running a quick AS-SSD test? The download link is at the very bottom.

I'm curious on the write speeds.

I'll take a look today.

[Devhux]

Looks like Anandtech has revealed what we already know:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9767/m...-2015-review/3

"You can see that read speeds are still quite good, even surpassing the Toshiba some of the time, but write speeds are quite a bit lower. In particular, the sequential writes can be less than half the speed of the XG3 drive. This can be compensated for by using some SLC (Single-Level Cell) as a cache, but it does not appear that the PM951 has any caching available to it."

"Summing the storage up, we have a situation that is not ideal. Its fine to source from different vendors, but the performance differences between the two devices are quite substantial, let alone the long term durability of the TLC NAND"

In other words, this is a lottery we simply shouldn't have with the Surface Book. As the article also points out, Microsoft really should have gone with the Samsung SM951 instead of the PM951.

FWIW, I exchanged my Surface Book for a 256Gb Surface Pro 4, and lucked out in getting a Toshiba drive. Kind of ridiculous that I spent less on the Pro 4 to get double the storage with a much faster drive!

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

[netmann]

A couple of weeks ago I posted in regards to SP4 SSD speed. Storagenewsletter report the Toshiba NVMe XG3 SSD with the following specs:

Maximum sequential read speed: 2516 MB/s
Maximum sequential write speed: 1572 MB/s

Anandtech bench of 256 GB SP4 with Toshiba NVMe XG3 SSD showed the following:



Tonight I read Anandtech review of Surface Book. Their bench of 512 GB SB with Toshiba NVMe XG3 SSD showed:



Very different beast, isn't it?!

From the posts of Surface Book owners above I have not seen anyone with Toshiba SSD, most are Samsung PM951, and I am wondering why?! Perhaps some of the 512 GB and all of 1 TB SSD Surface Books only come with Toshiba SSD performance similar to Anandtech unit, or maybe he has given the unrestricted SSD test units for a better glorified review!!!

[Stocklone]

Good thing I got the i7/16GB/512GB so I could get stuck with the way slower Samsung drive. $2700 well spent. </sarcasm>

[Stocklone]

On a serious note. The original presentation of the Surface Book showed a 3GB file being transferred incredibly fast. Obviously that was a Toshiba drive. Is that grounds for a class action lawsuit? That demo was incredibly misleading to customers. Especially those that pre-ordered the device.

[ikjadoon]

From the posts of Surface Book owners above I have not seen anyone with Toshiba SSD, most are Samsung PM951, and I am wondering why?! Perhaps some of the 512 GB and all of 1 TB SSD Surface Books only come with Toshiba SSD performance similar to Anandtech unit, or maybe he has given the unrestricted SSD test units for a better glorified review!!!

I have not seen a single Surface Book owner with the Toshiba drive. I have only seen the Toshiba drive in review unit SBs. I have seen SP4's with the Toshiba drive, but nada on the SB (from the 128GB SB to the 512GB SB: all retail units, so far, seem to be Samsung).

On a serious note. The original presentation of the Surface Book showed a 3GB file being transferred incredibly fast. Obviously that was a Toshiba drive. Is that grounds for a class action lawsuit? That demo was incredibly misleading to customers. Especially those that pre-ordered the device.

Well, I didn't time the demonstration, but it could've been a 512GB Samsung which does write @ ~500MB/s. That would transfer the file in ~6 seconds. It also could've been a 1TB Samsung which could write ~1,000MB/s.

I specifically mentioned this issue to Anandtech (that review units were getting Toshiba, retail units had Samsung). Brett didn't address this directly in the review, but he did write:

Microsoft has gone down this road with the Surface Book, meaning there are going to be two versions of SSD available.

So, what...over time, the Toshiba drive will be "sprinkled" in? Maybe high demand caused them to tap into two sources. Whatever the distribution, I just don't see how one can get the Toshiba right now.

Then, I'll wait on buying a SB. I'm keeping this nearly $3000 laptop for 5+ years--why settle for the slower TLC?

[Christian Haberl]

Great point.

Here are the specs for the three drives:

The links you provided point to the MZVLV not MZFLV drives.

[ikjadoon]

The links you provided point to the MZVLV not MZFLV drives.

It seems to just be the OEM version. If you find any specs for the FLV drives, do post. We're looking. But, for the time being, the performance of the FLV drives matches well with the specification VLV drives.

And, I think we can suss it out logically: Samsung only lists two NVMe drives on its website, the SM951 and the PM951. This drive is certainly no SM951....and all its performance benchmarks line up exactly with the PM951.

[thaddyusmaximus]

Here's samsung drivers that improved my write speed dramatically. Please use at your own risk. Here's the link
BeforeAfter

[ikjadoon]

Yes, AS-SSD isn't very reliable with current NVMe drivers. CrystalDiskMark shows no such issues and that's what most reviewers are using. Let's not get distracted by the real issue: it doesn't matter what little variables we try to decipher in all of our anecdotal testing (BitLocker, AS-SSD, full or empty, TRIM, etc.)

Samsung rates the 256GB model at ~330MB/s writes. The Toshiba 256GB model can pull 1000MB/s. Has a single Surface Book owner received the Toshiba SSD?

[RaymondDijkstra]

A couple of weeks ago I posted in regards to SP4 SSD speed. Storagenewsletter report the Toshiba NVMe XG3 SSD with the following specs:

Maximum sequential read speed: 2516 MB/s
Maximum sequential write speed: 1572 MB/s

Anandtech bench of 256 GB SP4 with Toshiba NVMe XG3 SSD showed the following:



Tonight I read Anandtech review of Surface Book. Their bench of 512 GB SB with Toshiba NVMe XG3 SSD showed:



Very different beast, isn't it?!

From the posts of Surface Book owners above I have not seen anyone with Toshiba SSD, most are Samsung PM951, and I am wondering why?! Perhaps some of the 512 GB and all of 1 TB SSD Surface Books only come with Toshiba SSD performance similar to Anandtech unit, or maybe he has given the unrestricted SSD test units for a better glorified review!!!

This are my results with a SAMSUNG pm951 1Tb ssd.

Dell xps 15 i7

[ajcletus500]

can any one tell me whats the current scenario of the SSD in the SB. would it be worth buying right now if fast write speeds are important to me?