Which NVMe Drivers are the best (performance related)?

Important Drivers Specific: NVMe Drivers
186

Oh this is worst, luckily I have tried it from my other SSD Win, and it doesn’t even work!

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New Micron works just fine, and seems to be quite a performer.

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Performance difference Samsung 3.3.0.2003 vs Micron 2.1.17.0

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Bur Samsung are still better, especially in write.

187

anyone ever tested the older OCZ/Toshiba NVMe driver?

188

@Black6spdZ :
Since I doubt, that any user of a Toshiba NVMe SSD will read and answer your specific question, I propose to do the comparison test yourself and report here about your results.

189

I will go for Samsung driver nvme 3.3 on my new aorus 15g

190

Sorry for the very very late reply, but at the time I was using a Pioneer 1TB SSD, and Windows 7. I no longer have that SSD, but I have a 2TB WD Black SSD that I could try again with.

191

Upgraded to a B550 chipset and made some test with WD SN 750 Black after discovering here in the board the WD NVME driver (Thanks for that).
Tests done with Crystal Disk Mark 8.0.1, NVME settings
Before I used generic Intel RST driver 18.33.
My system: MSI B550M Mortar, 32 GB RAM, Ryzen 5 3600, WD SN 750, 1TB, FW 111110WD
First test carried out with AMD_StoreMI AHCI Driver v9.4.0.00036

Intel RST NVME Generic v18.33.0.1003, dated March 12, 2021, AMD_StoreMI


Western Digital NVME v3.3.2102.41615, dated February 16, 2021, AMD_StoreMI


Samsung NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003, dated January 21. 2020, AMD_StoreMI


Second test carried out with Microsoft Standard SATA AHCI Controller, v10.0.19041.906

Intel RST NVME Generic v18.33.0.1003, dated March 12, 2021, MS Standard AHCI


Western Digital NVME v3.3.2102.41615, dated February 16, 2021, MS Standard AHCI


Samsung NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003, dated January 21. 2020, MS Standard AHCI


From the values, the Samsumg is clear winner.
All NVME drivers performed better with Microsoft Standard AHCI Driver than with the AMD AHCI Driver.

Cheers
Tom

192

Sabrent 2TB Rocket PCIe 4.0 SSD (Windows NVMe Driver):

Pic1.png



Sabrent 2TB Rocket PCIe 4.0 SSD (Phison Driver):

Pic2.png



Sabrent 4TB Rocket Q PCIe 3.0 SSD (Windows NVMe Driver):

Pic3.png



Sabrent 4TB Rocket Q PCIe 3.0 SSD (Phison Driver):

Pic4.png




@Fernando is v1.5.0.0 the latest version? I’m asking because it is dated 2018


EDIT by Fernando: Pictures directly attached and resized (can be enlarged by clicking onto them)

193

@superspartan : Yes, the v1.5.0.0 is the latest Phison NVMe driver.
Did you already test the generic Samsung NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003? If not, do it. That driver gave
my 1TB Sabrent Rocket 4 NVMe SSD the best benchmark results.

194


I did a while back. Do you happen to have a benchmark comparison of the Phison vs the Samsung driver for the Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4?

195

@superspartan :
Currently I don’t have access to my benchmark results.
Why don’t you compare the performance of the Samsung and Phison NVMe drivers yourself?

196

Sn750 1tb + Z97 Gryphon + Asus Hyper PCie card

phison driver is my final choice . WD 64 bit installs and runs almost as good drive shows as ‘sn730’ maybe a quick .inf edit would resolve it all idk

> wd dashboard stops working with any of them worked fine with windows standard nvme driver

>>my M.2 was showing under ‘disk drives’ in control panel as “wds100xxxxx-00sj” model name only it now shows nvme wds100xxxxx-00sj SCsI disk device

197

SN850 1TB - Asus x570-F - phison driver.

Didnt take any screenshots of Samsung and generic driver speeds but the difference is significant, like +8-10% on my setup.


sn8501tb.png

198

@KGO87 and @addict :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum and thanks for your reports!

Here are the benchmark results I got using different NVMe drivers with my AMD X570 chipset system running Windows 11 Build 22000.51 on a 1 TB Samsung 980 Pro:

1. MS Win11 in-box NVMe driver:

Anvil-AMDX570-1TBSamsung980Pro-Win11-STORNVME.png



2. Samsung NVMe Driver v3.3.0.2003:

Anvil-AMDX570-1TBSamsung980Pro-Win11-Samsung3302003.png



3. Phison NVMe Driver v1.5.0.0:

Anvil-AMDX570-1TBSamsung980Pro-Win11-Phison1500.png



As you can see, the Phison NVMe driver was far away from being the best for my system.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

1 Like
199

I’m running a wd black 750 tho which is phison I believe … Also older chipset much older haswell asus board w.asus pcie add in m.2 card

I ended up just using the standard MS nvme driver

200

Recently I have done some new benchmark comparison tests.
I wanted to find out the best performant NVMe driver while running a freshly installed Win11 v21H2 Build 22000.469 on a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD.
(Note: This specific PCIe 4.0 supporting NVMe SSD was chosen to make benchmark differences while using different NVMe drivers as clear as possible. It was not my intention to compare the performance of a PCIe 3.0 with a PCIe 4.0 connection or of an Intel with an AMD chipset system.)
For a better informative value I tested
A) an AMD X570 chipset system (supporting PCIe 4.0) and
B) an Intel Z170 chipset system (supporting only PCIe 3.0).

These were the drivers I have tested until now:

  1. Microsoft’s generic Win11 in-box NVMe driver v10.0.22000.348 named STORNVME.SYS dated 11/17/2021 (the shown date is wrong)
  2. Samsung’s NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003 WHQL dated 01/21/2020 (installation had to be forced)
  3. Phison’s generic NVMe driver v1.5.0.0 WHQL dated 02/23/2018
  4. Micron’s NVMe driver v2.1.18.0 WHQL dated 03/02/2021 (installation had to be forced)
  5. Intel’s RST NVMe driver v17.11.0.1000 WHQL dated 09/30/2021 (installation had to be forced, matching are the iaStorAC.inf file and the device “Intel(R) NVMe Controller”)
  • Set a “Restore Point” before starting the driver replacement (to be able to restore at any time your currently running OS and boot configuration).
  • If you should have installed any storage driver related Software (e.g. the Intel RST Management Console), uninstall it from within the Control Panel and reboot thereafter.
  • An NVMe driver should be manually replaced from within the “Storage Controllers” section of the Device Manager (don’t try to update the driver of any device, which is listed within the “Disk Drives” section, or to uninstall any in-use storage driver!).
  • If your desired NVMe driver is WHQL certified and the HardwareIDs of the related NVMe Controller is listed within its *.INF file, the installation procedure is easy and very safe:
    1. Right-click onto the listed NVMe Controller, which is currently managing the related NVMe SSD.
    2. Choose the “Update Driver” > “Browse my Computer” options, navigate to the folder with the extracted “pure” NVMe driver files and click onto the “Continue” button. The rest will be done automaticly by the Device Management of the OS.
    3. After having completed the installation you have to restart the PC/Notebook. This is the critical point of the storage driver installation, because the real replacement happens during the restart procedure.
  • If the desired driver replacement should end with the message “The best driver is already installed”, you may have to force the installation:
    1. Restart the driver update by using the “Browse my Computer” option, but choose the “Let me pick…” option thereafter.
    2. Press the “Have Disk” button and navigate to the folder with the desired driver files.
    3. If the Device Management should show more than 1 *.INF file and/or Controller names, choose the (best) matching ones.

Here are the benchmark results I got:

A. Intel Z170 Chipset System (PCIe 3.0)

Intel BM STORNVME.png

Intel BM Samsung.png


(left/upper Pic: MS Win11 generic in-box NVMe driver, right/lower Pic: Samsung’s specific NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003)

Intel BM Phison.png

BM Intel Micron.png


(left/upper Pic: Phison’s generic NVMe driver v1.5.0.0, right/lower Pic: Micron’s specific NVMe driver v2.1.18.0)

Intel-PC_Intel171101000.png


(Intel’s generic RST NVMe driver v17.11.0.1000)

B. AMD X570 Chipset System (PCIe 4.0)

CDM-X570-1TBSamsung980Pro-STORNVME-Win11.png

CDM-X570-1TBSamsung980Pro-Samsung3302003-Win11.png


(left/upper Pic: MS Win11 generic in-box NVMe driver, right/lower Pic: Samsung’s specific NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003

CDM-X570-1TBSamsung980Pro-gen.Phison1500-Win11.png

CDM-X570-1TBSamsung980Pro-Micron21180-Win11.png


(left/upper Pic: Phison’s generic NVMe driver v1.5.0.0, right/lower Pic: Micron’s specific NVMe driver v2.1.18.0)

CDM-X570-1TBSamsung980Pro-Intel171101000-Win11.png


(Intel’s generic RST NVMe driver v17.11.0.1000)

Updated evaluation of my test results (after having additionally tested the Micron NVMe driver):

  • All 5 tested NVMe drivers are very performant while running Win11 v21H2.
  • On both PCs (with an Intel resp. AMD Chipset) the Phison, Micron and Intel NVMe drivers were better performant than the in-box MS and the latest Samsung NVMe drivers.
  • Surprisingly it was the Intel RST NVMe driver, which was the benchmark winner while running on my Intel Z170 chipset system (due to the outstanding Q1T1 Sequential Read/Write numbers).
  • Regarding my AMD X570 system it were the Phison and the Micron drivers, which were the best, but the performance differences to the other tested drivers were much lower and probably not even noticeable by the user.
    My recommendation: Choose the driver, which gives your system the best stability or the lowest power consumption (important for notebooks).

If you want to get any other NVMe driver tested, please let me know it within the next days (as long as the test systems are usable).

201

How about then the Micron NVMe driver v2.1.17.0? Maybe even the Samsung NVMe driver v2.0.8.1611 …?
Just curious

202

@MDM
Thanks for your proposal.

What is the reason for suggesting to test these specific NVMe drivers? Do you have any hint for a potential performance boost?
What about an Intel NVMe driver? Which version among the various Intel ones would be the best candidate for an additional test?

203

What is the reason for suggesting to test these specific NVMe drivers? Do you have any hint for a potential performance boost?
What about an Intel NVMe driver? Which version among the various Intel ones would be the best candidate for an additional test?


Well for me simple, if you remember my previous posts here; for my SM controller the Phison one is a no go and also this one didn’t work either. So I simply proposed to test the ones that work for me…

204

@MDM
After having done additional benchmark tests on both systems (Intel/AMD) I have updated the post #200. I hope, that you agree with my conclusions.
Since I have never tested the Controller-specific Micron NVMe driver before, I was surprised about the results I got - that driver seems to be really good and very performant!
Thank you for the advice to test it on my machines!
Regarding other test candidates I will wait a while and hope, that we will get feedback from other Forum members with an NVMe SSD.

205

Do you think Win 11 drivers could work even on Wn 10? If so, could you please upload them? Thanks!