Slow SSD Speed DL380/360

[KDZ]

I tested below on 3 different HPe Proliant 380/360 servers with 480Gb Raid1 OS disks and several Tb Raid6 spinning disk storage
recently I found that the SSD read performance degrades over time quite dramatically
during install, about 2 years ago, I put some testdata on the C drive, and now the raid6 with spinning disks
is faster to load this test data than the SSD, this wasn't the case initially, so something must be wrong
when running any of the SSD benchmark Tools, it writes a testfile to SSD and does the speed test on that
now the SSD controllers have some tricks up their sleeve to enhance endurance
since the flash cells can do limited P/E cycles, for a 3D or V NAND that is around 1000~3000 cycles
and with each P/E cycle they get a little slower since it's harder to distinguish between the 8 voltage levels (TLC)
the error correction that is needed takes time, and there are more reasons that SSD degrade over time
one of the other tricks the SSD controller has is wear leveling, where it decides on where to put the data depending on the amount of P/E cycles a cell already has done
so the SSD benchmark testfile will be put on relatively fresh NAND flash cells, so basically these benchmaring Tools
are NO good for SSD's that are in use for some time, it only gives reliable results on newer SSD's
HPe use re-branded Sandisk SSD's and put their own firmware on it, in the past the server SSD's were MLC's,
but nowadays mostly TLC's with a lot lower endurance and speed, TLC and QLC that's kind of consumer desktop quality mu guess
because of the much lower cost.
on our systems we have Raid controllers with 2Gb cache but for reads they are pass-through, i think HP calls it HBA
among the many SSD benchmark Tools I found 2 that do what i want them to do, and that is READ test the entire area of the SSD
they are old programs, but still do what they supposed to do, HD Tune and HD Tach the latter you even need to run in XP compatibility mode.
now when i run these test, I get below results, where a read speed of 120MB/s is even slower than a spinning disk

system 3 is what i would expect

SYSTEM1

SYSTEM2

SYSTEM3

System1 HPe Proliant DL380 Gen10
SSD1 MK000480GXAWF FW HPG0 power on hours 19923 life remaining 100% SN: ***confidential info erased***
SSD2 MK000480GXAWF FW HPG0 power on hours 19923 life remaining 100% SN: ***confidential info erased***

System2 HPe Proliant DL380 Gen10 (disk drive seems incorrect in ILO, however it says 480gb SATA SSD)
SSD1 MM2000JEFRC FW HPG0 power on hours 15944 life remaining 100% SN:  ***confidential info erased***
SSD2 MM2000JEFRC FW HPG0 power on hours 15944 life remaining 100% SN:  ***confidential info erased***

System3 HPe Proliant DL360 Gen10
SSD1 MK000480GWXFF FW HPG1 power on hours 18845 life remaining 100% SN:  ***confidential info erased***
SSD2 MK000480GWXFF FW HPG1 power on hours 20377 life remaining 100% SN:  ***confidential info erased***

below is a New Server only OS installed nothing more (sorry no details about hardware, can post lateron)

it would be interesting to see what other people find with the HD Tune Pro test

[Sham82]

Hello ,

We cannot comment on the Third Party tool (HD Tune)

However for better performance, please make sure the server, Controller, HDD are running on latest Firmware.

Controller Driver also is on the latest.

Regards

HPE

[KDZ]

yep, all firmware is up to date, below is from a server straight out of the box, not installed at the customers site
HPe DL380 Gen 10

both SSD MK000480GZXRA firmware HPG1

and below from a different benchmarking tool, shows same result

[Sham82]

Hello, 

As Mentioned earlier , we would not be able to comment on any Third Party Tool however to check from H/W End 
we would request you to share AHSLogs , ADU report and SSD wear Gauge Report. and log a HPE support case.

Regards
HPE 

[KDZ]

i received a PM

This is to inform you that HPE Support case 5373803540 has been created and an HPE Support representative will assist you further to resolve your issue/query.

You may be requested to provide asset information to HPE support agent.

Note: Asset information includes Product Serial Number, Service Agreement ID or Packaged support Id

[Sham82]

Hello ,
please log a support case using below Link :
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/contact-hpe.html

Regards

HPE

[KDZ]

hello
Support case 5373803540 has been created already

[Vinky_99]

@KDZ 

AFAIK, these are free cases and not tied to the serial numbers of your product because serial number is confidential information and should not be shared in public forums. 

Hope this is clear! 

[KDZ]

I'm aware these are 3rd party tools
please provide a link to a HPe approved Benchmarking tool that does the same read speed testing across the entire drive area

[Sham82]

Hello ,

 As mentioned , these are free cases and not tied to the serial numbers of your product.

HPE does not have such tool , hence to check the H/W functionality please log a support case using below Link :

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/contact-hpe.html

Regards

HPE