Samsung Magician

On 2019-06-30 3:44 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

On 2019-06-30 10:08 a.m., Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-06-30 5:06 a.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

There is a feature in this program to run certain Samsung 840, 850 evo
SSDs and some other models in what they call "Rapide Mode".
Does any one here have any experience with this feature?
googleing returns me some good results and a lot of Not sure results.

Benchmarking is not possible, it just gives you screwy results that are
meaningless, Apperently it uses part of your memory to do this.

Just curious to know if it works as I have 2 of these 850 evo drives but
only used for game programs, not really a concern.

Thanks, Rene

I've used it since my Win7 setup when I got the Samsung EVO-840.* Their
benchmarks are skewed.* Other benchmarks weren't so impressive, but they
were better with Rapid Mode on.* However, you need to running into those
edge-use cases where a RAM cache will help.* I don't do huge video
editing to make use of such huge write buffers.

Rapid Mode is on my To Do list to disable.* I don't remember if I
enabled it in my new Win10 build.* If I did, I'll disable it when it get
to that item way down in my computer To Do list.* As far as I can tell,
it hasn't hurt me; however, it hasn't helped, either, so there's no
point in keep using it.

http://www.thessdreview.com/software...e-2-1-testing/

(dated December 19, 2014)
** Samsungÿs RAPID white paper states that RAPID works by analyzing
** ´system traffic and leverages spare system resources (DRAM and CPU) to
** deliver read acceleration through intelligent caching of hot data and
** write optimization through tight coordination with the SSD.¡

It's one of these whiz-bang features that sound great on paper and get
promoted, like how an $800 water-filtering vacuum is so much cleaner
than a $190 dry vacuum, providing you can past the junky watery mess you
have to flush down the toilet while hoping you don't plug it.* When I
watch those commercials, first thing that comes to my mind is "Why
aren't the dry vacuum users cleaning more often, so they don't have to
pay $800 to get their carpets clean?"

I have a 3-second delay to show the multiple boot choice on startup.* I
use Macrium Reflect and have it added as a boot-time option, so I need
to restore than I don't have to go hunting for a bootable CD or USB
drive to bring up Reflect.* I won't notice another half-second for boot
time.* However, Samsung's claim is that boot time would be reduced, not
increased; else, they'd lose a selling point right there.

For the application loat-time test, I opened the Before and After images
from the article, and toggled between those two tabs in the web browser.
I did see some difference, but it was miniscule.* Excel was the only one
that benefited from Rapid Mode.* Photoshop was the one with the biggest
change (and biggest was still a tiny change); however, the first file
open was faster with Rapid Mode but subsequent file opens were slower.
No win there for Rapid Mode.* Besides, who keeps loading and unloading
data files as fast as they can?

There is no read performance boost from Rapid Mode yet it does add
another layer of vulnerability (to failure, not from infection).* This
is like adding sTunnel to an old version of Outlook that doesn't have
TLS support required by the chosen e-mail provider, just making the
chain longer where each added link increase the failure potential.

A couple tests had Rapid Mode the winner; however, I'm not running my
home PC as a file or application server.* Personally, I prefer a more
stable platform.* That's why I don't overclock, too.* Availability and
reliablity are more important to me than a few edge-cases I may never
encounter to effect a performance boost as a rare-time event.

Remember those hybrid HDDs that used SSDs for caching?* Yeah, they were
faster than HDD-only drives but cost a lot more and I didn't hear any of
its users extoling the benefits after a year's real-world experience
with them.* System RAM is faster than flash memory, so the same concept
was applied to SSDs: speed them up with a RAM cache.* I kept using HDDs
until I could afford to jump to SSDs rather than spend money on
incremental hardware changes.* As for RAM caching of SSDs, naw, I'll
wait until something comes along that gives real-world and consistent
performance boost in some new hardware advance.* Memristor's anyone?* If
they ever do show up, it'll be another 10 years before they hit a price
point tolerable to consumers.* I'll be dead by then.

I'm not running a transaction server used by hundreds of customers where
even the tiniest fraction of performance increase increases revenue that
will reduce ROI and start generating revenue.* I haven't any wow-factor
performance boost in my Win7 (8GB) and Win10 (64GB) with Rapid Mode
enabled.* No point in throwing more software and hardware at a solution
that doesn't effect any real or experienced benfit.

Also, whether it is cost effective depends on how much system memory you
have.* One a 4GB system, nope, won't help and probably won't work.* On
8GB, I still wouldn't waste the RAM.* With 32 or 64GB then maybe I'd be
willing to waste some RAM on caching the SSD, but by then I'd probably
be using a RAMdisk to make a super-fast drive that is far faster than is
flash memory and doesn't self-destruct over time due to oxide stress or
write volume concern.

The only reason why I will keep Samsung Magician is to change the
overprovisioning of the SSD; however, apparently just enlarging the
unallocated space on the drive will do that, too.* If I find that last
claim is true, bye bye Samsung Magician (after first using it to disable
Rapid Mode).


After reading your post VanguardLH I decided to take One more kick at
the cat.
I also have Macrium Reflect on my start multi-boot menu, Makes life
easier, I decided on a real world write test which I do quite often
which is Do a Macrium backup of my C:\ drive to the Samsung 850 evo.

these are the results with Rapide mode *OFF*
Size 31.6 GB, time 2:20 minutes, CPU use 19%, memory use 2.4 GB.

These are the results with Rapide Mode *ON*
Size 31.6 GB, time 2.05 minutes, CPU use 21%, memory use 6.5 MB.

If my math is still functional that's about a 7 % gain which is about 4
seconds, not worth bothering with, So In my case Rapide mode will remain
off permanently.

Rene


In my mind it was about 4 seconds, using a calculator it is actually 9.8
seconds, My old age is showing. :-)

Rene

Wouldn't that only apply if you are saving the backups to a drive that
is affected by Rapid Mode? As I recall, Rapid Mode is only effected on
the disk where is the OS partition(s). If so, why are you backing up
the C: drive and saving the backups to C: drive?

I always found it rude that Magician stays loaded after I'm done with it
and exit it. I don't need any of its features constantly running.
Rapid Mode is a driver, so it doesn't need a GUI running in the
background all the time. Yes, you could manually right-click on its
tray icon to unload it, but the point of software is so you don't have
to perform such trivialities. It should have an option "Unload after
exiting GUI". I use a batch file to load Magician and leave its console
window open. After visually unloading Magician, I press a key in the
console window to terminate the pause. Having to hit a key isn't much
easier than right-clicking on the tray icon to exit; however, I keep
forgetting the program is still running in the background, so the
console window reminds me to kill the SamsungMagician.exe process by
tapping a key in the console window.

I started reading the online manual. Lots of gotchas in there. The
manual is at:

https://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...umer/magician/


to clarify, I was backing up my C:\ drive to my F:\ drive which is my
850 evo, only to test the Rapide mode, I was not aware that it only
supposed to work on the OS drive if it is a Samsung. Thanks for the Link
for the manual, I shall now give it a read.

Rene

Well, this is interesting. I fired up Samsung Magician to check if I
ever did enable Rapid Mode. I have just one SSD in my new Win10 build:
Samsung 970 Pro 1TB m.2 NVMe. The SSD was listed; however, it was
reported as "Rapid Mode: Not supported". Huh? Why not? Well, it's
/not/ attached to a SATA port. It is an NVMe SSD that fits into an m.2
slot on the motherboard. I remember seeing something in the manual
about NVMe, so I'll have to figure out why Magician won't enable Rapid
Mode on that SSD. Could also be Rapid Mode is not needed and should not
be used with the Pro models of the Samsung's SSDs.

So, there's no point in keeping Magician installed, except it does have
some nice functions. I've used its overprovisioning function to
increase overprovisioning. Consumer-deployed SSDs are often setup with
about 7% overprovisioning. On my old Win7 system with a 256MB SSD, I
used this to up overprovisioning to something like 12% (don't have the
old Win7 PC to check). Enterprise-deployed SSDs have higher
overprovisioning for more reliability and longevity. In my Win10 build,
it was already at 10% (95 GB). Doesn't seem I really need to up it in
my new build as that's a huge amount of space. It's a 1 TB SSD, but 10%
is getting to where I don't really want to waste more space on an
unallocated partition used for overprovisioning. Even if I later decide
to up the overprovisioning, that would only be once, so after doing it
then that feature wouldn't be enough alone to keep Magician.

Another nice feature of Magician is that it tells you the total bytes
written (1.3 TB, so far), rather than attempt to divulge that info from
the SMART data. SSD longevity is rated by estimated maximum volume of
writes. While Magician doesn't tell you what is that value, it will
give a health indication of the SSD, like "Good".

Magician lets me know if the SSD has the latest firmware. I don't know
if it handles a firmware update, because there hasn't been one yet.
Their product page says, "Get notifications when new firmware is
released, and easily install updates for enhanced performance,
stability, and compatibility."

Another is it shows the NVMe driver is employed. That's needed with the
NVMe SSD that I put in the m.2 slot. Might find that info elsewhere,
like in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) under the Storage Controllers node
(where is listed the "Standard NVM Express Controller"), but it's nice
to see it in Magician's summary. Since the NVMe driver is installed,
that's not why Magician reports Rapid Mode is not supported on the
Samsung 970 Pro. From a cursory online search, Rapid Mode is not
compatible with NVMe. Users in forums reported Rapid Mode was disabled
for their Samsung Pro SSDs, so it's not peculiar to just my setup. So
the entire issue of whether Rapid Mode would help me just became moot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVM_Express

NVM Express, as a logical device interface, has been designed to
capitalize on the low latency and internal parallelism of solid-state
storage devices.

By its design, NVM Express allows host hardware and software to fully
exploit the levels of parallelism possible in modern SSDs. As a
result, NVM Express reduces I/O overhead and brings various
performance improvements relative to previous logical-device
interfaces, including multiple long command queues, and reduced
latency.

According to their product page, "Samsung SATA Interface SSD supporting
only." So, they support their Rapid Mode on the slower SATA interface
to speed up those SSDs. Guess NVMe is beyond what Rapid Mode could
speed up.

Since I use a batch to [remind me to] force an unload of Magician to
eliminate the rude behavior that it wants to stay loaded in the
background, there's just enough features other than Rapid Mode for me to
keep Magician installed.

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

I was backing up my C:\ drive to my F:\ drive which is my 850 evo,
only to test the Rapide mode, -------------------------------.
|
Hmm, you aren't using your SSD as your backup location, are you? ----'

I was not aware that it only supposed to work on the OS drive if it is
a Samsung. Thanks for the Link for the manual, I shall now give it a
read.

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe SSDs
which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower SATA
interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).

On 2019-06-30 4:35 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

I was backing up my C:\ drive to my F:\ drive which is my 850 evo,
only to test the Rapide mode, -------------------------------.
|
Hmm, you aren't using your SSD as your backup location, are you?

No, My real backups are done on an external 1GB spinner which is left
disconnected except when backing up.


I was not aware that it only supposed to work on the OS drive if it is
a Samsung. Thanks for the Link for the manual, I shall now give it a
read.

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe SSDs
which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower SATA
interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).


Yes I have NVMe also which I have set up as OS and program drive, All
data is kept on Smaller SSDs and HDD spinners.

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

On 2019-06-30 4:35 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

I was backing up my C:\ drive to my F:\ drive which is my 850 evo,
only to test the Rapide mode, -------------------------------.
|
Hmm, you aren't using your SSD as your backup location, are you?

No, My real backups are done on an external 1GB spinner which is left
disconnected except when backing up.


I was not aware that it only supposed to work on the OS drive if it is
a Samsung. Thanks for the Link for the manual, I shall now give it a
read.

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe SSDs
which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower SATA
interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).


Yes I have NVMe also which I have set up as OS and program drive, All
data is kept on Smaller SSDs and HDD spinners.

Rene

When you load Magician, wait, and wait, and wait, and then select the
NVMe SSD drive, is Rapid Mode disabled and noted as not supported?

I don't see the point of running Rapid Mode on data-only drives. I
doubt you are running a file server, or running an applications server
with thousands of users accessing the same files.

On 2019-06-30 7:16 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

On 2019-06-30 4:35 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:

I was backing up my C:\ drive to my F:\ drive which is my 850 evo,
only to test the Rapide mode, -------------------------------.
|
Hmm, you aren't using your SSD as your backup location, are you?

No, My real backups are done on an external 1GB spinner which is left
disconnected except when backing up.


I was not aware that it only supposed to work on the OS drive if it is
a Samsung. Thanks for the Link for the manual, I shall now give it a
read.

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe SSDs
which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower SATA
interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).


Yes I have NVMe also which I have set up as OS and program drive, All
data is kept on Smaller SSDs and HDD spinners.

Rene

When you load Magician, wait, and wait, and wait, and then select the
NVMe SSD drive, is Rapid Mode disabled and noted as not supported?

I don't see the point of running Rapid Mode on data-only drives. I
doubt you are running a file server, or running an applications server
with thousands of users accessing the same files.


Yes, NVMe drive not supported.
No, I only tried it on a data drive as a test, Seeing only marginal gain
I will not use it anyway.

Rene

VanguardLH wrote:

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe
SSDs which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower
SATA interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).

I started reading through the Magician manual. I found:

RAPID mode accelerates only one SSD even though user has several
Samsung SSDs (860 QVO, 860 EVO, 860 PRO, 850 PRO, 850 EVO, 850, 750
EVO, 840 EVO, and 840 PRO regardless of form factor).

Magician boosts performance on only one SATA-connected SSD, so you
should select the one where is the OS and apps.

On 2019-07-01 9:22 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
VanguardLH wrote:

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe
SSDs which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower
SATA interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).

I started reading through the Magician manual. I found:

RAPID mode accelerates only one SSD even though user has several
Samsung SSDs (860 QVO, 860 EVO, 860 PRO, 850 PRO, 850 EVO, 850, 750
EVO, 840 EVO, and 840 PRO regardless of form factor).

Magician boosts performance on only one SATA-connected SSD, so you
should select the one where is the OS and apps.


My OS and apps are all on my M.2 NVMe which doesn't need any boosting,
It benches 3457.6 reads and 2342.7 writes in Crystal mark 6. :-)
So the boost is really not much use to me as It won't work on that drive
anyway, but I do like the Magician program for all its other features
and will keep it installed just as you did.

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

On 2019-07-01 9:22 p.m., VanguardLH wrote:
VanguardLH wrote:

Well, upon further reading, Magician scans for all accessible drives.
It then identifies on which Rapid Mode is supported. Looks like it
functions with all supported drives.

In my other reply, I found that Rapid Mode is not supported on NVMe
SSDs which is what I have. Apparently it's the SSDs on the slower
SATA interface that can benefit from Rapid Mode (aka RAM caching).

I started reading through the Magician manual. I found:

RAPID mode accelerates only one SSD even though user has several
Samsung SSDs (860 QVO, 860 EVO, 860 PRO, 850 PRO, 850 EVO, 850, 750
EVO, 840 EVO, and 840 PRO regardless of form factor).

Magician boosts performance on only one SATA-connected SSD, so you
should select the one where is the OS and apps.


My OS and apps are all on my M.2 NVMe which doesn't need any boosting,
It benches 3457.6 reads and 2342.7 writes in Crystal mark 6. :-)
So the boost is really not much use to me as It won't work on that drive
anyway, but I do like the Magician program for all its other features
and will keep it installed just as you did.

Rene

I noticed in Device Manager that I'm currently using Microsoft's NVMe
driver. I put on my to-do list to try Samsung's NVMe driver at:

https://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...ownload/tools/