Acer Aspire 5 A515-57 - NX.K3KSG.00A -Gen 4 SSD the SSD is running the latest firmware right out box

The spare socket for the SSD clearly indicates Gen 4 on it. So I installed a 980 Pro, which is recognized by Windows without any issues. However, the Performance Benchmark (Samsung Magician) tests results are disappointing. Both the sequential read and write speeds are around 1,600MB/s, which falls short of even Gen 3 standards. The built-in Gen 3 SSD outperforms it in benchmark tests.

Both SSD health (CrystalDiskInfo) and diagnostic scans (Samsung Magician) indicate that the SSD is in good shape. Additionally, the SSD is running the latest firmware right out of the box.

What could be the issue?

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Accepted answers

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/686994/acer-aspire-5-a515-57-nx-k3ksg-00a-gen-4-ssd

Your Aspire A515-57 laptop has 2x M.2 SSD slot, SSD-1 is a PCIe 4 x4 (should be used as the boot drive) and the SSD-2 slot, is a PCIe 3 x4 (should be used a slave drive) which have totally different read/write speeds.

Aspire A515-57 storage subsystem.

PCI-Express NVMe M.2 speeds (read this article "How Fast Is PCIe 4.0?"

Do the tests in Crystal Disk Mark as the Samsung is not the benchmark standard used to compare with other M.2 drives and see what speeds you get. Remember that the Gen 4 and Gen 3 are totally different speeds but a Gen 4 x4 running at 1600MB/s there is something wrong with either the zm.2 drive or the laptops M.2 slot or you haven't inserted the MZ.2 drive properly and/or you have damaged the M.2 drives pins, so check all those factors out.

All comments

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/686994/acer-aspire-5-a515-57-nx-k3ksg-00a-gen-4-ssd

Your Aspire A515-57 laptop has 2x M.2 SSD slot, SSD-1 is a PCIe 4 x4 (should be used as the boot drive) and the SSD-2 slot, is a PCIe 3 x4 (should be used a slave drive) which have totally different read/write speeds.

Aspire A515-57 storage subsystem.

PCI-Express NVMe M.2 speeds (read this article "How Fast Is PCIe 4.0?"

Do the tests in Crystal Disk Mark as the Samsung is not the benchmark standard used to compare with other M.2 drives and see what speeds you get. Remember that the Gen 4 and Gen 3 are totally different speeds but a Gen 4 x4 running at 1600MB/s there is something wrong with either the zm.2 drive or the laptops M.2 slot or you haven't inserted the MZ.2 drive properly and/or you have damaged the M.2 drives pins, so check all those factors out.

CaptainJ

Tested with CrystalDiskMark, it shows appropriate speeds, with read speeds around 7000MB/s and write speeds around 5000MB/s.

Furthermore, could you guide me on how to set up the Gen-4 SSD as boot drive, because even after cloning the OS drive, I could only find "Windows Boot Manager" listed in BIOS under boot priority order.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1209734#Comment_1209734

The UEFI bios always has "Windows Boot Manager" as its boot priority as that is normal. If you have the M.2 SSD PCIe 4 x4 drive in SSD-1 its going to be in the boot slot as that is the quickest that is how these new laptops work. As SSD-2 is a PCIe 3 x4 and a slave drive slot just like the 2.5” SATA III slot.

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