How can I load Everquest faster?

[Thalix]

Originally Posted by strugglegenerator

My goal in purchasing the new hard drive was to make Everquest load faster, but I notice absolutely zero difference in speed with the new drive. In fact, transferring an 8GB file took 8 seconds on the 850 EVO and it took 25 seconds on a 970 EVO. The new drive is much, much slower.

Something on your system seems to be wrong. Are you sure your M2 is running in PCEe 3.0 x4 (see CrystslDiskInfo)? You can also try to disable XMP(2) in your BIOS. Check if there is an heat issu on your M2.
Oh and use a 32GB test file with CrystalDiskMark to make sure you are not only testing the cache of your operating system

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compar.../m493995vs3477

[Maze_EQ]

You're not using x4 bud, ain't no way.

My 970s are 900% faster than my slave raid0 850s

[strugglegenerator]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I followed up with each one carefully.

My motherboard supports the following M2 slots:
2 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe x4/x2/x1 SSD support)

My M2 can be connected in either of these 2 M.2 slots on my motherboard:
Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer (PCIe NVMe & SATA SSD support). The motherboard instructions say: The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the M2H_32G connector. The PCIEX4 slot will become unavailable when an SSD is installed in the M2H_32G connector. I tried both slots just for the hell of it, but noticed no difference.

x4 is turned on in the BIOS (x2 wasn't even an option) for the M2 slot.

I'm not sure how to test for a heat issue.

CrystalDiskMark seems to be showing accurate data, compared to Samsung Magician which appears to be wildly inaccurate:

970 EVO:


850 EVO:


Is CrystalDiskMark the trusted source here? Maybe Samsung Magician just has a bad speed performance test tool?