Slow playback with good SSD

After struggling with choppy and slow playback I finally decided to buy a good external SSD. The Sandisk Professional Pro G40 1TB reformatted for Windows 11 with a max read/write speed of 3000mb/s, which sounds good enough to me
Now I do see a lot of difference in speed with transferring files, but in Davinci I see little to no change. I place all the needed clips in the SSD but I have the same old choppy playback. Would be nice if I could playback and edit 4k braw clips with slowmo and a grade. But as of right now I can't play it smoothly without any effects/edits on it.
I used a old Qnap NAS before. Still using it for stuff like caching, png logo's and finished products.

Is it something in the DR settings that I missed? Or is the reformatting the culprit? Or something else?

I'm not an expert on disks, SSD's and the related settings so I could appreciate some help!

Best,
Thijs

Which kind of footage (codec, camera) ?

Camera: BMPCC6k Pro
Footage: Braw 4K DCI 4096 X 2160 - 30 fps - 16bit
And for smaller projects I use ProRes Ultra HD HQ - 30 fps - 10bit
Both shot in "film" dynamic range.

Weird, such footage runs well here on a MacBook with a regular Samsung T5.

Just now it crashed a couple of times. Could it be that the working folders, which are in the Qnap NAS, have to be in the SSD I'm working in? Or maybe it doesn't do well when I mix footage from different SSD's. Or maybe it's something else because the SSD is a bit laggy in the windows explorer too. (when creating folders etc.) I'm confused.

If you’re playing back from the NAS, your weakest link is your connection between the NAS and the computer. To test, take the SSD out of the NAS and put it on a USB 3.2 Gen 2 enclosure and connect it using a good usb cable. That should make a world of difference.

If you’re playing back from the NAS, your weakest link is your connection between the NAS and the computer.

The project I'm currently working on has all the media (clips, logo's, animations etcetera) on the Sandisk SSD. So I believe it's playing back from the new SSD.
With its max read/write speed of 3000mb/s I can expect it to be able to handle 4k editing much better than my old NAS. But it doesn't.

If you’re playing back from the NAS, your weakest link is your connection between the NAS and the computer.

The project I'm currently working on has all the media (clips, logo's, animations etcetera) on the Sandisk SSD. So I believe it's playing back from the new SSD.
With its max read/write speed of 3000mb/s I can expect it to be able to handle 4k editing much better than my old NAS. But it doesn't.

So max read/write speed doesn’t mean anything because there are many variables to align in order to get that max performance - really it never happens. Also you’re looking at mb/s not Mb/sec (capital M). That means its max r/w speed is 3000/8 (there’s 8 bits per byte) so roughly the transfer rate is around 375Mb/s. You’re focused only on the SSD. You said the SSD is in a NAS. Well that NAS in on a network that your computer is accessing. You can have a fast Ethernet but if you’re going through firewalls, proxies, and other things, that can impact transfer rate too. My point is, there’s many things that can slow down your playback, the SSD is just one of them but I don’t think it is the main source.

Second that, SSD throughput is most probably not your problem.
Having that SSD in a RAID maybe, since snappy playback is not only based on sheer throughput, but on access times too. And then, there may well be other bottlenecks in your system.

You said the SSD is in a NAS.

The NAS and the SSD are completely seperate. The new SSD is connected to my pc with a thunderbolt 3 cable. The NAS I don't really use anymore. I only store the finished products on there.
My ethernet has both down- and upload speed of around 300 mbps

Also you’re looking at mb/s not Mb/sec (capital M). That means its max r/w speed is 3000/8 (there’s 8 bits per byte) so roughly the transfer rate is around 375Mb/s.

I actually meant MB/s instead of mb/s before. I wasn't familiar with the difference.
https://photographylife.com/reviews/sandisk-pro-g40-ssd

But you're right maybe I'm too focused on the SSD. I'll have a look at the other factors that could impact the editing speed!

do a disk speed test on your SSD and see what the results say.

do a disk speed test on your SSD and see what the results say.

Not the 3000 MB/s that's advertised but also not that bad.

Is the drive connected to a usb type-A (3.0 Gen 1) on the computer or a usb type c (3.2 Gen 2)? If it is the former, I would suppose to see that kind of speed readout. If it was the latter, you’ll probably see it at about 900-1000MB/s, probably a little more. If it was connected via TB3, then you’ll get around 2700-2900MB/s or closer to their advertised speed. That could be one possibility.

Weird thing is, it is connected with a thunderbolt 3 usb-c cable. Which should give me better results. The cable is connected to a SS20 port in my pc so the cable isn't the culprit I think. Could the reformatting to Windows do something to the ReadWrite speed?

Thijs, I think it may be your port type that’s the issue. So I did the test using my SanDisk Pro SSD, externally connected to a USB 3.1 Gen 2 type C and again to a TB3 port on my iMac. Same computer, drive, same cable brand (JSAUX). Here are the readouts:

Screenshot 2024-09-18 at 10.29.24 AM.png (306.01 KiB) Viewed 951 times

Image 1: USB 3.1 Gen 2 type C

Screenshot 2024-09-18 at 10.24.20 AM.png (322.55 KiB) Viewed 951 times

Image 2: Thunderbolt 3

That’s kind of what I would expect. Hope this helps you diagnose further your speed issue.

Thanks a lot! I will look further into it. Like you said I think it's a port problem. Hope it's fixable