KDiskMark VS Knowledge

Hi So yeah, ithttps://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark/

``` KDiskMark (3.1.2): https://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark

I'd recommend doing a speedtest on your MicroSD using https://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark/releases/tag/3.1.2 just to be sure your card is genuine and performing to spec.

But the theoretical write speeds definitely do not apply when it comes to the steam deck, you have an adequate card but I advise you do a speed test in desktop mode using https://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark/releases/tag/3.1.2 to double check the actual speed you're getting, it'll likely equate to no more than 80mb/s write which is most definitely not enough to handle download speeds of 70MB/s considering steam unpacks as it downloads.

Since owners of this MicroSD card are few and far between, would you mind testing its speed and performance for me, using KDiskMark? You can download the program from here: https://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark/releases/tag/3.1.2

Hopefully that provides an insight into why 'U3 A2 UHS-I' is the ideal card you should be looking for with the deck. I would always recommend when you purchase a new card that you run 'Kdiskmark' in desktop mode by downloading it from here: https://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark/releases Check the latest release and download the file ending in 'appimage'. From here open the folder it downloaded to, (don't open it from Firefox as it won't know what to do with the file) double click the file and should open the Kdiskmark window. From here you can select your MicroSD card and do a speed test to make sure you are hitting the advertised speeds!

I'd recommend you download kdiskmark from here: https://github.com/JonMagon/KDiskMark/releases/tag/3.0.0 (Download the one ending in appimage as it doesn't need an install)

Try testing your speeds with kdiskmark

tkaiser has some additional information from his initial testing at https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/Knowledge/blob/master/articl... if people are curious to know more, though it should be noted these were early release samples and as such, software/firmware isn't exactly perfect at the moment

"Armbian recommends A1 rated SD-Cards only now (A2 rated cards need yet lacking driver support and therefore show lower overall and especially random IO performance)."

From: https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/Knowledge/blob/master/articles/Quick_Preview_of_ROCK_5B.md

Yes and no, in this articleguy tests A1 and A2 cards and on non compatible reader some A2 cards are slower than A1 cards.

One thing worth noting is that basically, even now (almost 10 months post announcement), almost no one has a 6000U laptop outs (a search on Amazon and Best Buy shows two 6800U laptop models total, one Asus and one Lenovo). Two niche vendors, XMG and Star Labs, have both publicly stated that they would have loved to have offered Ryzen 6000 laptops, but couldn't get any allotments. There are were also well documented chipset issues - even into the summer Lenovo and Asus talked about requiring firmware updates to enable their USB4 ports.

That being said, starting w/ Rembrandt, AMD now has full 40Gbps USB4 controllers built on-chip. I'm really looking forward to Ryzen 7040 because Phoenix looks great (Zen4 + RDNA3 on TSMC N4 - yes please) and hopefully USB4 support has matured enough on the AMD side that Framework is able to release something.

My understanding is that the I/O limitation is in the re-timers - currently the Framework uses 4X JHL8040R's (labeled as Burnside Bridge) directly connected to the iTBT: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard/blob/main/Ele... Apple used these for their first M1 MBAs as well: https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/Knowledge/blob/master/articl...

But both Apple and AMD are now using Kandou retimers:

* https://www.gizchina.com/2022/07/25/apple-completely-got-rid...

* https://kandou.com/matterhorn.html

* https://kandou.com/assets/downloads/product-briefs/KB8001-Pr...

Some early A2 cards were implemented poorly and actually had worse IOPS than A1 cards, as they used a worse onboard controller in the hopes of the system making up for the deficiency. See here. Reputable large A2 cards no longer have this issue but it's still a minefield.

In addition to this, the A2 standard requires hardware/driver support of Command Queuing and Write Caching, and without proper support A2 cards can and will perform worse than their A1 counterparts