How to achieve maximum write speed on external SSD?

DRIVE OS Version: 6.0.8.1

Issue Description: For ROS2 bagfile recording, I’ve tried multiple SSDs and multiple setups.

First, my M.2 NVME SSD has 2000MB/s write speed on the spec sheet.

Connected to the USB 3.2 port with a Thunderbolt cable, and checked if the USB version is detected correctly as 3.2 in Tegra Ubuntu.

Afterwards, changed the USB setting on Tegra by following the instructions in the high-throughput data recording manual.

Finally, I compared the writing speed using the dd command, and my regular Ubuntu shows 1.8GB/s write speed, and Tegra on Orin showed 750MB/s. I’m guessing it is because of the missing “UAS” USB driver in the Tegra kernel, but still, I’m looking for how to reach the maximum write speed the SSD has on the spec sheet.

Hello,

By any chance, are you using a m.2 enclosure?

If that’s the case, your SSD can do ~2 GB/s on PCIe, but when you connect it through a USB 3.2 → NVMe enclosure, the USB interface becomes the bottleneck. On DRIVE OS the USB ports typically run at USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), which gives ~700–900 MB/s.

Also note that DRIVE OS does not include the UAS driver, so the device runs in BOT mode, which further reduces throughput. This is expected behavior on DRIVE OS.

The 1.8 GB/s result you see on regular Ubuntu is likely due to caching unless you use oflag=direct.

If you need full ~2 GB/s write speed for ROS2 bagfiles, try a native PCIe/NVMe slot, not through USB because it will never reach the SSD’s spec sheet speed.

If you want, share the lsusb -t output and your dd command to confirm the exact mode your enclosure is running in.

Best regards,

Pedro

Embedded SW Engineer at RidgeRun
Contact us: support@ridgerun.com
Developers wiki: https://developer.ridgerun.com
Website: www.ridgerun.com

I think I’ve already reached the 10Gbps limit, that’s why it doesn’t write faster.

By the way, is there any officially supported/recommended SSD for USB connection list by Nvidia?

Hi again!

There’s no official list/recommendation according to Nvidia replies.

Embedded SW Engineer at RidgeRun
Contact us: support@ridgerun.com
Developers wiki: https://developer.ridgerun.com
Website: www.ridgerun.com

We don’t have any recommended SSD as such.
Please see if DriveWorks SDK Reference: High Throughput Recording helps to improve performance.
From my understanding, you already have good bandwidth.

I already applied the change in the instruction, so I agree that current bandwidth is the fastest with USB-C connection. Thank you!

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