I've only recently discovered this problem. I recently tried backing up files to my 320GB WD SATA2 drive, and discovered that it's incredibly slow copying from any one of my other hard drives to this 320GB WD drive, however if I take a file already on the 320GB WD and copy it to another one of my drives, it's damn fast, how so? I can't seem to find an idea of where to go or a solution; tried different SATA connections and cables, all drivers are up to date, BIOS is up to date and correct, settings in WIN XP are correct, transfer modes are how they should be, WD Diagnostic Tools show no problems, all drives are healthy, drive temperatures are cool, drive is only 1/4 full, defragged, checked for bad sectors, drive is silent and other diagnostic tools seem to show correct transfer and copy speed. Is it possible the drive is dying or is WIN XP just not liking copying in one direction with this drive? It's frustrating seeing a 60mb file go from 1 second copy time estimate to 5, then 30, 1 min, 20mins, 60mins and up and up.
How many drives are we talking about here? more than 2? All internal? And the slowness only appears when copying to this one WD320G drive (from all other drives?) Any other file transferring going on at the same time? Antivirus scanning happening on that drive? Sounds like you've done a lot of important and detailed testing...
We are talking 4 hard drives, all internal and all SATA. The slowness only occurs when copying from one of the other 3 internal drives to this one 320GB WD, if I copy from this drive to one the other 3 internal drives, the speed is normal. No other file transferring or any other process is occurring at the same time, and no Antivirus. Reformatted the drive, re-installed WIN XP, extensively tested the drive using WD Diagnostic tools and all is ok, everything comes back OK or a green light.
This 320GB drive is your system drive? I suppose it's possible that XP could be going crazy with your pagefile. Try moving the pagefile to a different drive and see if the problem migrates with it. The only idea that's coming to mind (other than the one above and dying drive) is to update the drive's firmware... - Diosjenin -
could it just be the WD has a slow write...? Edit: really slow... No idea, I had a slow hard disk problem, it died the other day, hopefully this is not your case
I experience pretty much the same thing with an crappy Maxtor 160gb SATA drive, it was ok when I bought it but 4 months down the line it behaved as you are describing then started to make some horrible noises so out it came!
The 320GB WD drive is not my system drive, it's just a backup drive. Every diagnostic test has come back fine, WD tools reports the drive is perfectly healthy in every way, read and write tests report maximum transfer speeds for my system. I've put my ear to the drive when writing to it and can't hear any signs of death. The drives firmware is also up to date. The only option is to run through everything from the start and put it in another system, failing that, signs are it's dying but very sneakily!
Check to see if you have write caching enabled. I've seen a couple of systems that would not enable write caching on one of the internal drives, but the others functioned correctly. Have you tried the drive connected to a different SATA port? Depending on how long you've had the drive, and how convincing you are with the reseller and or manufacturer, you may just want to RMA the drive and get a replacement.
Write caching is enabled and the drive has been connected to all available SATA ports and the problem still persists. The company I bought it from, went bust a few months after I bought it, which was close to 2 years ago now. Will have to try my luck with Western Digital directly.
