Storage Slow HDD performance

I've always thought that my drives seemed a bit slow, but I've never really bothered to look into it. But it's getting annoying now, and something is definitely not right. I seem to average 20MB/s when copying or moving files in between drives or partitions. Is this right?

Edit: they're both 250gb Seagate SATA drives on an Asus A8V Deluxe

 

what size files ????

small little ones or big files like DVDs

although it sounds wrong either way you look at it really. 20mb/s is stupidly slow

 

A mixture of both, really. It seems the same for big and small files.

 

Which particular drives are they? That should tell us how many platters they have, etc.

 

If it's drive to drive, 20MB/s is very low, unless you're SATA controller is running in an old ATA or PIO mode for compatibility. Check that first...

Device Manager -> IDE/ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> Advanced (tab) -> see whether it says 'Ultra DMA Mode 6'... if it says 'PIO Mode' or something like that, either the drives or the controller have switched to a slower compatibility mode because something is wrong.

Try finding the latest drivers for your SATA controller on your motherboard, see if that fixes it.

Use SpeedFan or another program that is SMART aware to check the health of the drives.

Hope it's something easy like a driver that doesn't like the DMA mode being set - if that's the case an update'll fix it.

 

?! You kidding me?

MY 1TB and 500GB HDS copy at 5 - 20MB AT MAX !!!!!!!!!!!! That is slow ?

From MY hd to USB like 1 - 5 MB max !!!!

I thought it's light speed.... Impossible !

Here SS :



Also I have the latest Intel Chip drivers... How come ?

and i was happy with it...

 

Thought of another thing...

'On access' anti-virus programs.

The last time I installed McAfee or Norton (many, many moons ago) their on access scanners totally obliterated read/write/copy performance - went from 40-50MB/s to 3-6MB/s...

...

ComputerKing, if that speed is what you're getting to/from an internal HDD to a USB one, something is wonky somewhere - file copy from my laptop to an external USB HDD is about 25MB/s, and back again it's 30MB/s...

 

no that the speed i'm getting from internet 1TB to internal 500 GB ( BOth the latest HD out there ) From 5 - 20 MB MAXXX !!!!

 

Haven't really had time to check this, but I have a bit of free time today now.

One is a Seagate "ST325041" and the other is a "ST325062". Both seem to cap out at the same sort of speed. Maybe it's the controller?

I've checked the mode and it's not in PIO mode so it's not that.

Edit: just playing around moving and copying files around. It doesn't seem as slow as it was, but for example I just copied a large file between partitions and it started off over 50MB/s and then over the course of the transfer dropped down to 20-25.

 

what do you mean ?

From HD to HD you get 20 - 25 and from Same HD you get 50 ? !!

I don't come near 25 all the time ! from any where to any where

 

Copying a 1.2Gb video file from my C: drive to my D: drive (both Spinpoint F1s) I get an average transfer rate of 115 Mb/sec.

If you're getting 20.. something is wrong.

As others have said, check drivers and whether it's not in PIO mode.

 

there's a difference between MB/s and Mb/s. which one is it?

115MB/s is amazingly fast, while 115Mb/s is slower than the 20 to 25MB/s OP is talking about.

i get about:
45MB/s from WD Black 1TB to WD Raptor 74GB, a few 200MB files
70MB/s from WD Green 1TB to RAMdisk. 700MB file
100MB/s from WD Black 1TB to RAMdisk. a few 200MB files
but only 30MB/s from Green 1TB to Black 1TB. 700MB file

i have my Intel ICH9R configured as legacy IDE mode, so is this the reason for slow-down as Paradigm Shifter said?

 

It's 115 MB/sec... not bits... which all adds up, as it only seems to take around 7 to 8 seconds to do the transfer.

 

I'm gonna swap the drives onto the other controller on my motherboard this weekend and see whether that makes a difference. If not, I'm guessing it's something to do with the motherboard/my other specs. My rig is really showing its age now

 

What drivers are you talking about ?

Also I'm getting 20 MB/ sec

From 500gb WD Green TO 1TB WD Green

 

You might not want to hear this but run a full diagnostic test on your hard drive. The last time I had a sata drive go this slow, it had gone into PIO only mode meant that the drive was on the way out. Also instead of using the HDtune to find the status of the hard drive go to device manager and check the properties of the controller that the drives are on. even if it is sata look at the IDE controllers (its weird but unless you are using the ACHI setting in your BIOS they get routed here). If it says PIO for one of the drives, I would recommend backing up the files.

Also run a full length SMART test on your hard drive.

 

Chipset drivers.

Have you run a test like HDTach? How are you all arriving at this 20MB/sec figure? I find it odd that you have a drive that slow, and put up with it. At that speed it would take over 1 minute to copy a 1Gb file from one drive to another. Maybe it's just being reported wrong?

 

I'll run some tests in a couple of days, don't have time to do it now. Stupid bank holidays.

 

What PIO means ?

No it takes lots of time to copy files... I got that 20MB From Vista copy information..

here some pics and info





BTW it's not 60 seconds it take around 5 min to move an 1GB File

 

here pics from HD to FLASH Disk....

Also Most of times the copy freeze and say not responding but after it's done it's gone and the file is copied