Transfer between 2 SATA drives, very slow!?

Damien. · 6 Oct 2011 at 23:31

JasonM said:
Well clearly one of the controllers or HDD's is not performing well.

Can you run a HDD benchmark on each of the disk? Other option would be to copy a large file (something ziped say) to another folder on same drive.

Other thing to check is SMART status on HDD's, but do the HDD benchmark first.

On my main drive, I have tried copying my 4GB music folder to my desktop.

Transfer rate was circa 25MB/s.

I have the secondary unplugged atm, so will reinstall that and try that one.

Admetos · 6 Oct 2011 at 23:33

Trial of HDD tune should do it

http://www.hdtune.com/

Crystal disk mark also ok

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

Damien. · 7 Oct 2011 at 00:11

Thanks for all your help so far JasonM. It really is appreciated.

Heres the bench results from my main drive;

Running secondary drive shortly.

Damien. · 7 Oct 2011 at 00:26

Secondary drive;

Looks far healthier than my main.

Admetos · 7 Oct 2011 at 05:11

The minimum speed on the Western Digital is far lower then I would expect (8MB/s), second bar chart write performance of some size files is terrible. In contrast the pattern of the Maxtor looks normal however.

Can you look at the Health tab for the Western Digital and view the SMART information?

As Ziggy has said, have you tried re-seating the SATA cable? It's looking like the Western Digital is the issue, as it's your boot drive will be while windows is also running slow.

It could even be a faulty SATA cable, instead of just reseating cable, you could try swapping cable with the Maxtor, be careful unplugging SATA cable motherboard side as they can be tricky to release. Before this however would look at SMART information first.

Damien. · 7 Oct 2011 at 08:54

Here is the SMART info for the WD.

Notice the CRC errors. This has increased by 20 since last night.

I have tried the drive using the cable for the maxtor, still seemed abit unresponsive.

The maxtor has NO CRC errors in comparison.

Admetos · 7 Oct 2011 at 11:49

I believe that warning is due to corrupt data when the drive communicates with the SATA controller. So could be cable, SATA controller, or controller on HDD. As you have switched cable, plus switched the HDD from SATA 3 controller to SATA 2 controller, it's looking like HDD however.

Have you checked for contamination (dust / dirt / grease) on the HDD SATA connection? I'm referring to the gold pins.

I'm by no means an expert here, hopefully someone else on the forum can shed more light on that error.

Is the Western Digital a new HDD?

Damien. · 7 Oct 2011 at 12:05

JasonM said:
I believe that warning is due to corrupt data when the drive communicates with the SATA controller. So could be cable, SATA controller, or controller on HDD. As you have switched cable, plus switched the HDD from SATA 3 controller to SATA 2 controller, it's looking like HDD however.

Have you checked for contamination (dust / dirt / grease) on the HDD SATA connection? I'm referring to the gold pins.

I'm by no means an expert here, hopefully someone else on the forum can shed more light on that error.

Is the Western Digital a new HDD?

Well yes, I tried the drive on the secondary's cable and port on the mobo but still had problems opening programs and multi tasking. The drive was purchased a "b-grade" from OCUK and is approx 11 months old now. I did notice a dent on one corner, which to me looks like its been dropped at some point, maybe this issue is starting to raise its head.

Another thing I have noticed is the drive is clicking quite a lot during the negative spikes in the benchmark. Not your usual HDD activity noise but a quite distinctive click.

I have ordered a new drive from OCUK today as I need my pc to be working over the weekend. My WD black has warranty so I have also arranged a RMA with them.

Thanks for your help, will keep you updated when the new drive arrives and I've installed windows, tomorrow.

Admetos · 7 Oct 2011 at 13:23

Given the drive has what appears a dent, and more worrying is the clicking noise then RMA'ing the drive is best.

Incidentally the Western Digital blacks normally have 5 year warranty, so hopefully you should have no issue replacing.

Ironically I normally recommend WD black drives to people. Please update the thread with what happens with the RMA, hopefully they won't reject due to dent. If so maybe OCUK would take back?

Damien. · 8 Oct 2011 at 15:04

Jason, recieved and installed my new drive this morning and what a difference.

It has literally blown my mind how much faster this drive is than my borked WD.

I think this pretty much confirms I was dealing with a bad drive. I have arranged an RMA on the WD.

Thanks for all your help. Case solved!

Surveyor · 8 Oct 2011 at 15:31

Damien. said:
The drive was purchased a "b-grade" from OCUK and is approx 11 months old now. I did notice a dent on one corner, which to me looks like its been dropped at some point, maybe this issue is starting to raise its head.

I hope it won't but an RMA could be refused due to the physical damage.

Damien. · 8 Oct 2011 at 15:33

Surveyor said:
I hope it won't but an RMA could be refused due to the physical damage.

Me too, fingers crossed.

I don't know why I didn't spot the damage when I first installed it.

I'm not that bothered if they don't replace, I have a new drive and It's flying. Would only mean that I am out of pocket by £60.