Poor SATA HDD performance

alexthecheese · 10 Sep 2011 at 09:47

Like, excruciatingly poor it feels like.

Just run a performance test using HD Tune Pro 4.61, and I have the following set-up:

Western Digital WD20EARX 2tb SATA HDD
Windows XP32bit
Gigabyte P35-DS3R mobo
Intel CPU - 1.8ghz, dual core (E2600? Cant really remember

)

Using SATA cables and SATA is enabled in BIOS. HDD is recognised properly as 2tb. It's partitioned into a 75gig Windows partition and the rest for any old whatever. Windows XP 32bit is running cos I couldnt find anything else when rebuilding my PC - soon to be on to Windows 7.

Here are my results, any idea what the problem is?

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Surveyor · 10 Sep 2011 at 09:57

Running your OS from one of the slower "Green" drives is never going to give you the best performance.

You're benchmarking the same drive that your OS is on. As the OS is accessing the drive at the same time you're running the benchmark you'll never get the best results.

alexthecheese · 10 Sep 2011 at 10:03

What are the huge dips about though? I can't imagine it'd be caused by what you're saying there - it's almost consistent in it's failure.

The other drive that I have, an older 500gb IDE drive is much more consistent. It's not the OS drive, fair enough, but I can't imagine those huge drops would be caused by that. 4gig ram, btw.

Also, unzipping files from one drive to another, and even emptying the recycle bin is horrifically slow. It has a burst, slows down, then bursts, then slows... something isn't right.

Davefran · 10 Sep 2011 at 10:09

Try running ATTO benchmark instead !

RJC · 10 Sep 2011 at 10:10

I get the dips when running benchmark on my drives with windows installed, ideally you need to test in another machine as there would be back ground programs operating.

Max speed looks good, I get similar with my Samsung F4 2TB drive.

Surveyor · 10 Sep 2011 at 10:12

Here's a WD20EARS (very similar drive):

1) That's a non-OS drive so isn't affected by the OS accessing the drive the same way that yours is.

2) Something like the Samsung F3 1TB 7,200 RPM drive would be around 50% faster.

alexthecheese · 10 Sep 2011 at 10:18

OK, here it is:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Seems pretty good to me, nothing appears out of the ordinary here. It does still feel like there is a sluggish burst/stutter effect when working with large files etc.

-=Vect0r=- · 11 Sep 2011 at 20:12

Looks ok to me. Could the 'sluggishness' be RAM related especially when working with large files? How much have you got installed?