Hard Drive problem

[Silkie]

It seems to pass all health tests but despite that it feels slow and sluggish.

It's a Western Digital 1tb Caviar Black SATA3 HDD running on my motherboards Intel SATA3 controller.

The drive is set to AHCI and showing no problems but it just seems sluggish.



Am I imagining it?

I suspect my brain is trying to talk me into an SSD drive but it can stuff off as I need a new winter jacket 1st.

[Deathtaker27]

how full is it,

When did you last defrag it

and incase it is going (I have seen hard drives not error but slow down then just die) Do you have a backup of it?

[Silkie]

It autodefrags through Windows 7 and reports 0% with 168gb free.

I have an external 2tb drive for backups which is due a new run this week.

It passes the manufacturers tests as well though.

[Kaelan002]

Check the disk tab of the resource monitor ("perfmon /res" via the command line) that you don't have some rogue process constantly read/writing the disk.

[Dauntless]

Note I know nothing about computers compared to most on here, my hard drive went 2 weeks ago. One of the tests said that it was failing but I ignored it. Between the time of that test and the final failure it got slower and slower then died. Luckily for me it was under warrantee and I had a new one installed within a day of calling up the manufacturer. Not sure if it helps in any way but thought i'd share

[Silkie]

It's never failed any test. Nothing of note using the drive.

Puzzling little devil was tested fully before and after it's initial install as is my normal habit.

The tests don't seem to be calling it particularly slow but it does seem shy of it's full potential.

I'm going to try to make a clean as possible boot and test again to see if some programme might be the cause.

[SkeletalBOB]

Back up anything you don't want, start saving for an SSD! The difference is insane.

[Silkie]

Trouble is I've just had to fork out for a new shaver (so worth it), two jackets (total bargains) and I have the joy of a plumbers bill as well. Then there's a course I want to sign up for....

Poor old PC may have to just chug on for a while.

[Sylar]

Sorry I have no idea. I have SSD's and even when they fail they are still read only and still the same speed.

I haven't used a Mechanical drive for 2+ years now - and never looked back!

[Kaelan002]

Stupid question, but have you defragged the drive?
Windows (7?) will schedule them by default, but if for whatever reason you have it disabled, it *is* something which would cause it to run sluggishly.

[Silkie]

I ran the analysis manually and it still reports 0%.

The system scans clear of malware.

It is a puzzle to be sure. Trouble is if isn't actually turning it's toes up then it goes down the list of spending priorities for me. I suppose the best bet is to pull the nearest drive I have spare and see how it behaves. Maybe after the thunderstorm warnings have gone though.

[Silkie]

I hunted through Intel's deeply strange driver repository and got updated chip-set and RST drivers. It seems according to benchmarks to have bumped up my speed a bit although a good comparison is tricky as the evaluation time on the test software has expired. 112mb/s now although I wish I'd had the chance to do it earlier and use the original test software for a better comparison.

Now the question I have is that a reasonable speed for a non SSD drive? It seems about what it's supposed to run at.

I suppose I have to consider that if it really bothers me then there is a free 3.5 bay inside the machine.