HDD randomly slowing down

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Soulstraza

Commendable
Sep 8, 2016
3
0
1,510
i have a new HDD Toshiba MD04ACA400 4TB bought recently. Performed well enough for the first few days, played games i installed on it well enough and playing movies from it are fine too but now it slows down as if capped.

First thing i thought of is maybe the sata port or cable is defective so i swapped the cables from my SSD. But my SSD ran well with it so im sure that its not the cables. Changing ports seems to return the speed back to normal so i thought its just a bad sata port. Then a few days later the slowdown returned and there's my confusion. I cant find out why its slowing down after a few days and why changing ports seems to fix it temporarily. Ive tried all the sata ports on my motherboard now, while my SSD ran ok, the HDD keeps slowing down after awhile.

Crystalmarkinfo doesnt detect anything wrong with the HDD too. I cant keep opening up my desktop and swapping the ports after a few days just to get a few days of decent speed.

Image of crystalmarkinfo and diskmark of the slowdown and when its not being slow: http://imgur.com/a/EBnkg
 
Solution
Boogieman_WD
Unfortunately there's not much else I can think of if you don't have another computer with which to test the drive. Those temporary "fixes" are what puzzles me. If it's the drive itself you'd have probably seen some red flags while testing it with a diagnostic tool. On the other hand if everything's up to data (drivers and BIOS/UEFI) then the only thing left is the OS. The other possibility is a really really weird incompatibility problem, but you'd probably have to get in touch with the HDD manufacturer's customer support, to see if something like this could be the problem here.
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
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35,960
Hey there, Soulstraza.

The SMART data really seems fine. Although, I'd suggest that you download the manufacturer's diagnostic tool and run some tests, as sometimes the SMART data might not be 100% accurate. Meanwhile you might want to keep your important data backed up, just to be on the safe side.
Since the switching SATA ports seem to help for awhile, I'd recommend that you try to reset/update your BIOS if possible and see if that changes anything. Check for a driver update for the SATA controller and the chipset as well.
If you have the option, try running the HDD with a different computer, to see if you'll stumble upon the same problem.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD
 
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Soulstraza

Commendable
Sep 8, 2016
3
0
1,510


Thank you for the reply. I just updated my bios and as for the sata controller, Windows's driver updater says its already up to date. Currently running Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller version 14.6.0.1029. Win10 64bit. I did find a higher version but I dont think its for Windows 10 x64 and not a lot of sites seems to have it so im dubious in installing that for now.

Unfortunately i dont have a way to test the drive on another computer, so im stuck with testing it on this desktop. Cant find Toshiba's diagnostics tool but ive tried another tool (HD Tune) and its showing good health too. Error scan shows no damaged blocks.

Currently its running fine after the bios update but im gonna have to wait a few days and see if the problem comes back.
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
Good job! Hopefully there are no other issues as that. Recently I've stumbled upon 2 cases similar to yours and what seems to have permanently fixed the issue was a clean OS install. Hopefully you don't have to go through that as it's really annoying to set everything up from scratch (at least for me it is).

Please keep me posted.
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
Unfortunately there's not much else I can think of if you don't have another computer with which to test the drive. Those temporary "fixes" are what puzzles me. If it's the drive itself you'd have probably seen some red flags while testing it with a diagnostic tool. On the other hand if everything's up to data (drivers and BIOS/UEFI) then the only thing left is the OS. The other possibility is a really really weird incompatibility problem, but you'd probably have to get in touch with the HDD manufacturer's customer support, to see if something like this could be the problem here.
 
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