Four years ago, I built a computer, and put in a refurbished 1TB Blue WD HDD. My computer worked great.
It's slow now, particularly when I have large context switch (For example, if I leave Civ 5 up in the background and alt-tab to photoshop CS 2, it can be unresponsive for up to a minute before working at a low frame rate for 2-3 minutes before working perfectly. It happens again when I switch back. It didn't do this before.) Accessing files from disk in a game produces noticeable lag (using a skill with an animation not yet cached by the game can freeze the game for a half-second or so as the animation loads)
I suspect the problem is the hard drive wearing out, but I'm not 100% sure. I think it's the hard drive at fault because when I first load a program, or when I switch between program, the response time and active time as reported by Windows' resource monitor skyrockets (http://i.imgur.com/1eF1Ijg.png) I've heard response times of 10 ms are average, 50 are bad, and over 500 represent a serious problem with the drive. When my computer is idle, the resource monitor reports a 30 ms response rate. When it's doing something (loading a game, running CrystalDiskMark, etc) response times are generally in the 300-400 range, sometimes in the thousands.
I've run CrystalDiskMark, and I *think* my scores are low compared to other benchmarks I've seen: http://i.imgur.com/6IixRuo.png
I worry my hard drive is wearing out, and I'm considering replacing it. Are there any other explanations for my symptoms?
More info on my system available upon request. Also willing to download and run other benchmarking or troubleshooting software.
It's slow now, particularly when I have large context switch (For example, if I leave Civ 5 up in the background and alt-tab to photoshop CS 2, it can be unresponsive for up to a minute before working at a low frame rate for 2-3 minutes before working perfectly. It happens again when I switch back. It didn't do this before.) Accessing files from disk in a game produces noticeable lag (using a skill with an animation not yet cached by the game can freeze the game for a half-second or so as the animation loads)
I suspect the problem is the hard drive wearing out, but I'm not 100% sure. I think it's the hard drive at fault because when I first load a program, or when I switch between program, the response time and active time as reported by Windows' resource monitor skyrockets (http://i.imgur.com/1eF1Ijg.png) I've heard response times of 10 ms are average, 50 are bad, and over 500 represent a serious problem with the drive. When my computer is idle, the resource monitor reports a 30 ms response rate. When it's doing something (loading a game, running CrystalDiskMark, etc) response times are generally in the 300-400 range, sometimes in the thousands.
I've run CrystalDiskMark, and I *think* my scores are low compared to other benchmarks I've seen: http://i.imgur.com/6IixRuo.png
I worry my hard drive is wearing out, and I'm considering replacing it. Are there any other explanations for my symptoms?
More info on my system available upon request. Also willing to download and run other benchmarking or troubleshooting software.