Why is my Velociraptor so slow?

does it have a jumper for 1,5/3.0?

i don't know what that is what is it? 1.5/3.0??

Did you remember to defrag?
There might be a jumper on the hdd that limits speed to sata-150. Read the manual or instructions

First....

The drive does not have jumpers. It is backward compatible with SATA 1.5

Second....a couple of settings to check

Go to Device Manager and double click on your IDE CONTROLLERS....IDE 1 Controller and make sure the drive is running at Ultra DMA Mode 5. Then open up "My Computer" and right click on the C Drive. Right click and choose properties...click on Hardware tab...and double click on the Velociraptor...then Policies...then make sure the tab for "Enable Write Caching" is checked

If all is good...then I would question your IDE controller. You neglected to state if you have an Intel based motherboard or Nvidia, or the like.

Download this

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HD-...

In HD Tach, you should see a range of 130 mbps top and 80 on the inner with an average throughput of around 107. If not, I might contact WD and see if there is an incompatiblilty with your motherboard controller...

Bob

Look at this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jumperblock-shunts.jpg

Bob wrote...



I am not sure how you know whether UDMA is being used - I see
[General Tab]
Intel(R) ICH10 Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 3A20
Device Type: IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Manufacturer: Intel
Location: PCI bus 0, device 31, function 2

[Driver Tab]
Driver Provider: Intel
Driver Date: 04/06/2009
Driver Version: 9.1.1.1013
Digital Signature: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher


(BTW HDTach does not seem to like W7)

SATA 1.5Gbit/sec vs. SATA 3Gbit/sec won't make a difference since the platter density and rotation speed isn't enough to exceed 1.5Gbit/sec.

The reason you buy a Velociraptor is because it has a faster access time, not because it has a faster transfer rate. Modern high-density 7200rpm drives have faster transfer rates because they have larger platters (3.5") that store more data per track than the platters in a 300GB Velociraptor (2.5").

See: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3636/western-digitals-new...

sminlal> Thanks for the response. I am not sure that it addresses my question though. I hadn't got down to comparing the performance of one with another, just simply that I am a bit disappointed by the speed, and had hoped for better. When I run the Performance app on W7, everything comes out 7.8 or 7.4 except system disk performance, which is 5.9.

So I end up here chasing slow VR thread. Do you know how I tell if I am using the most appropriate driver, as Bob suggested I should find out?

SF

The "Windows Experience Index" is a very coarse guide to performance. In Vista the maximum score was 5.9, but in Windows 7 they expanded the range to account for new technologies (specifically: SSDs). You basically can't get a score higher than 5.9 for a hard drive.

If you really, really want to have a system with a score higher than 5.9 then you're going to need to get an SSD. But you shouldn't really base those kinds of decisions on the WEI score, instead you should ask yourself if the system is performing satisfactorily for the things that you use it for. If not, then you should identify which component is the bottleneck and look to upgrade that.

Now, THAT I call a really helpful response.

I had come to a similar conclusion, chasing other threads for what one could expect out of the VR, and found one which was using HDTune, which I am pleased to say will run under W7x64. My system disk performance was pretty much the same as another poster.

I get what you say about SSD, but what could I expect if I set up RAID0, certainly improved performance, but perhaps halfway between 5.9 and SSD rating?

I bought another VR to set up RAID0 for my system disk, but I have decided not to got down that route, as I had a W7 BSOD (another long story) and had a LOT of trouble getting my system back, it would have been so much worse, I think, if I had two disks in RAID0.

The problem with RAID-0 is that it increases transfer rates, but it doesn't improve access times. I believe from other posts I've seen here that RAID doesn't increase the WEI scores unless you get pretty extreme, and even then you best you should expect is somewhere in the low 6's. That's an indication that RAID really can't touch an SSD for the "feel" of a really fast system.