Hard Drive not as fast as expected

[Dougx1317]

I recently upgraded my laptop hard drive from a 120GB 5400rpm 8mb drive to a 320GB 7200rpm 16mb drive. I was expecting there to be a noticeable improvement, but there isn't much difference. I got a Samsung Monumentus 7200.3. My benchmarks are way below what other people say they get. I can't really change anything with my bios. My computer supports the drive and SATA 2. Does anyone know why I would get low speeds with a fast drive? It works fine and Vista gives it a 5.9, but it just doesn't seem any faster than my old drive. Any ideas?

My Laptop:
HP DV2500 14.1" Laptop
Core 2 Duo T7300 (2.0/800/4mb)
4GB HyperX RAM
320GB 7200RPM 16mb HDD
Geforce 8400M GS

 

[AdioKIP]

What are you doing that you are expecting to notice the difference. In just regular applications there probably wont be any noticeable difference but if transfering large files then you would probably see more of a gain....

 

[Dougx1317]

I expected to see a faster start up and load times. I'm mainly upset that I'm getting less than half the speeds of others with the same drive. I can't see that anything else would bottleneck my laptop.

 

[cjl]

What benchmarks are showing half speed?

 

[Dougx1317]

HD Tune. My speeds are:

Transfer:
Min: 33.7
Max: 82.2MB/sec
Avg: 60.7MB/sec
Access Time 17.9ms
Burst Rate 47.8MB/sec
CPU Usage 17.9%

How good/bad is that?

 

[cjl]

That's not miserable, though that access time seems perhaps a bit slow (did you mean a Seagate Momentus 7200.3 BTW?). Two things to check if you want to improve performance are that write caching is enabled (go to device manager, check "enable write caching on this device"). There's also an option to "enable advanced performance", but only enable that if you are pretty careful about powering it down properly - not just holding the button to turn it off) and also make sure that your seeks are in performance mode rather than quiet mode. This is usually a setting in the BIOS.

Oh, and if there's a setting for AHCI in the bios, enable it.

 

[Jim_L9]

Burst Rate looks low to me.

 

[makenshi]

I'm not sure about laptop hard drives, but as far as desktops go some HDs dont default to Sata II speeds due to backward compatibility. You might have to remove/change a jumper or something like that, to enable Sata II speeds. I could be what's holding it back. Anyway doesn't hurt to check the instructions on the drive.

 

[mike99]

You should have used HDTune on your old drive! Your CPU useage seems a bit high, you may be running in PIO mode instead of DMA. Try going to Device Manager and deleting the IDE controller. Reboot and windows will find the hardware and re-install the driver. How did you copy the data from your old drive to the new one?

Mike.

 

[Dougx1317]

Yes, it is a Seagate Monumentus 7200.3 ST9250421AS. I did run HD Tune on my old drive. I don't remember the exact numbers but they were only a little lower.

What would happen if I enabled "enable advanced performance" and I had to emergency shut down? Would it me a really risky thing to enable?

How would I safely delete the IDE controller?

 

[cjl]

You could potentially lose or corrupt data with the advanced performance enabled if you did a shutdown by unplugging the battery or holding the power button. I tend to leave that disabled, but the write caching enabled. It's a tradeoff between performance and data safety, so you have to chose where you want to leave it.

 

[Dougx1317]

I checked the bios again, and there is absolutely nothing I can change that relates to the hard disc.

I'd still like mike99 to further explain how to delete the IDE controller and what PIO and DMA modes are.

 

[mike99]

Hard drives are supposed to operate in DMA (Direct Memory Access) mode, this reduces the load on the CPU. If there are too many errors the drive drops to PIO mode, which is much slower as the CPU has to do all the work. If you open Device Manager and expand the IDE entry. Right click each controller and select Uninstall. Shut down and restart, Windows will detect the hardware and re-install the drivers, just follow the on screen directions.

Mike.

 

[Dougx1317]

My hard drive is already running in DMA mode. I tried unistalling the IDE Drivers. My rates have increased slightly, but I'm still unsure of what is a good speed. Are the below speeds good, bad, or average? Should I worry about them, or are these normal a 7200rpm 16mb L2 Drive?

Transfer:
Min: 39.9MB/sec
Max: 88.5MB/sec
Avg: 66.9MB/sec
Access Time 16.0ms
Burst Rate 46.8MB/sec
CPU Usage 16.0%

 

[Canuck1]

Hello, the other posters probably know more but what did you mean you can't find any options to change BIOS options for Hard Drives?

Can you look again in the BIOS and tell us all what options are THERE?
It must have info for SATA or IDE controllers, IDE emulation mode or SATA mode?

I am not familiar with notebook drives but they must be similar enough?

Like cjl said, you would prefer AHCI mode.

I was under the impression you need to re-install Windows if you change the mode but that might just be for XP? Someone here probably knows. For sure, though, your ultimate goal would be to use AHCI mode and install the SATA controllers. I've always had to slipstream a copy of XP but maybe you don't have to with Vista? Perhaps, you can just install the SATA drivers and then change the HDD controller mode to SATA AHCI mode in the BIOS?

However, give me some slack since I am not that familiar with notebook drives and the BIOS for notebooks.

 

[Dougx1317]

The only options I have throughout the bios menus are Date, Time, Language, Button Sound, Virtualization Technology, Processor C4 State, and Boot Order. That is every option I have. Being a laptop, it has extremely limited options. It's Phoenix Bios. It's a SATA hard drive plugged into a SATA port, so I'd assume that it defaults to SATA.

 

[mike99]

Check HP Support to see if there are any later drivers for your IDE controller. Your Burst rate is a bit low, and your CPU use is a bit high, normally less than 5%. How much memory in laptop, what virtual memory settings? What OS?

Mike.

 

[Dougx1317]

I didn't find any IDE controller drivers on the HP help page. I have 4GB of HyperX DDR2 667 CL4 RAM in my laptop. I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I'm not sure what virtual memory settings are. Is there anyway to use the RAM more and the hard drive less?

 

[Dougx1317]

Also, if 5% cpu is normal and I have 16%, that's really high. Could there be a serious problem with my drive? I have a warranty if it comes to that.

 

[mike99]

Go to http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2 100&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3660900

Download and then run the Chipset Utility. This Helps Vista to find the latest driver for your chipset. Make a note of your present IDE driver, supplier and version and you will see if it gets updated. High CPU use on HDTune suggest poor software driver as CPU is doing too much of the work.

Make sure you use ALL the link! Or go back to the HP support yourself.
Mike.

 

[Dougx1317]

I just updated the driver and below are the new results. Would a bios flash change anything?

Transfer:
Min: 38.4MB/sec
Max: 87.9MB/sec
Avg: 64.7MB/sec
Access Time 16.9ms
Burst Rate 46.8MB/sec
CPU Usage 15.5%

 

[mike99]

I doubt it, but you could read the HP site for info about latest BIOS. Try the Seagate site, http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=201413
Download and run Seatools to test the drive. Look for utility program to set operating mode. Many modern drives can be set to Performance or Quiet mode. Your drive may have defaulted to Quiet mode, which slows the head access to reduce noise.

Mike.

 

[Dougx1317]

I got the Seatools and passed all of the tests. The system information did not say anything about quiet or performance modes. Being a laptop drive, I'd bet that it does default to a quiet mode. Is there any other way to test it? OR change it?

 

[apache_lives]

This sounds like a bunch of pannic over nothing! Its a laptop drive - expect low performance, especially if windows or apps (av etc) are accessing it.

Its not exactly an Intel SSD or something, and i hope you realise there isnt a performance gain when you upgrade the size of your hdd?

And btw theres no such thing as a samsung momentus - samsung makes spinpoint series drives, seagate makes momentus drives (thats there laptop or 2.5'' series).