Very Low Ttansfer Rates

[ajamshid]

Hi,
My Maxtor STM3500418AS HDD is having very slow data transfer rates - 3.2 to 4.2 Mb/s in HD Tune 2.55. Access Time
is 16 m/s and CPU Usage is 52%.
I run the Disk test with Active Smart and it shows "no abnormal drive attributes were detected, but the reliability of this hard drive is low".
What should I do to with my HDD?
Thanks for help,
Jim

 

[MrLinux]

With a 52% CPU usage I'd suspect something like an AntiVirus on access scan slowing things down; what's the full machine spec, and what software is running.

 

[ajamshid]

I'm using 2 systems: Win XP SP3 and XP64bit on:
MB- ASUS P5KC
RAM - 8 GB Kingston
CPU - e6750 core 2 duo 2.6 Ghz (o/c to 3.2)
Video - ATI 4850 512 Mb
New HDD - Seagate Maxtor 500Gb 16 Mb cache

My antivirus is DrWeb, but I'm almost sure that it's not causing any probs.
I had earlier WD hdd which was making 70-100 Mb/s, until it got flooded with bad sectors.
Can it be some problem in Maxtor's internal panel? Maybe some burned transistors, etc?
Or is it the system, that causes such slow hdd performance?

 

[aford10]

Check your system processes while the cpu usage is that high. Is there any rogue programs running that shouldn't?

 

[MrLinux]

Have you checked the SMART data to see if any errors are being detected?

 

[derek2006]

I had the same problem between my Samsung 500gig and my P965 chipsets Sata controller. My motherboard also has a Jmicron Raid controller for Sata on board and that fixed my issue. If you have another sata controller use that instead. My Seagate and Western Digital and DVD drive all run of the P965 without problems. This is why I think that your problem may be a compatibility issue.

 

[ajamshid]

SMART shows no errors, and background progs take only 2-3%of CPU usage.

I think I will return HDD to the shop, and get WD instead.

 

[aford10]

I'm not preferential to any manufacturer, I don't think, except for the HD. In all my experience I've never seen any company match the performance and quality of WD. I have never purchased another brand. WD will do you right.

 

[sub mesa]

You probably have it running in PIO mode, at least that's something you should check out. It would cause high CPU usage when doing I/O and that in turn causes pauses where the user interface blocks, so it becomes a very slow system. Could you post a HDTune screenshot perhaps?

PIO is a setting of the controller, and is used as 'fall back' when normal dma mode doesn't work or gives errors. A bad cable could be causing PIO mode, or just bad drives/bad setting. Deleting the storage controller from device manager (uninstall) might help too, since it will be re-added upon next reboot.

 

[ajamshid]

Man, you're the star.

Sub mesa, as you advised, I reinstalled my controller drivers and now I am getting upto 150 Mb/s. You really can feel the difference. It takes only 3-4 secs for my XP to start. Incredible!

Thanks for help, everyone.