Slow transfer speeds on a WD 150 GB Raptor

[Taffer_VA]

Situation - I built my computer from the ground up and everything seems to have worked well for the past 2 years, but I always seem to have slow data transfer rates when I'm moving large files. I run a dual boot system with Vista Ultimate 64 bit and Window's 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I have a dual core 2.66 MHz CPU and 4 GB RAM running on an ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi mobo. On both OS, my transfer speeds seem to be really slow. I usually start around 8 Mbps and after a few moments the drive slowly backs down to 4-5 Mbps. I use the Win 7 (C drive, SATA/3 Gb Western Digital 150 GB Raptor) for games, and Vista (D drive, SATA/3 Gb 400 GB drive) for almost everything else (Excel, Word, video etc.) I have an external 1TB USB drive for storage. I recently purchased a 2nd WD 150 GB Raptor to set up a RAID 0, but I wanted to address the slow transfer rate before I set up the RAID 0. I have backups of everything on my C drive, so loss of data isn't a concern.

Question 1 - What am I missing that is creating my slow throughput speeds on my WD 150 GB Raptor? I expect slower speeds copying from the USB, but not between the two internal drives. I haven't downloaded and run a hard drive utility for exact numbers (I'll do this tonight), I'm just going off the pop-up window when you transfer files.

Off Subject...is setting up RAID 0 pretty easy in WIN 7?

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

 

[scotu]

is that drive very full? have you defragmented it? That's a possible concern.

RAID 0 you're going to set up in your bios (check your mobo's user manual for instructions), it's pretty easy, and windows 7 will take it like a charm.

 

[Taffer_VA]

Thank you for taking the time to reply Scotu!

My D: drive has been defragged withing the past week and my C: drive (Raptor) has a new install of WIN 7 that is about 7-10 days old. The only things installed past WIN 7 is World of Warcraft, Ventrillo (chat program), Opera Browser and a graphics card OC tuner. The Raptor drive has about 90 GB free of 150 GB, and the D: drive is down to about 40 GB of 400 GB, but only since I moved everything useful from my Raptor drive before reinstalling the fresh WIN 7 (full/clean, not an upgrade). I'll empty the D drive when I get another USB cable...being the good son I gave my last to my mom for her GPS. I have more, I just need to find them.

I downloaded HD Tune Pro trial this morning and have run a few test and the Raptor is a lot faster, but I'm not sure if it is where it should be? I saw in another post while trying to find answers to my question where a guy had 2 standard 640 GB HD in a RAID 0 array transferring 181 MB/s. My highest burst was about 85 MB/s, and that was just a blip before it quickly settled back down to 45-50 MB/s. That test was moving 3 movies from my D drive to my Raptor, each file being about 650 MB. Is a sustained rate of 45-50 MB/s where the Raptor drive should be?

 

[scotu]

According to these charts ( http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Max-Read-Throughput,1009.html ) the raptor is expected to get around 86 MB/s sustained read throughput and ( http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Max-Write-Throughput,1012.html ) 93 MB/s write throughput. It wouldn't surprise me if your D drive could only read a bit slower and that was bottlenecking your performance. I would try more tests involving different targets/ sources for those transfers. It'll be difficult to see that drive hit its limits with just file transfers if your other drive is holding it back (and using to/from itself would also not allow it to max out). And for that other post, it wouldn't be too shocking to find some guy running something like 2x Caviar Blacks in RAID 0 and getting 181 MB/s. The newer non-raptor performance drives are still a fair amount better than a raptor in throughput, but a Raptor in RAID 0 should be able to put up similar numbers.