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Slow file transfer with Caviar GP and Windows 7

Forum Storage : Hard Drives Slow file transfer with Caviar GP and Windows 7

Hello, I'm experiencing very slow file transfer with windows 7 and my Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136149

When I move files from one partition to another or between this drive and the second drive, or even copy within the partition I get a speed of 50-80 but very quickly it drops to about 5MB/s which is real slow.

I've run Western Digitals' Data LifeGuard, Defragmented, removed the "Remote Differential Compression" component which is known to slow down file transfering ins Windows 7, and also disabled Windows Indexing service.

I've also ran a quick test with HD Tune which seemed to have reasonable results:

Dunno what else I can do...
thanks in advance for any help, Ofer.

Reply to zoobooboozoo

When you talk about copying files between one drive and another, are you talking about copying between different drive letters (i.e., from C: to D: )? If so, are those drive letters REALLY on different hard disk drives, or are they two partitions on the same physical disk?

If they're two partitions on the same disk, then slow transfer rates are to be expected as the head rapidly seeks back and forth in order to read from one file and write to the other. The higher rate you see at the beginning of the copy is because Windows is caching the file writes into RAM - when it's RAM cache fills up and it starts actually sending the data to the disk the transfer rate drops because of having to wait for the head seeking.

Message edited by sminlal on 10-16-2010 at 08:31:56 PM

Reply to sminlal

I'm saying EITHER way, the file transfer speed is that slow.

Reply to zoobooboozoo

Sorry, I'm not quite clear on what you meant there.

When you say "either way", do you mean "when copying from C: to C:" or "when copying from C: to D:"?

And the other thing I need to know is: Are C: and D: two partitions on the same drive?

Reply to sminlal

Sorry for beeing unclear.

I have 2 Drives
1) divided to two partitions named C: and E:
2) no partitions - D:

when copying/moving files from any of these partitions to another or to itself I get slow transfer rates as I said (except when I'm copying from D to D, then I get about 10-11 MB/s which is kinda ok since it's my older slower drive and also copying within the HD is always slower than to another HD as far as I know, but this is also annoying since the drive divided to C: and E: is a newer, faster one and I get this slow transfers when usingt it)

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to zoobooboozoo

I'm assuming you mean "one partition" labelled as "D:" on the second drive...

If you run Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and select the "Performance" tab, is the CPU very busy while you're transferring files to or from any of these drives? If you, your drive(s) may have dropped into PIO mode which can slow things down quite a bit...

Message edited by sminlal on 10-18-2010 at 01:56:22 AM

Reply to sminlal

Both drivers run in ultra DMA 5, so I don't think this is a pio problem.

Reply to zoobooboozoo

The only other things I can think of would be:

- other programs accessing the drive simultaneously and causing head seeking

- cable or media issues with the drive (should show up in the SMART counters)

- encryption turned on and the CPU isn't up to the task (seems unlikely)

Reply to sminlal

- How do I check if encryption is enabled?

- in the SMART test in WD's DataLifeGuard it's says the test was fine,so how can I check for cable or media issues?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to zoobooboozoo

I have encountered this one, My friend bought a WD DataLifeGuard and use it to copy movies from my HD to his WD, couple of weeks the transfer rate is good but after that we need to wait longs hours. He bought a new one and he didn't have that problem again - maybe factory defects. I got a mixed of Windows 7, Vista and Linux (32 and 64) and I use WD studio with NTFS, GUID on it and I have no problems with it.

Reply to dEAne

Didn't quite understood what was your problem and how you solved it, I'm talking 'bout an internal HD not an external one

Reply to zoobooboozoo

zoobooboozoo wrote :

- How do I check if encryption is enabled?

- in the SMART test in WD's DataLifeGuard it's says the test was fine,so how can I check for cable or media issues?

To check for bitlocker drive encryption: Start -> type "Bitlocker" in the Search box -> click "Bitlocker Drive Encryption". You'll see a list of your hard drives along with an indication of whether encryption is "on" or "off" for each.

If you don't see any errors in the SMART data then your cabling is probably OK. Cabling errors would likely show up as a non-zero "UltraDMA CRC Error Count" or something similar.

Reply to sminlal

SMART testes are fine, and the bitlocker was and is off.

Reply to zoobooboozoo

zoobooboozoo wrote :

I have 2 Drives
1) divided to two partitions named C: and E:
2) no partitions - D:

when copying/moving files from any of these partitions to another or to itself I get slow transfer rates as I said (except when I'm copying from D to D, then I get about 10-11 MB/s which is kinda ok since it's my older slower drive and also copying within the HD is always slower than to another HD as far as I know, but this is also annoying since the drive divided to C: and E: is a newer, faster one and I get this slow transfers when usingt it)

I just went back and re-read this post and realized I still haven't seen you specifically mention copying files between the two physical drives.

Copying from C: to C: will be slow because it's the same drive.

Copying from D: to D: will be slow because it's the same drive.

Copying between C: and E: will be even slower because it's still on the same physical drive and since you're copying between files in two separate partitions the drive is going to waste even more time moving its heads back and forth between the two of them.

How fast are file copies between D: and E:? They should be faster.

Reply to sminlal

Copying from D: to E: starts off faster but pretty soon drops to 18, 11 , 8 and slower...

Also, my CPU and RAM gets REAL high as I start the transfer process and then drops down a few moments after they peak. I checked the PIO and it is not on as I said, UltraMD is on. so what can cause this + a real slowdown, generally, of the computer when I'm transfering files...

Message edited by zoobooboozoo on 10-26-2010 at 04:31:59 AM

Reply to zoobooboozoo

Which one of the two drives is the 500GB WD drive, and what kind of drive is the other one (and how is it connected?)

Reply to sminlal

500GB drive is divided to C: and E: and it's this drive:
(it's in my 1st post)
500GB drive info

my smaller drive is D:
160GB Drive Info

Reply to zoobooboozoo

And they're both internal drives connected to motherboard SATA ports, right?

I dunno, unless there's a lot of other concurrent I/O activity going on I really don't see what could be causing the problem...

Reply to sminlal

I am having the exact same problem.

Here is a brief history:

I purchased a brand new, 6 core HP Pavillion computer with 8 gigs of DDR3 10666 RAM . It came with a 1 TB hard drive that has 2 partitions- C: and D:. C: has Program Files, Windows, etc... D: is HP recovery.

I purchased an additional hard drive (Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive) and installed the new hard drive in the computer's expansion bay. This new drive is formatted with a single partition and is designated as the E: drive.

Here is the issue. I have multiple external hard drives with music files of live concerts (.flac and .shn). As an example, I have about 50 Grateful Dead concerts from 1973 that amount to 52 GB of files. When I attempt to transfer the 1973 concerts AS A SINGLE TRANSFER (e.g., select ALL 50 folders, drag and drop via right click > copy) to the E: drive, the transfer speed starts off at about 28 MB/sec. This is slow, but it is an older drive and that is about the maximum transfer speed. However, the transfer speed gradually slows down from 28 MB/sec down to 6 or 7 MB/sec. This takes a few minutes-- it decreases in increments of about .1 MB/sec (e.g., 28.0 MB/sec, 27.9 MB/sec, 27.8 MB/sec, 27.7 MB/sec, etc...) until it reaches 6 or 7 MB/sec. It remains at 6 or 7 MB/sec for the remainder of the transfer.

If I re-boot the computer and transfer a much smaller volume of files in as a single transfer (e.g., one concert that totals less than 1 GB of files), the transfer rate remains steady at about 27-28 MB/sec FOR THE FIRST TRANSFER. However, if I do additional transfers of the files, irrespective of how large / small the volume of the transfer is (1 GB or 10 GB total volume of the files), I encounter the same issue-- the transfer speed decreases from 27-28 MB/sec down to 6 or 7 MB/sec.

However, when I attempt to transfer the 1973 concerts AS A SINGLE TRANSFER (e.g., select ALL 50 folders, drag and drop via right click > copy) to the C: drive (the drive that came with the computer) , the transfer remains constant at about 28 MB/sec for the entire transfer. If I then attempt to transfer the files from the C: drive to the E: drive, the transfer rate begins at about 150 MB/sec (both of the drives are now INTERNAL drives, neither one is external). However, the transfer speed does the same thing as mentioned about-- it gradually decreases until it reaches 6 or 7 MB/sec and remains there for the entire transfer.

I do not think the hard drive is defective as I have run all of the Seagate Tools tests on the drive and every test passes without problem. Also, I have encountered the same issue with TWO different Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drives. The first one I returned thinking it was defective and obtained a new one, but the same issue is occurring with the new drive as well.

I have contacted HP and they said that since the problem is with a new hard drive that did not come with the computer, it is not covered under warranty. I contacted Seagate and they said that because the hard drive passed all of the Seagate Tools tests, the drive is not defective.

I am at a complete loss as to what to do next.

Any help / guidance / assistance is appreciated.

Thanks!

Bjorn

Reply to bjorn_larson

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