Windows slows down to a crawl while moving/copying files

[Vlad_911]

I'm currently moving some large files from one partition to the other on the same HDD and Windows 10 is so slow I can barely use it.

Is this normal? How to solve it?

PS: The transfer speed is only about 12MB/s and I have overclocked my cpu up to 4.6Ghz and the temperature is around 43ºC at idle.

My Rig:

FX6300
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2(Mini ATX)
1TB Seagate 7200rpm
320GB Seagate
Aftermarket Cooler TX3 Evo
PSU: 500W

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH Community, @Vlad!

I'd strongly recommend backing up your files somewhere off-site of your HDD, instead of moving them from one partition to another. Afterwards, make sure you run your HDD manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic tool to check up on the health and SMART status of your drive. You should run both the Short & the Long tests. Another thing that might be influencing your transfer speed is a faulty connection to the drive itself. In this case, I'd strongly recommend changing the SATA cable and the SATA port where the HDD is connected to the motherboard.

Give these a try and let me know how it goes.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Vlad_911]

Welcome to the TH Community, @Vlad!

I'd strongly recommend backing up your files somewhere off-site of your HDD, instead of moving them from one partition to another. Afterwards, make sure you run your HDD manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic tool to check up on the health and SMART status of your drive. You should run both the Short & the Long tests. Another thing that might be influencing your transfer speed is a faulty connection to the drive itself. In this case, I'd strongly recommend changing the SATA cable and the SATA port where the HDD is connected to the motherboard.

Give these a try and let me know how it goes.
SuperSoph_WD

Thanks for the comprehensive response!

Well, I've got this 1TB drive for less than 6 months and I've tested it last week with Crystal Disk Info and it was ok, no problems at all. I've found an article by a Microsoft employee giving advice on this and one of them was to turn off indexing on the HDD and that made a huge difference.
My tranfer rate basically doubled after that. Other than that he gave a command line to put on CMD and it seems to have worked as well.

This is the page:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/copy-speed-very-slow-in-windows-10/950c8f96-d9de-41e2-8d35-977944eb5c01?auth=1

 

[Vlad_911]

Ok, the tranfer rate went back down to 12MB/s now. I've noticed though that it only happens when I tranfer files from partitions of the same HDD. If I copy/move from one HDD to another then the transfer rate goes up to over 50MB/s.

 

[Colif]

That is cause it has to read the data, move the read/write head, and then write data on same hdd. Its going to be much faster copying to another drive as there is no moving the read/write head inbetween

Defragging drive would also help as then its less likely to put the info all over drive while writing it.

its possible slow down caused by hdd having to put the data into page file or "somewhere" while it copies data across on same hdd. It would be less noticeable if copying direct to other drive

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hello again, @Vlad!

I'd have to agree with @Colif on this one. Copying your files to the same HDD where both your reads & writes are taking place, it would make the HDD a lot slower with the transfer. This is mainly as it was already mentioned, because part of the time it's busy reading and then busy writing.
Defragging might help, but transferring your files from one partition to another doesn't make a lot of sense. This is definitely not a backup solution, so maybe you should consider copying your files to an off-site location or another storage drive. If by any chance the HDD fails at some point, you will lose the data stored on both partitions. Better be safe than sorry and have multiple copies of your files on different drives/storage solutions.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Colif]

i split my 2tb drive into 2 1tb partitions, just cause it makes it look smaller (lol). It is just a habit i grew having hdd as everything for last 15 years. NO point splitting ssd but that is another story. I have 1 partition with nothing other than music and Onedrive on it, the other with steam games and documents. All in all I have used 232gb of the 2tb drive. I really don't need that much space.

I learned a valuable lesson about backups when I had a run of bad hdd. For 15 years I feared losing all my music but now I have it all on 2 cloud services + a 64gb USB stick, I am not as worried. Almost everything i worry about is on multiple backups.

I should get another drive but next one will be an ssd

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Yes, that's what partitioning is for in my opinion, @Colif. It's supposed to make it easier for you to arrange the storage however you want. Back in the day I used to split my drives in two partitions (The OS/Programs & The Storage) mostly because it made it easier for me to arrange my data and I had only one storage drive at a time. Nowadays, partitioning is not really necessary, especially with SSDs. Now that you can have a blazing system bootup thanks to SSDs and enormous storage capacities with HDDs, having multiple partitions is just not needed... unless you have OCD like me. (lol)

SuperSoph_WD

 

[Colif]

My hdd is only used for storage now, so splitting it into two is not as useful as before. I can't remember what i used to put on the 2nd hard drive in PC, I expect it was music as before June last year my internet connection speed was so slow that uploading all my music to Google Play took 6 months and downloading anything would have taken almost as long, so paranoia over losing it all and having to spend several weeks rebuilding it led to it always being on 2nd hdd. The 2nd partition of drive 1 was used for games, or at least it was until hdd started to constantly lose space on C drive so I deleted the 2nd partition - think drive was on its last legs.

Hdd is where all my library folders reside as if/when windows needs a fresh install I don't lose all my documents or music or pictures. I only have a 2tb drive as it came with PC I ordered. The valuable lesson I mentioned before also taught me its no point filling a hdd up as you just making more work for self when you have to reinstall windows again. So though last PC had 600gb of storage I never even got close to using it all, and 2tb is just over kill for me

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Indeed, @Colif, paranoia definitely saves the day when it comes to storage!
Regardless of the storage configuration inside the PC, it's always best to keep a copy of your files somewhere off-site to an external HDD, DVDs, BluRays or a Cloud storage solution. This definitely helps whenever you need to reinstall the OS or format the whole system and start from scratch, if needed.

I lost my music collection and a lot of memories once. Afterwards, I paranoia got me backing everything up to 3 different storage locations... because it's better to be safe than sorry! lol

SuperSoph_WD

 

[mpelley92]

I know this question is old, but I need to add some important information. I've been looking for an answer to the same question the OP has for a while now, could not for the life of me figure out why I couldn't copy a folder that had around ~145GB from one drive to another.

The answer in my case? SYMLINKS!

Check the folder you're trying to move by searching "*.symlink" and delete any you find. A game I had modded was using a mod manager that implemented symlinks. Once I deleted them all, I was able to copy everything with ease.

Hope this helps someone ready to pull their hair out!