External Harddrive drastically slowing download speed

[andrewirwinaji]

Strangest problem.. When i have external hard drive plugged in my download speed drops from around 6mbs to under 1-0.5 mbs.. when i take the hard drive out the speeds shoot back up to 6mbs again?

 

[Human Being]

Strangest problem.. When i have external hard drive plugged in my download speed drops from around 6mbs to under 1-0.5 mbs.. when i take the hard drive out the speeds shoot back up to 6mbs again?

Your saving the downloading file to whcih location? IS it on your internal HDD or on your external HDD?

 

[andrewirwinaji]

download file was saving to the internal HDD. i began downloading and about 50% was done within the hour at a speed of around 6mbs. I then began some work which came from files stored on my external HDD, worked for an hour to see the speed at like 500kbs and it went up only a few percent, took out the external HDD and speeds shot up again to 6mbs

 

[andrewirwinaji]

also it wasnt the program i was working in causing the speed to drop as i copied the files to my internal HDD and removed the external HDD and speeds went back to normal. i then connected the external hdd one more time to verify that it was the cause and yes it was, speeds dropped again

 

[Human Being]

download file was saving to the internal HDD. i began downloading and about 50% was done within the hour at a speed of around 6mbs. I then began some work which came from files stored on my external HDD, worked for an hour to see the speed at like 500kbs and it went up only a few percent, took out the external HDD and speeds shot up again to 6mbs

Do you have any sort of cloud service like dropbox installed on external HDD.Sometimes that causes to upload files to cloud automatically resulting in sluggish internet speed.If not then check whatever you're doing wtih external HDD doesn't includes internet.
If you're a lil bit inclined about using Task Manager please refer to that using Ctrl + Shift + Esc while external HDD is plugged in.
Be certain to check processes's network column and see which process is internet hungry besides the one you're using to download...for example a web browser..

 

[andrewirwinaji]

thanks for the replys, didnt think about checking the task manager, will give it a go and let you know. Thanks!

 

[Human Being]

thanks for the replys, didnt think about checking the task manager, will give it a go and let you know. Thanks!

No worries be sure to check the column and detect which one is causing the issue.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there andrewirwinaji,

Sometimes, a failing external drive could cause overall system unresponsiveness. This is why, it would be nice to back up the most important data stored on the drive, just in case there's something wrong with it.
After that, you can check it's health status out: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD