Inetmittently slow external USB drive

[bxf]

I just bought my third external USB2 drive - Western Digital MyBook
320GB (good pice n my area), and I have a problem I haven't encountered
with my other drives.

I just did a COPY/PASTE from the WD to my HDD, and it took much too
long - 140 seconds for a file of about 1GB. I REMOVE the HDD, plug it
into another USB port, and now it is OK (35 sec). I plug another drive
into either port, and it is OK. I plug the WD into the first port, and
it is now OK. I reboot with the WD powered up, and it is slow again. I
remove it and replug, and it is OK.

WD diagnostics report no problems.

Any ideas as to what's wrong?

Thanks.

Bill

 

[Arno Wagner]

I just bought my third external USB2 drive - Western Digital MyBook
320GB (good pice n my area), and I have a problem I haven't encountered
with my other drives.

I just did a COPY/PASTE from the WD to my HDD, and it took much too
long - 140 seconds for a file of about 1GB. I REMOVE the HDD, plug it
into another USB port, and now it is OK (35 sec). I plug another drive
into either port, and it is OK. I plug the WD into the first port, and
it is now OK. I reboot with the WD powered up, and it is slow again. I
remove it and replug, and it is OK.

WD diagnostics report no problems.

Any ideas as to what's wrong?

Probably the different ports are on different IRQs (interrupts).
IRQs are shared today. If an IRQ is triggerd, the OS needs to find
out which of the different devices/device drivers triggerd it.
If there is a slow driver that is asked before the HDD driver, then
this would slow down the HDD driver, because whenever data comes in
(and the HDD triggers an IRQ), it takes long until the computer
starts processing/moving it.

Basically there is not much you can do, except remove the slow
device/device driver or assign it to another IRQ.

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Probably

Hey babblehead, you are supposed to read the message first before you babble.

the different ports are on different IRQs (interrupts).
IRQs are shared today. If an IRQ is triggerd, the OS needs to find
out which of the different devices/device drivers triggerd it.
If there is a slow driver that is asked before the HDD driver, then
this would slow down the HDD driver, because whenever data comes in
(and the HDD triggers an IRQ), it takes long until the computer
starts processing/moving it.

Basically there is not much you can do, except remove the slow
device/device driver or assign it to another IRQ.

Or return the WD drive for one of the same make as his other drives.

 

[bxf]

Probably the different ports are on different IRQs (interrupts).
IRQs are shared today. If an IRQ is triggerd, the OS needs to find
out which of the different devices/device drivers triggerd it.
If there is a slow driver that is asked before the HDD driver, then
this would slow down the HDD driver, because whenever data comes in
(and the HDD triggers an IRQ), it takes long until the computer
starts processing/moving it.

Basically there is not much you can do, except remove the slow
device/device driver or assign it to another IRQ.

Arno

Thanks Arno, but the problem does not appear to be related to a
specific port. Rather, it occurs immediately after I boot regardless of
which port I use. All I have to do is hit the power button on the drive
twice (OFF then ON) and everything is OK until the next boot.

I just found a utility called "WD external spindown", which one can use
to control some WD drives, like REMOVE (instead of the normal Windows
Remove), or Standby. If I just put the drive into STANDBY using this
utility, it will be brought out of standby almost immediately by
Windows, and all is OK.

It would be nice if this utility could be invoked from a command line
with a STANDBY switch, but I haven't found anything that tells me that
can be done.

 

[bxf]

Or return the WD drive for one of the same make as his other drives.

European prices do not always give one the benefit of a multitude of
options that one finds in the US, so when I see a drive at the same
price as it carries I the US, it is hard to resist.

Interestingly, the one thing that makes this drive stand out from (at
least some of) the others is that it has what WD calls Smart Power,
which enables the (external!) drive to power up and down automatically
with the computer, including Standby. Ironically, I can't help but
suspect that this is the cause of my problem.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Thanks Arno, but the problem does not appear to be related to a
specific port. Rather, it occurs immediately after I boot regardless of
which port I use. All I have to do is hit the power button on the drive
twice (OFF then ON) and everything is OK until the next boot.

Aha, I see. It seems I did not read your description carefully enough.
Unrelated to IRQ assignment in that case.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Folkert Rienstra wrote:

European prices do not always give one the benefit of a multitude of
options that one finds in the US, so when I see a drive at the same
price as it carries I the US, it is hard to resist.

Interestingly, the one thing that makes this drive stand out from (at
least some of) the others is that it has what WD calls Smart Power,
which enables the (external!) drive to power up and down automatically
with the computer, including Standby. Ironically, I can't help but
suspect that this is the cause of my problem.

"We have this new feature. It is great, but not really well understood
or tested at the moment. But you get it anyways, since it looks
really great in the brochure...."

Arno