Slow Hard Drive

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

Wester Digital WD6400AACS
It seems to have a VERY slow transfer rate for a SATA II drive.
HD Tune says between 6mb and 7mb on idle.
Other drives make 55mb and 84mb.
I hope my 2 month old hard drive hasn't gone faulty already! Is there any way to increase the transfer rate?

 

[Ian]

What does it mean by "on idle", as I thought that would imply that it isn't being used? Is that what it says in the benchmarking application?

Could you post a screenshot of the results

Also, does it seem slow in normal use?

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

I mean no programs accessing it. Do I need to install this driver?

Silicon Image 3132 Serial ATA Driver V1.0.0.9 for Windows 2000/XP
It's for an Asus A8N32-SLI-DELUXE. I haven't installed the driver because I didn't think it was needed.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

It's also slow to copy data onto it.

For apps, it takes 2 mins 47 secs to install a 95mb Sims 2 Expansion Pack.

 

[Ian]

Yep, I'd install the drivers - that should sort it out hopefully

Go for the newer one, listed as "Silicon Image 3132 Raid 5 Driver V1.2.3.1 for Windows 2000/XP/2003.(WHQL) " though - I presume that covers SATA too, even though it doesn't mention it (as they aren't listed anywhere else) I'd also update the nVidia chipset drivers at the same time.


http://support.asus.com/download/do...&model=A8N32-SLI Deluxe&SLanguage=en-us&os=17

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

ok after installing the SATA drivers, I still have a problem.

 

[Ian]

Do you have 2 types of SATA connector on your motherboard, I've seen ones where they use 2 different controllers - 3rd Party RAID and normal chipset SATA. They are sometimes colour coded Red and Black. If so, try plugging it in to the different colour and see what happens?

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

All 3 hard drives in my PC are plugged to black. However after swapping the power supply cables round and using 4 pin to 2xSATA power convertors, the hard drive runs SEEMINGLY faster but I cannot fully benchmark it. It says "Read Error!!! Test Aborted". It only cannot be benchmarked when it is idle. If I copy files or install games on the drive, I can benchmark it fine. The only thing it can do to get a result in idle is to run the benchmark for a second before displaying the error. This result is unreliable, but it says the drive is now running at 87.7mb/s. It should be runnning at 3gb/s. In fact, the Samsung 500GB one should also be too. The Maxtor 40GB won't because it is SATA 1.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

Red SATA plug is for the SATA RAID

The red plug is for a "SATA RAID" I dunno what the hell that is and I don't want to stick my nose into it unless I really have to solve the problem because RAID sounds complicated.

 

[Waynos_Face]

What kind of power supply have you got????

Is there anything else running on the same line as the HDD???

Seems like you might have power fluctuations or instability in maintaining a steady supply.

If you can swop out the PSU then do so.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

No know programs, only my documents and apps on that drive. I also noticed the Maxtor 40GB drive has that "click off and on" problem now too.

I have a 450W power supply and I'm beginning to think it is the problem. Is it enough for:
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Socket 939 3800+ @ 2.4GHZ (SINGLE CORE!!!)
3 x Sata Hard Drives
2 x Optical Drives
1 x Floppy Drive
3 x Case Fans
1 x Akasa AK 876 AMD Cooler
2 x 1GB DDR 400 RAM
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3650 512mb

 

[Waynos_Face]

Yeah 450 Watt would be more than enough,

depends on how old it is though and if its a decent make as it will get dusty and this generates more heat, capacitor wear and tear all results in less stability and less wattage.

If you are getting different results by powering differently then its posssible it is the PSU.

When i asked whats on the same line as the Hard Drives i meant, that if you have a line of molex connectors, say 3 and you have one of those powering two hard drives, another running 2 fans and another running a third hard drive then on a budget power supply it will or could cause problems.

 

[Ian]

This result is unreliable, but it says the drive is now running at 87.7mb/s. It should be runnning at 3gb/s.

You won't achieve 3GB/s speeds, as that's the theoretical limits of SATA2 - 87.7MB/s sounds about right actually

edit : here's a list of other drives benchmarks:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3-5-hard-drive-charts/Average-Read-Transfer-Performance,658.html

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

Ok after buying a new 4pin to SATA power cable, all drives are running at around 82-87mb/s exept the Maxtor 40GB,it runs at 55mb/s because it is SATA I. Also the "Click off" problem is gone.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

But I still cannot confirm the Wester Digital results were reliable because it still says "Read Error" when attempting to benchmark.