Why are these NTFS partitions so slooow?

[pgtr]

I've got 2 80gb HDs partiioned up w/ a few running NTFS and a few
running FAT32. The FAT32s and the C drive (small NTFS) are fast enough
but when I try and access the 2 larger NTFS partitions (~32gb) I get
an hourglass for 3-4 minutes (I've timed it). It's particularly bad in
Windows Explorer if I expand the '+' next to the partition.

After the delay it's fast and responsive thru the session. But if I
kill Win Explorer and later start it again ... It's another 4 minute
wait for those 2 larger NTFS partitions to start responding.

What's going on here and what if anything can I do to tune or tweak or
otherwise get my larger 32gb NTFS partitions to come out of their
stupor a little quicker???

 

[Guest]

Defragging would help
Try Symantec's Diskeeper

Anything in your event logs?

 

[pgtr]

PS: I tried defragging - no real impact on the NTFS volumes - veeery
sloooow to 'wake up' then afterwards all is fine and normal and
responsive.

 

[Enkidu]

I've got 2 80gb HDs partiioned up w/ a few running NTFS and a few
running FAT32. The FAT32s and the C drive (small NTFS) are fast enough
but when I try and access the 2 larger NTFS partitions (~32gb) I get
an hourglass for 3-4 minutes (I've timed it). It's particularly bad in
Windows Explorer if I expand the '+' next to the partition.

After the delay it's fast and responsive thru the session. But if I
kill Win Explorer and later start it again ... It's another 4 minute
wait for those 2 larger NTFS partitions to start responding.

What's going on here and what if anything can I do to tune or tweak or
otherwise get my larger 32gb NTFS partitions to come out of their
stupor a little quicker???

What sort of network? Domain? Workgroup? How's the DNS handled?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Vic]

pgtr,

I cannot answer your specific question but one must ask, do you NEED NTFS?
Some users do and some are better off with FAT32! I use FAT32 for home
computing.

Here are a couple of articles you might want to view:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/index3.html

and, although an older article, it's from Yale and informative
http://www.yale.edu/pclt/BOOT/IFS.HTM

Let us know how you make out

Vic
___

 

[Dave F]

You didn't mention which partition is your boot o/s
partition and you also didn't mention if you were
mirroring your two 80 GB HDDs (for failure protection?).

Just a guess here but, you might want to confirm your boot
o/s [Win2K?] is on one of your fastest (i.e. newest
drives) - presumably one of your 80 GB HDDs - on the
primary partition.

You then want to ensure you have your hardware is
configured such that this HDD is on your primary EIDE
channel (and any CD-RW/DVD drives do NOT share this
channel). If you have a o/s HDD competing with an EIDE
peripheral (such as a CD/DVD writer), you're going to have
conflicts all over the place (and sluggish performance)!

I have an old 4 GB HDD on my system [everything else is on
an 80GB NTFS drive with an 8MB cache] that has one old FAT
partition - probably should upgrade it to NTFS for
security reasons - but it does not affect my system
performance as your original post might suggest.

I know MS recommends going NTFS across the board - for
security reasons. Unless your dealing with other legacy
software/apps, I don't see the need to keep any FAT32
partitions. As for the mirroring [or other set up] for
your remaining HDD drives [FAT or NTFS], you are best to
carefully review your manuals or check back here with
experts who know more about this sort of thing than me!

HTH!
Dave F

 

[Dan Seur]

So far nobody has mentioned chkdsk. Have you run it on those NTFS
volumes? A 3-4 min delay certainly means something is radically wrong.

You might also run the system file checker (sfc.exe).

Another cause might be some sort of pagefile thrashing, though
that's a long shot. Check the page file size and placement.

Also make sure no partition is dangerously close to full. There
should be 10-15% space available. At least, I think that's so. Access
performance I believe will slow exponentially as a partition crosses a
certain threshhold of 'fullness' and keeps filling. I can't be more
specific here, and wiser heads may discount this idea.

 

[Eric McG]

You may want to check the cluster size in each partition. If the NTFS partitions
are using cluster sizes of 512 bytes, they will be slow.

You can check the cluster sizes using chkdsk from a command prompt.

Simply enter:

chkdsk x: (where x is the drive to query)

Do not use any other parameters.

The information is listed as "allocation units" at the end of the routine.

If they are formatted using cluster of 512 bytes, you'll need a 3rd party
utility like PowerQuest's Partition Magic to convert them.

Here's a quote from PQPM 8 manual:

---quote---

If you converted FAT or FAT32 partitions to NTFS as part of an operating system
upgrade or file system conversion, resizing to 4K clusters will enable you to
regain lost performance caused by potentially inefficient 512-byte clusters.

----end quote---

 

[pgtr]

great questions and suggestions! Here's a summary thus far...

IDE1: 80GB C:NTFS ~10GB (Boot partition, works fine)
E:NTFS ~30GB (OK since defragging)
F:NTFS ~30GB (Sloooow to start THEN OK for session)
IDE2: 80GB D:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
G:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
IDE2: CDROM

I'd say now that E is NOW responding fairly well since defragging -
there is a delay but maybe 15 or 20 seconds? Then it's OK - much
better than 3 minutes! Still no affect on F however.

Remember the FIRST time I click into F: above I get the hourglass for
a good ~3 minutes then it seems just fine until the next time I click
into it from a NEW Windows Explorer instance. I'll tell you something
else - when that hourglass appears - pretty much the whole system is
dogged for those minutes. This is a problem that was not there as I
recall when I first built the system a year ago but has from what I
can tell or notice, 'evolved' or grown over time. It's now to where
anytime I want to click into it I do so fully planning to go and take
a break!

Additional observations - it doesn't seem to be a problem from within
command prompt just doing something like 'DIR'. but CHKDSK is
definately slower too the first time. It's not necessarily too bad
from some applications when I say 'open' a new file for example. It's
definately the worst from Windows Explorer. The C partition is fine.
The E partition seems much BETTER probably good enough. But F is still
a dog to wake up however... I can click ON the HD and see the
subdirectories in the right window. But if I try to click into a
directory or click on the '+' expand symbol - 3 minute hourglass!!!
This partition is about half full (~15gb).

Thus far I've defragged the 3 NTFS partitions - helped E but no affect
on F. I'm in the process of defragging the two FAT32 partitions on the
other HD but defragging is going at a snails pace there (lot more data
there too). Those two FAT32 partitions are on the other HD so it
really isn't a big deal as far as this problem goes.

Each of the 3 NTFS partitions have between 40 and 90% free space.

The IDE1 80GB drive is an identical model to the other 80GB but
purchased slightly newer when I decided to switch from 98 to 2K. This
drive was formatted to NTFS from brand new - not converted from FAT32.

CHKDSK reports 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. I noticed
'BytesPerSector' was reported at 512 in System Information - is that
something different? It didn't report any errors or anything I'd think
would be out of the ordinary.

I tried SFC (not familiar w/ this) but it wouldn't work properly
because it is not finding the proper path to my CDROM. I'll have to
look and see if there is a workaround to tell it how to find the CDROM
path but it didn't give me any.

Caching is allowed on the volumes. There is no 'compression' setup or
installed.

Event Viewer System Log doesn't appear to be showing anything bad or
out of the ordinary. I see some IPNATHLP errors once in a while, one
Removable Storage error and if I go waaay back to a month ago there
was a series of ATAPI errors - seems to be a 1 time anomaly - I think
it may have been a bad CDROM disk if I recall...? Really I see nothing
jumping out at me in teh System log.

Basically this is a very generic default setup. I put the new HD in,
installed 2K from scratch - default options, configs etc throughout...

 

[pgtr]

Hello,

Defragging helped 1 of the partitions but other is stubbornly slow to
'wake up'.

Nothing in the event logs...

thanks!

 

[pgtr]

You didn't mention which partition is your boot o/s
partition and you also didn't mention if you were
mirroring your two 80 GB HDDs (for failure protection?).

No nothing like mirroring.
IDE1: 80GB C:NTFS ~10GB (Boot partition, works fine)
E:NTFS ~30GB (OK since defragging)
F:NTFS ~30GB (Sloooow to start THEN OK for session)
IDE2: 80GB D:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
G:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
IDE2: CDROM

Just a guess here but, you might want to confirm your boot
o/s [Win2K?] is on one of your fastest (i.e. newest
drives) - presumably one of your 80 GB HDDs - on the
primary partition.

It's on the first partiion which is also NTFS and works fine - seems
responsive enough.

You then want to ensure you have your hardware is
configured such that this HDD is on your primary EIDE
channel (and any CD-RW/DVD drives do NOT share this
channel). If you have a o/s HDD competing with an EIDE
peripheral (such as a CD/DVD writer), you're going to have
conflicts all over the place (and sluggish performance)!

Good point - yes I remember when I built it and double checked now
that's what I did - put the CDROM and the older 80gb drive (FAT32) on
the 2nd IDE and the 1st IDE has the newer 80gb all by itself w/ 3 NTFS
partitions on that drive.

I have an old 4 GB HDD on my system [everything else is on
an 80GB NTFS drive with an 8MB cache] that has one old FAT
partition - probably should upgrade it to NTFS for
security reasons - but it does not affect my system
performance as your original post might suggest.

I know MS recommends going NTFS across the board - for
security reasons. Unless your dealing with other legacy
software/apps, I don't see the need to keep any FAT32
partitions. As for the mirroring [or other set up] for
your remaining HDD drives [FAT or NTFS], you are best to
carefully review your manuals or check back here with
experts who know more about this sort of thing than me!

The two FAT32 partitions are on the 2nd HD and just leftover from my
previous OS. I was going to make it dual boot to Win98SE but never did
figure that one out and I guess I never really had the need. Lots of
data there but those 2 partitions work fine in FAT32 - plenty fast
enough. I think I also decided to leave that original HD alone to keep
it at FAT32 for installing some PC video games - not sure if that is
necessary though.

Thanks!

 

[pgtr]

So far nobody has mentioned chkdsk. Have you run it on those NTFS
volumes? A 3-4 min delay certainly means something is radically wrong.

Indeed! One of the 2 slooow partitions is responding OK now since
defragging. The other is still a dog to wake up then it's OK until
next time I open up Win Explorer...

You might also run the system file checker (sfc.exe).

I tried that since you suggested it - didn't work - couldn't find the
path to my win2K cdrom so it was inconclusive.

Another cause might be some sort of pagefile thrashing, though
that's a long shot. Check the page file size and placement.

How do I check page file size and placement and what kind of figures
should I look for...?

Also make sure no partition is dangerously close to full. There
should be 10-15% space available. At least, I think that's so. Access
performance I believe will slow exponentially as a partition crosses a
certain threshhold of 'fullness' and keeps filling. I can't be more
specific here, and wiser heads may discount this idea.

Only my old FAT32 partitions on the 'other' HD are even remotely close
to that kind of space. The NTFS partitions have plenty of space in all
3 cases on the primary HD.

thanks!

 

[pgtr]

You may want to check the cluster size in each partition. If the NTFS partitions
are using cluster sizes of 512 bytes, they will be slow.

You can check the cluster sizes using chkdsk from a command prompt.

Simply enter:

chkdsk x: (where x is the drive to query)

Do not use any other parameters.

The information is listed as "allocation units" at the end of the routine.

If they are formatted using cluster of 512 bytes, you'll need a 3rd party
utility like PowerQuest's Partition Magic to convert them.

CHKDSK reports 4096 bytes in each allocation unit.It didn't report any
errors or anything I'd think would be out of the ordinary.

I noticed 'BytesPerSector' was reported at 512 in System Information -
is that something different?

The primary HD was formatted to NTFS from the get go after purchasing
it new. I set it up w/ 3 NTFS partitions only (no FAT32).

The 'other' HD was from previous system and I just left the 2 existing
FAT32 partitions alone.

IDE1: 80GB C:NTFS ~10GB (Boot partition, works fine)
E:NTFS ~30GB (OK since defragging)
F:NTFS ~30GB (Sloooow to start THEN OK for session)
IDE2: 80GB D:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
G:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)

thanks!

 

[Eric McG]

You might try setting the Indexing Services to Manual. This setting is found via
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services.

My System Information does not show any reference to "BytesPerSector". Where is
it displaying this in yours?

 

[pgtr]

great questions and suggestions! Here's a summary thus far...

IDE1: 80GB C:NTFS ~10GB (Boot partition, works fine)
E:NTFS ~30GB (OK since defragging)
F:NTFS ~30GB (Sloooow to start THEN OK for session)
IDE2: 80GB D:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
G:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
IDE2: CDROM

I'd say now that E is NOW responding fairly well since defragging -
there is a delay but maybe 15 or 20 seconds? Then it's OK - much
better than 3 minutes! Still no affect on F however.

Remember the FIRST time I click into F: above I get the hourglass for
a good ~3 minutes then it seems just fine until the next time I click
into it from a NEW Windows Explorer instance. I'll tell you something
else - when that hourglass appears - pretty much the whole system is
dogged for those minutes. This is a problem that was not there as I
recall when I first built the system a year ago but has from what I
can tell or notice, 'evolved' or grown over time. It's now to where
anytime I want to click into it I do so fully planning to go and take
a break!

Additional observations - it doesn't seem to be a problem from within
command prompt just doing something like 'DIR'. but CHKDSK is
definately slower too the first time. It's not necessarily too bad
from some applications when I say 'open' a new file for example. It's
definately the worst from Windows Explorer. The C partition is fine.
The E partition seems much BETTER probably good enough. But F is still
a dog to wake up however... I can click ON the HD and see the
subdirectories in the right window. But if I try to click into a
directory or click on the '+' expand symbol - 3 minute hourglass!!!
This partition is about half full (~15gb).

Thus far I've defragged the 3 NTFS partitions - helped E but no affect
on F. I'm in the process of defragging the two FAT32 partitions on the
other HD but defragging is going at a snails pace there (lot more data
there too). Those two FAT32 partitions are on the other HD so it
really isn't a big deal as far as this problem goes.

Each of the 3 NTFS partitions have between 40 and 90% free space.

The IDE1 80GB drive is an identical model to the other 80GB but
purchased slightly newer when I decided to switch from 98 to 2K. This
drive was formatted to NTFS from brand new - not converted from FAT32.

CHKDSK reports 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. I noticed
'BytesPerSector' was reported at 512 in System Information - is that
something different? It didn't report any errors or anything I'd think
would be out of the ordinary.

I tried SFC (not familiar w/ this) but it wouldn't work properly
because it is not finding the proper path to my CDROM. I'll have to
look and see if there is a workaround to tell it how to find the CDROM
path but it didn't give me any.

Caching is allowed on the volumes. There is no 'compression' setup or
installed.

Event Viewer System Log doesn't appear to be showing anything bad or
out of the ordinary. I see some IPNATHLP errors once in a while, one
Removable Storage error and if I go waaay back to a month ago there
was a series of ATAPI errors - seems to be a 1 time anomaly - I think
it may have been a bad CDROM disk if I recall...? Really I see nothing
jumping out at me in teh System log.

Basically this is a very generic default setup. I put the new HD in,
installed 2K from scratch - default options, configs etc throughout...

 

[pgtr]

You may want to check the cluster size in each partition. If the NTFS partitions
are using cluster sizes of 512 bytes, they will be slow.

You can check the cluster sizes using chkdsk from a command prompt.

Simply enter:

chkdsk x: (where x is the drive to query)

Do not use any other parameters.

The information is listed as "allocation units" at the end of the routine.

If they are formatted using cluster of 512 bytes, you'll need a 3rd party
utility like PowerQuest's Partition Magic to convert them.

CHKDSK reports 4096 bytes in each allocation unit.It didn't report any
errors or anything I'd think would be out of the ordinary.

I noticed 'BytesPerSector' was reported at 512 in System Information -
is that something different?

The primary HD was formatted to NTFS from the get go after purchasing
it new. I set it up w/ 3 NTFS partitions only (no FAT32).

The 'other' HD was from previous system and I just left the 2 existing
FAT32 partitions alone.

IDE1: 80GB C:NTFS ~10GB (Boot partition, works fine)
E:NTFS ~30GB (OK since defragging)
F:NTFS ~30GB (Sloooow to start THEN OK for session)
IDE2: 80GB D:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)
G:FAT32 ~40gb (works fine)

thanks!

 

[Guest]

RE: Slow drives/partitions

You mentioned that Windows Explorer is slow to access NTFS
partitions, but I didn't catch any reference to any other
objective measure.

The reason I mention this is that I found that when I use
WE to access a directory structure, it was EXTREMELY slow
when I reached a level that was one level above folders
that each had a LOT of files in them.

I found that I could use My Computer (the single-pane view
of WE) and I did not experience this problem.

In many instances where I had folders with more than
10,000 files in them, all use of that folder was slow....
even command-prompt copying. And when I used WE to drill
down to one level above, it took many minutes to display
the contents.

I suspect that the 2-pane Windows Explorer scans the
directory information one level below the displayed level,
for some reason. If that's true, it would help explain
why navigating to a folder that contains hundres of
folders that each contain 10,000 files would be slow.

Still, it's hard to imagine how it could take several
minutes to gather that much directory information. You
could probably write a batch program that would be faster
than that.

mIKE