Questions about hdds.

[tmrz]

Hello good people of Tom's hardware. I've been having lots issues with my pc's boot up times. I know it is mostly caused by lots of start up applications but most of them are Steam, Battle.net, ATI drives, some Logitech stuff and other computer related applications. (like Asus update software)

Anyways my question is, I recently found out that I have a WD3200AAJS which is an 2008 model tho unlike the one in link and I got a WD10EZEX. But I am suspecting that my 2nd hard drive's (WD10EZEX) specs are not matching with the website. Because I bought the drive back in 2013 and the drive itself had been produced in 2012.

What I wonder is, how can I test the read and write tests of these drives under same conditions, how to find their true specs regarding the websites (like rpm and such) and how shall I use my system with those two hdds? I mean, my 1 TB drive is divided into two for both system and gaming, but I wanna lesser the burden of it and longer the life spans of my hdds somehow. So any help will be appreciated.

 

[VincentP]

An old 320GB drive is likely very slow.
Without replacing anything, a defrag might help.
Other than that, you need to do a clean install Windows on a faster drive, or use a utility like Acronis to move the existing install.

 

[tmrz]

Thanks for your reply man, after a bit of researching online, I came across this Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic application. According to this application my hard drive is running on IDE for some reason. I found this thread which lead me to another thread ending up on this article. I tried the fix that is mentioned on the last article but when I ran the WD-DLD application I still get my hard drive as IDE. I haven't seen any Intel raid drivers at add / remove program panel too. Any other ideas?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, tmrz!

Good job running Data LifeGuard on your drives.
The IDE mode of the drive can be changed from the BIOS. You can simply go there and set the SATA mode to AHCI, instead of IDE.
Here's a tutorial you can use: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-change-sata-hard-disk-mode-from-ide-to-ahci-raid-in-bios-after-installing-windows/

Have you gone through the WD Blue product page on our website? Here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=UtK5IG
There shouldn't be any difference in the specs of the WD Blue. KB: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=n1oMEz

Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[tmrz]

Hello SuperSoph_WD thanks for your reply. Here is a little gallery about what I have done, and yet my result is like in this. (Leads to a little photo gallery of the regedit / bios and WD-DLD)

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hello SuperSoph_WD thanks for your reply. Here is a little gallery about what I have done, and yet my result is like in this. (Leads to a little photo gallery of the regedit / bios and WD-DLD)

I'd suggest to reboot and check BIOS again. If it's shown as AHCI, then it is! The tool might be wrong.
Check this sticky post from the community and follow the step-by-step and make sure you've enabled the AHCI mode for the drives: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/196922-32-switching-storage-controllers-reinstalling-windows
Btw, can you please tell me or show me what are your other options on the SATA mode selection?

SuperSoph_WD

 

[tmrz]

Hello and sorry for the late reply.

I've formatted my C: partition and my boot time increased for sure. But I am still having the IDE mark even according to Western Digital application. I'm going to look for the similar problems and see if I can find any solution to this.

I'm still open for any other suggestions too

Btw, there were no any other options from SATA / IDE as far as I see

 

[fzabkar]

@tmrz, can you show us a HD Tune read benchmark graph? This will allow us to determine if the transfer rate is being throttled by IDE mode, and it will also enable us to determine the drive's RPM, assuming it is not reported by the drive.

 

[tmrz]

Hello,

Here is a link to the benchmark I just did.

 

[fzabkar]

The maximum transfer rate is 180 MB/s which exceeds the published spec of 150MB/s:

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701277.pdf

Also, notice that the band of data points is about 8msec wide, which corresponds to the time for one revolution at 7200 RPM.

In short, ISTM that the drive is performing to spec.

 

[VincentP]

You have benchmarked the 1 TB drive. Wasn't it the 320 GB drive you were concerned about?

 

[tmrz]

The maximum transfer rate is 180 MB/s which exceeds the published spec of 150MB/s:

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701277.pdf

Also, notice that the band of data points is about 8msec wide, which corresponds to the time for one revolution at 7200 RPM.

In short, ISTM that the drive is performing to spec.

Thanks for your time and info man, now I know everything is working as it is intended at least.