Really slow HDD read and write speeds.

[19_BlackOut_455]

Hello,

My PC is getting really slow. I've narrowed it down to my hdd which is a 2tb seagate barracude. I've been using it for a while now (must be about 4 years now) and task master is showing it's read speed as from 10KB/s to 2MB/s max and it's write speed from 1KB/s to about 500KB/s. It's response time is pretty good though at around 200-300ms.

Ever since i upgraded to windows 10, i've noticed my disk usage is constantly at 100%

I've defragged it recently and run a number of SMART tests which all show no problems.

When trying to update a game my internet usage is really low aswell at no more than 300KB/s whereas I'm used to 10-15MB/s. Ookla speed test shows my internet speed is exactly that (15MB/s) if not higher... My pings fine too.

It could just be a knackered hard drive... I'm going to buy an ssd soon and reinstall windows onto that and have the hdd as a secondary drive anyway.

 

[corroded]

Its just the HDD... they are quite slow by today's functional expectations...

Any SSD will make the boot and load times phenomenal. However, you'd be best suited to start over with the SSD as the boot drive and the 2TB as the Data/games/documents drive...

 

[19_BlackOut_455]

This is normal performance from a hdd?? are you sure those read/write speeds are ok since most people on the internet say they are having problems when their speed are around 5-10mb/s.

I'm sure it was faster before at performing tasks. It takes 20-30 seconds to open file explorer and even more to open chrome. I know hard drives can be slow but this can't be normal.

I'm just gonna change the SATA cables and see if that helps- give me a sec

 

[corroded]

No, the HDD is not really that slow, its just the churn in Win10... I see it constantly since Win8. I am upgrading people about 1 a month to an SSD boot drive. Often I can just clone to the SSD and go, sometimes it is a full restart. Then I'll use the original HDD as the primary install location for applications and move the Profile folders to the HDD as well.

see my signature...

 

[19_BlackOut_455]

hmm thats odd...

I swapped the SATA cable to a different port on my motherboard and everything suddenly seems responsive...

task master is showing read write speeds have increased to 5-20MB/s 😵

Must've been something to do with the cables or the port? or maybe the cable was slightly loose.

Oh well thanks for the help anyway

 

[corroded]

you also may have 2 different speed SATA ports...

 

[19_BlackOut_455]

Maybe yeah.

I'm gonna ask one more question 😉

When i buy an ssd (was thinking a samsung 850 evo 120gb or 250 gb) will i be able to just plug that in and set it as my boot drive or do i have to reinstall windows to boot off the ssd? The reason i ask is because i don't want to have to reinstall everthing or backup my whole 1.5 tb of data.

 

[corroded]

If the new drive is bigger it is easiest... In your case, either uninstall down to below 75% of the new SSD's capacity, including moving junk off the drive or start over...

Then, if under 75%, most new retail SSD's come with a coupon for a Cloning tool... Use it and then you do not need to start over.