Slow data transfer

[oxycash]

I have a 500gb hdd when i bought my PC[4yrs back] and it is making noise from the first day. later I added 1tb hdd as primary and 500gb is moved to secondary. But still data transfer rate is low. It starts at very high speed and then it nose dives. its been a problem for me thesedays when i copy data to flash drives.

Do I have to make any changes in BIOS?


specs:

Win7 64bit with 6gb DDR3
1 tb + 500gb hdds [both 7200rpm]
intel p45 mobo
c2d e8400 3ghz
ATI 5770 DX11 card
Creative sound blaster audigy SE

 

[blazorthon]

How full is the 500GB? As a drive gets more full, it needs to store data closer and closer to the center of the drive's disks. Data closer to the center of the drive is accessed much more slowly than data near the outer rim of the drive.

 

[blazorthon]

Also, USB is a *bursty* interface. It's performance can get good, but it is not consistent. This might simply be because of the USB interface. A newer USB drive might fix or at least help it if you're using an older drive, but I think that it's fairly normal for USB flash drives to do this. My flash drives peak at a certain performance level and then start to drop pretty often. Sometimes, they go back to peaking, etc. etc.

 

[oxycash]

i understand the usb performance. but it happens with many usb flash drives I used with. Especially, when it comes to the end of data transfer, it keeps waiting at 99% for 5 minutes before it stops. I use ntfs both on flash and hdd. HDD is not really filld, it is about 300-400gigs filled.

 

[RetiredChief]

Your biggest bottlenec is the USB2 port and the USB2 thumbdrive. The USB 2 port is fixed, BUT there is a BIG difference in performance between the avg run-of-the mill Thumbdrive and the Higher end ones.
Transfer rate is the sum of the two, how long it takes to read the given data PLUS the time to write the data thru USB2 to the Thumbdrive. NOTE. At first the data is basted on filling a buffer which is much faster than after the buffer has been filled - reason for slow down. Another reason is the size and number of files and are they randomly located or Sequencial - Sequencial read/writes are MUCH faster than random read/writes.
Easy way to get the transfer rate slect a bunch of files to transfer, then expand the transfer window (Show more details).

Since you do not state the transfer rate, it is very difficault to say your above or below the norm.

Possible fix would be to obtain a USB3 PCI-e card and replace USB 2 thumbdrives with USB 3 Thumbdrives - NOTE, again PAY attention to listed read/write performance as ther is a Big biff between the USB3 thumbdrives also - DON't BUY if it does not list performance!

 

[oxycash]

started at 80mbps, stable at 35mbps after few seconds.


moving files to another partition of same drive. this is the 1tb hdd. files are about 2gb size each.

 

[mouse24]

http://i2.lulzimg.com/81332d4778.jpg


started at 80mbps, stable at 35mbps after few seconds.


moving files to another partition of same drive. this is the 1tb hdd. files are about 2gb size each.

Cutting or copying? when I copy it normally takes as long as what you are describing.

and that speed is pretty normal, its about what I get on my spinpoint F3.

after that it quickly dropped to 35mb/s

While cutting, both of those are being transferred to a 320g IDE drive.

 

[womble]

Copying between partitions on the same drive I'd expect the rates to drop by a certain amount as the heads will be moving about quite a lot and those numbers don't seem that bad. I suspect the throughput would be more consistent copying from one hard drive to another.

I used to have two hard drives for Windows use and when encoding video i always used the second drive to save to, seemed a faster and smoother experience (might have improved as still running XP here).

 

[oxycash]

1tb hdd to 500gb. seems 2 b consistent 80mbps

 

[RetiredChief]

NOTE: Speed will bepend greatly on size of files, are the a bunch of small randomly placed files, or is it on large (Nonfragmented file) that is sequencial.