Question Storage drive is sluggish & errors detected ?

[Coast Guard]

Hi Gang

OS: Windows 10 Pro

I have a 2TB external Storage Drive using eSATA conections. Less than 1/2 full. Never had a problem with esata. Anyway W10 Pro detected errors. Simple files jpg's etc are slow to open (if at all). Transfer rates are unusually slow. Its recommended I run a 'Repair'? See the images. If I run a repair I'm afraid of what might become of the contents? Should I run Optimize and Defrag? Will the contents become corrupted? Thank You!

 

[Lutfij]

Its recommended I run a 'Repair'?
If the external drive contains mission critical data, you should make sure that they're backed up first, before you run any kind of repair on said drives. Do you see abnormally high disk usages after booting into OS GUI?

Make and model of your motherboard? BIOS version for your motherboard? Perhaps try and see if reinstalling your chipset/USB/storage controller's drivers helps alleviate the issue.

 

[SkyNetRising]

W10 Pro dedected Errors.
Simple files jpg's etc are slow to open (if at all). Transfer rates are unusually slow.
Its recommended I run a 'Repair'? If I run a repair I'm afraid of what might become of the contents?
Should I run Optimize and Defrag? Will the contents become corrupted?

What is model name of this drive?
Can you show screenshots from HDtune health?

Generally - you should NEVER run defrag on a failing drive.
What is "Repair" ? Did you mean disk error checking?

 

[Coast Guard]

Thanx Guys ...

"Did you mean disk error checking? " Sorry Yes - I'll get all the data from the failing Storage Drive. So then I will NOT Defrag as of yet. There is no critical system data on that drive, but I wouldn't want to ruin it just the same. My current system stats: Windows 10 Professional 64 bit - Dell Precision Workstation 3620 - (1 TB SSD Mother Drive), Bios Set Up Windows 10 Version 2.21.0 - i7 7700K 4.20 GHz Processor - 32GB Memory - (onboard video), Asus PCI Sound Card - iGPU. And BTW: I'm using a #2 Port esata card which I inserted in the Dell. The other storage drive is functioning well.

HD Tune health?

Be back soon ... with hopefully any Error Messages etc ...

 

[SkyNetRising]

HD Tune health?

Yes.
Download HDtune v.255 free version and
show screenshot from health section.

https://www.hdtune.com/download.html

 

[SkyNetRising]

It seems to be too difficult for you.

HDtune just shows SMART statistics for a drive.
This helps do diagnose drive health status.

 

[Coast Guard]

Thanks Everyone

I ran the program several times to confirm accuracy. From the test results, it appears both drives, (Western Digital), could be healthy? There may be other factors causing the sluggish behavior? System drive 'C' (on the left), apparently didn't get a designation from the Info Tab. Storage drive 'K' (on the right), is correctly designated the storage drive.

Thanks Again!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Both drives seem to be in perfect health.

 

[Moonstick2]

There is no critical system data on that drive, but I wouldn't want to ruin it just the same.

Would you care much at all if you permanently lost the data on that drive?

If you would, you need to back up copies as soon as you can. No matter how healthy any drive is, it can die at any moment. Or data can be accidentally wiped by a misunderstood command. The ideal is three copies of any data: one 'live' and two backup copies, at least one of which is off-site, physically or in the cloud. Otherwise chances are you'll one day be a poster saying "X happened, how can I get my data back???"

On the question of sluggishness, looking at the benchmarks you've got two identical drives. Transfer rates and access times are basically the same as would be expected, but the burst rate is 40% slower on the problematic drive. Repeat the test a couple more times to check. If it's continually lower than the other drive there's a few things to try. Using SATA for an external drive is unusual: SATA isn't designed for regular reconnection (usually about 50 cycles) and a cable used externally will be moved/stressed a lot more, so try replacing the SATA data cable. If that doesn't fix it, test with the drive connected to a motherboard SATA, bypassing the PCIe card entirely.

If that fixes it then at least you know it's not the drive or cables. In either case you should try reinstalling any drivers associated with the eSATA card and the motherboard chipset drivers.

 

[Misgar]

Fortunately the WD2003FZEK is a CMR drive, not slower SMR.
file:///C:/Users/7950X/Downloads/HDD%20list%20CMR%20SMR.pdf

Simple files jpg's etc are slow to open (if at all).

If you want an easy method to check all your JPGs for corruption, try BadPeggy:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bad_peggy.html
https://github.com/lovebell/badpeggy

As @Moonstick2 recommends, I keep multiple copies of my RAW + JPG files.

 

[Coast Guard]

Thank You both Moonstick2 (and) Misgar: Something I forgot; is that it pays to swap out the eSata cable (to test whether its bad or not). In fact at one time I discovered exactly that! So I'll give it a try. And BTW, I always keep Physical Back Ups. Keep in mind, I started producing a documentary film back in 2010 when other filmmakers (using Mac Desktops), were also using that particular technology in order to capture and organize HUGE Video files employed in multiple Hard Drive Enclosures. It worked great with Apple as did PC's. I appreciate the download for checking .JPGS. Hopefully that program would allow for bulk files to be loaded? (Multiple Folders). As for the link regarding Western Digital CMR Drives, unfortunately I can't get that to function?

Be back soon .... Thank You

 

[Coast Guard]

With regard to the eSata Cable, Moonstick suggested try a different cable: "If that fixes it then at least you know it's not the drive or cables." As a 76 year old experienced editor, I should have remembered this. Well it solved the problem. Thank You! 😉

 

[Misgar]

Hopefully that program would allow for bulk files to be loaded? (Multiple Folders).

Yes, I've just run BadPeggy through a folder containing multiple sub-folders and all 31,686 files are OK.

A good thing because I'm handing the files over to the people I've been photographing over a number of years, by way of a thankyou. Should keep them busy.

They're not getting the RAW files though. It's a shame BadPeggy doesn't work with RAW, but not really surprising.