Question Storage/Media HDD high average response time, causing streaming issues?

[Klitch9]

A few years ago I caught a Toshiba 5TB 7200rpm/128mb cache in the 3.5" form for what I thought was a fair price at the time. I thought this would be sufficient for my photos and movies, intending to eventually cast MKV files through Plex to my XB1 now. Originally I had been using handbrake to set it down to a realistic size MP4 format to stream. Over the course of this year I've struggled more and more with buffering issues even with the smaller MP4 files.

I have run SMART testing and a few other things on this drive which it seems to pass, I'm unsure how to test it properly or what certain tests indicate. I have noticed that pretty much every activity this drive encounters result in a 500-3500ms avg response time, even during tests and defragmenting, occasional light use may be sub 250ms. Could this be the cause of my streaming issues? Nothing had changed network side until recently I stepped the host pc's wifi card to a asus AC55BT from a wireless N only card.

I will include a couple of tests I ran a few weeks ago if I can figure out where to host it (sorry I'm slow to getting around to these things anymore). Any guidance and help will be appreciated.

 

[popatim]

Swap the wireless back to see if it resolves the buffering issue. I have four 4tb 5400 rpm drives and they have no issues streaming even at the reduced rotational speed. Neither did the 2tb drives they replaced.

Oh and if you decide to warranty the Toshiba, good luck. You'll probably need to make a vm running XP or Win7 with ie9 to even get the RMA website to work correctly; if you can even find it anymore. Which reminds me that I have a 3rd 4TB drive to return...

While they did have a 5yr warranty on the Hitachi made Toshiba's, once Toshiba was spun off as it's own company as part of the sale to WD funds were set aside to refund the original cost (yes, not prorated!!) of the drive should it fail. The new Toshiba gets to keep the leftover funds and believe me they do not make any step of the process easy. I will even go so far as to recommend that you take detailed photo's of the drive, it's connectors, the packing process, and the final box in shipping form. On my two drives (separated by about a year) both times they tried to claim the drive was arrived damaged. The first one was sata connectors and the second time was circuit board. In both cases I suggested getting the US Post office involved because I had detailed photo's showing the near perfect drive (housing, connectors, circuitboard...) and approved shipping carton to show that this was not any fault of mine. Lets just say the Rep had gone off to talk to the manager who approved the warranty after all...

If you persevere, you'll be rewarded with a Visa gift card for the full purchase price in 4 -6 weeks. Hey, you've got nothing to lose.

 

[Klitch9]

I should have been a little more precise, the wireless card was replaced because the streaming issues started with the old network card, it being 10-15 years old I was unsure about it. It was the WMP300n. The WRT300n router I bought to compliment it back in the day was evicted this year for poor performance, locking up and spark shows.

Unfortunately for me, my warranty on the HDD is only 3 years according to the paper in the box back in april 2016.

 

[popatim]

Is the drive mounted in a pc, nas, or simply connected to the router?

I would run an HDTune on the whole drive to see if you get the normal pattern.
in the options, set the slider to be more accurate. This will take some time.

 

[Klitch9]

I have, but it don't look normal to me, being mostly clueless. How do I post the picture, where can the file be hosted?

its in a pc. I have a SSD for the OS, HDD for applications and a separate HDD for all my media.

 

[Klitch9]

Hopefully that works.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ah5RFjlacET0im4ZsCBJzP9xNZQz

Microsoft OneDrive

1drv.ms

 

[Klitch9]

bump? not sure if my screenshots work for others?