[SOLVED] Strange HDD Speed Differences?

Jul 3, 2020
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I have been running CrystalDiskMark against my collection of HDDs with surprising results - well to me anyway.
Five of them report 40MB/s read and write and one 120MB/s. Yet all tested in the same IcyBox USB3 exterior hard drive caddy plugged into a blue USB3 port on my PC running Windows 10. Two identical year 2016 2TB Toshibas report 40 and 120MB/s.
None of the disks are full, and they are all defragmented.
Can anyone think of a reason why the disks might differ?
 
Solution
Format can make a difference, I would compare the two identical drives.
Next i would check both drives SMART with CrystalDiskInfo. Things like reallocated sectors will slow your drive down if it's in the area being tested.
Then i would check the partition(s) and their locations on the drive. Partitions on the inner tracks will be much slower then partitions on the outer tracks.

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Format can make a difference, I would compare the two identical drives.
Next i would check both drives SMART with CrystalDiskInfo. Things like reallocated sectors will slow your drive down if it's in the area being tested.
Then i would check the partition(s) and their locations on the drive. Partitions on the inner tracks will be much slower then partitions on the outer tracks.
 
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Solution
Jul 3, 2020
3
0
10
Sorry guys I made a mistake; all the disk put into my Icy Box USB3 caddy run at 40MB/s - the 120MB/s disk that CrystalDiskMark measured was internal and on SATA.
I thinks 40MB/s is USB2 speed so it seems that my USB3 caddy is running at USB2. I suspect my motherboard Gigabyte GA-H81M-S2V. The windows USB3 driver is bang up to date.