Slow reading disks

Rych1506

Member
My desktop had a crash which destroyed the C: drive and took out the video card as well. It did not appear to have touched the other drives
I rebuilt it with a new disk for the C: drive and a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 onto a 1TB internal hard drive and replaced the video card.
Since then it has been slow in reading the C: and D: drives (C: is 1TB and D: is 6TB). The other drives E: (6TB), F: (5TB) and H: (5TB) are being read at normal speed.
C: drive gives a reading of 6.91 MB/s and D: reads 4.57 MB/s where the other drives are between 100 MB/s and 150 MB/s.
Can anyone give me some advice on how to speed up the reads on C and D?
 

Rych1506

Member
Yes - original computer had only 1 drive in it but I added the rest.
Spec below:
Case InWIN G7 BRUSHED EFFECT DARK GREY CASE
Processor (CPU) AMD A8-7600 Quad Core APU (3.1GHz) & Radeon™ R7 Series Graphics
Motherboard ASUS® A88XM-PLUS: (M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, 6Gb/s)
Memory (RAM) 32GB Kingston DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card Integrated AMD Radeon HD 8000 / R7 Series Graphics
1st Storage Drive 6TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 128MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling PCS FrostFlow 120 Series High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans 1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
A "crash" wouldn't "destroy" or take out a drive or a video card. Or anything.

If a component failed, it would likely make the PC crash, though it would have to be pretty severe to physically damage both an HDD and a GPU. One component just failing shouldn't damage another.

When you say 'destroyed' what are we actually talking about here? The HDD failed and you were unable to reinstall Windows or recover any data off it?

The GPU dying - have you tested it in another system? Have you tried it under a clean install of Windows? Is it actually dead or did it just stop working because the OS had a problem?

What drives do you currently have connected to the system, and how (USB, internally by Sata, etc..)?

If you use task manager and resource monitor, is anything using the C drive? If Windows is writing a load of updates or doing all the lovely things a fresh Windows install likes to do, then you're going to see lower performance.
 

Rych1506

Member
By destroyed, I mean that I could not read the drive. Also the computer BIOS failed to recognise that the drive was installed. And when the computer was rebuilt using a windows 7 install disk and a new HDD, then (although now seen by the BIOS) I could not format the original drive or even replace the partition.

The GPU has been tested on another system and it did not work. It was tested on the present system after a clean install and did not work although the on board graphics did. Once I replaced it with a like for like GPU, it all worked.

All drives use the internal SATA connections as I chose the motherboard because it can handle up to 8 SATA units.

All windows updates were run before I noticed this problem. The symptoms are that the disk activity light comes on and stays hard on (no flicker) for around 10 to 15 seconds. When the light goes out then I can continue with whatever I was doing (e.g opening an Excel spread sheet, viewing a directory or running a program etc)

I use a program called Procexp.exe and that shows no abnormal usage of memory. Also I have run the windows memory test a number of times and that has come back clean. I do not know how to use the task manager or resource monitor.

For drive sizes please see the original post. All drives are internally connected and no split drives so each drive letter is on its own HDD
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Userbenchmark is beyond garbage. If it's ever right, it's only in the same way a broken clock is right.

I'm not saying you don't have an issue with the drive, just to avoid UB like the plague.

I'd suggest posting the info asked for above.
 

Rych1506

Member
Never used this before but here goes.
 

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Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
That's CrystalDiskInfo. It's a very useful utility (though beware as it lists your drive serials).

The utility to benchmark speeds suggested was CrystalDiskMark. In fairness I regularly download the wrong one as I find the website confusing, personally. This link should work:

The results look a bit like:
N300.png

(though that is an older version so yours will look different)
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Never used this before but here goes.
As Oussebon has said, it's CrystalDiskMark I want you to run. That said the SMART data shown above shows nothing wrong with your 'slow' disks. It will be interesting to see what CrystalDiskMark says about them all.....
 

Rych1506

Member
The numbers mean nothing much to me but I am glad that they help you all to point me in the right direction. Here are the new figures and thank you all for your help.
 

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ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
You can see yourself that all drives have fairly similar read/write times and all look pretty normal to me, so whatever you're seeing isn't a problem with the drives.

What applications are you using that make you think your drives are slow.

Sent using Tapatalk
 

Rych1506

Member
Defraggler gave me the following answers - This is for the C, D and E drives. F and H drives are similar to E.
All copying is done inside the desktop and not over the network but when I copy over the network from PC to PC then it is via a 1GB switch.
I don't know enough about computers to decide what is causing this problem and it only started after the crash.
 

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Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
defraggler.png


By that reading, my 8TB Toshiba N300 should have slowed to a crawl (and in fairness it is rather full). But it's actually fine.

Looking at the disparity between what Defraggler and Windows reports:


Cynically, one might almost think that third party defragmentation solutions (with paid-for variants) had an interest in reporting as much fragmentation as possible so that you keep using them...

I don't know what the Defraggler benchmark measures, but I'm willing to bet it's something that is guaranteed to improve after it runs its particular brand of defrag..?

I think the solution here is to ignore defraggler. Probably altogether.
 
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