Speeding up external HD

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:12 am

Hi all

Got a question not really related to the game, but anyways:

I have a 2Tb Western Digital External hard drive. Good piece of hardware, although at times it can be deadly slow on loading content. Sometimes when I open it in Windows explorer it loads the content instantly, but sometimes it takes Windows very long to fill the window with the right folders.
(This might only be like 30 secs max, but if you're waiting for it, it seems like forever lol)

Is there a way to improve these loading times? I noticed in the BIOS it is already set as the first bootable device; installing the software that comes with it probably does that by default. I certainly didn't touch it.

Any ideas?

Jaga · Post by **Jaga** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:43 am

You might have a power scheme that spins down the drives after inactivity, especially being an external drive. Check your power profiles in Windows and see if that's the case. It used to happen to a data drive I had that got very little activity, and took 10+ seconds to spin up all the drives (RAID array) before it could use them.

If you have a good chunk of spare memory in your machine, you can also add in Fancy Cache to the mix. It is an aggressive and configurable piece of software to enhance Window's drive/volume caching ability. I have 6gb of my 12gb devoted to it, and my drives fly now. I think it relies on them spinning either way, so be sure to check your power settings.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:56 am

Like Jaga Said. Also archiving your drives content can also speed things up if you drive is very full!;)

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:31 pm

Thank you guys for the tips. I checked and it turned out that although my power settings were set to the default 'performance' scheme, in the advanced setting the hard drives were set to shut down after 20 minutes. This probably caused the issue. I changed it to never shut down and I'm expecting it to be better now. If not then I will consider that piece of software.

Thanks!

Kronous · Post by **Kronous** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:58 pm

It also may have to do with if the drive is indexed or not. USB is not capable of the same speeds as sata so taking the drive out of the enclosure is the best way to speed it up but then it would not be an external anymore. My suggestion would really be is to make sure you keep the drive indexes up to speed and with the fact that your drives dont have to turn on anymore you should see a sizable gain in speed.

http://bit.ly/xW2crC - Google search on indexing.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:07 pm

Thanks Kronous, I'll look into it.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:18 pm

Turns out indexing service was turned off. Not just for the external, but for the entire computer...

Turned it on for the recommended areas and the external (it's indexing as we speak) so I should see some improvement soon.

Thanks!

Jaga · Post by **Jaga** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:23 pm

Glad to hear it was an easy fix Viper.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 10:53 am

I'm afraid I'll have to re-address this issue.

Lately the drive (WD My Book Essential 2Tb USB 3.0; now about 1,5 years old) has been extremely slow when reading files, not to mention copying them.
For example, if I open My Computer and simply browse to the folders on my external, it takes ages for that green bar at the top of the window to fill up, and for the folders on the drive to be displayed. It also seems that it's happening more often lately; a while back it only happened when I hadn't used the drive for a while, which would indicate the W7 power scheme simply putting it to sleep. When I changed the power management settings the problem was gone, but now it's back with a vengeance. It now also happens when I'm already browsing through the files on the drive and for example open one of the other folders, or go back one. It simply takes ages to display the content. As someone else on the net with a similar problem portrayed it: "Mountains erode faster".

I have done a thorough search on the net to find a solution and have found a couple of people with similar problems, but those were all solved by either adjusting the power management scheme or indexing the drive. Western Digital support hasn't been able to give me a solution for it either, apart from updating the firmware, which I'm reluctant to do. I simply have no clue where to back up the 1.5 Tb of data that's on the drive during the update process and it seems that when updating the firmware, this really is necessary (is it really?...).

I have updated the drivers for the drive - no difference.
I have added the drive to W7 indexing service - no difference one way or the other.
I have tried a different USB port - no difference. I have always had the drive plugged in to one of the USB ports on the back of the computer, so it's directly connected to the motherboard.
The drive's formatted as NTFS, which it was the way it came.

I'm just going to assume it's not a hardware issue. The drive is only about 1,5 years old (2 tops), WD should be a good quality brand, and the drive was one of the more expensive types at the time I bought it. Makes the possibility of a starting hardware failure not very likely, at least in my view.

Anyone has any possible idea what could be wrong here? I'd appreciate any help since although I'm not really a computer expert, I have tried basically all options available to me.

~ Viper.

[Edited on 11-25-2012 by Viper]

DynamicRanger · Post by **DynamicRanger** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 1:09 pm

I have had two similar (possibly identical) drives and after a few years I had similar problems with them. I took some pretty drastic measures to restore them to their former glory, so those measures might not be possible for you. If you haven't already, try error checking and defragmenting the drive.

I removed the drives from their enclosures (very easy if your drive is in the same enclosure mine were), installed them in a PC, moved the files I needed to keep to another drive, error checked and formatted the drives, then copied the files I needed back onto them. I use those drives (4TB total) in a cheaper computer I have configured as a file server downstairs. They are much faster and more reliable than when they were connected by USB.

If you want to keep the drive external and connected by USB, you might want to try a different USB port, preferably one built into the motherboard. I've had USB hubs and PC case headers reduce USB performance before.

Also, the drive is most likely a WD Caviar Green drive, which are optimized for low cost and energy efficiency, so some of the spin-up and read/write delay is probably due to the drive itself and can't be helped. I've had good luck with those Caviar Green drives, but only as media and file storage, not for loading programs.

[Edited on 11-25-2012 by DynamicRanger]

Capt_Caveman · Post by **Capt_Caveman** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:21 pm

have you done a defrag and check disk ?
try the drive on another pc, if its still slow, it may be going bad.

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:48 pm

When ever a hard drive gets more then half full (1.5 of 2TB) for some reason they become slow!....I have noticed this over the years with many different hard drives. I never let a hard drive get more than half full. It has something to do with protection of the data on the hard drive, most hard drives need some space to protect the data already on a hard drive. If the hard drive does not have enough space left it becomes very slow!.....

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:52 pm

Yeah have done all those things. Also plugged it into my neighbor's pc and it ran as it should. How can a drive that age be going bad so quickly?...

DynamicRanger · Post by **DynamicRanger** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 5:18 pm

If the drive works fine on your neighbor's computer, then it probably isn't going bad. My guess would be that something about your computer's configuration is screwing it up. It probably isn't drive indexing (your neighbor's computer doesn't have an index of your drive's contents) and if tweaking the power options to keep the drive spinning doesn't help, then the problem is probably with the way Windows is handling the USB connection.

Are you sure you're using a USB 2.0 port on your computer, instead of the slower USB 1.1? Usually, Windows will tell you when you've connected a device that can operate faster than the USB port you have it plugged into. This is a longshot, but check your motherboard manufacturer's website to see if there are any new drivers for your motherboard's USB controller.

Anti-virus programs are also a possible culprit. If you only plug the external drive in when you need it, then whatever AV program you're using is probably scanning it while you are trying to view and access the files. This can really slow down data access, even on fast systems.

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:37 pm

The hard drive probably has its own index. And, if it's partitioned, that will slow it down. And what Maars said ... I think because it takes longer to search the index for the correct track.

Capt_Caveman · Post by **Capt_Caveman** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 7:17 pm

From post: 149590, Topic: tid=8469, author=DynamicRanger wrote:If the drive works fine on your neighbor's computer, then it probably isn't going bad. My guess would be that something about your computer's configuration is screwing it up.

I agree, dont think it's hardware related.

try turning off system restore for that drive and make sure its not useing any pageing file on it.

have you verified the correct interface type in bios?
(if there's any options for it)

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 7:38 pm

From post: 149598, Topic: tid=8469, author=Marvin wrote:I think because it takes longer to search the index for the correct track.

I got that backward. The computer reads the index for the track ... then counts from track 1 to wherever the program starts. The more programs you have, the more tracks are filled. Ergo, the more tracks might need to be counted. Which is why some 3rd party defragging programs give you the option to put your most-used programs nearer to track 1.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 10:01 am

I think it's sorted now. Not too long ago I cancelled all non-critical processes at boot up in an effort to track down a memory issue with the game. With doing that, I also prevented the WD Smartware process to start. I wouldn't have expected it to cause a problem like this, but after turning it back on the problem seems to have gone. All files now appear instantly in the window when I open their folders, except for one or two folders. These folders hold a number of .exe files, which is probably why since they probably get scanned by MSE, I know that function is enabled. But I can live with it this way.

Thanks all for the help.