# Transfer speeds between internal HDD slow



## Flash (Jan 7, 2013)

I currently have a Seagate 500GB and a Western Digital Black 640GB.

I am running Windows 7, and have AHCI enabled (so it runs on SATA).

However, when I transfer files between HDD's I get low speeds, averaging 40MB/s. Even with SATA 1 I should be getting about ~150MB/s right?

And it's not only transfer between these 2 HDD's. If I make a copy and move the file on the same HDD, I also get similiar speeds. I've had this slow transfer since as far as I can remember. 

My mobo is a GA-P35-DS3R if that matters


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## jboydgolfer (Jan 7, 2013)

I Had the same Brand mix as you do now. A WD Blue, and a seagate barracuda.Same type of speeds as well.Even after fresh install, in both AHCI, and IDE modes.I cant say why it happens, but Your definitely NOT alone.


Try this HDtune tool, and look for any bad sectors, or other problems.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1320/HD_Tune_Pro_3.50.html


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## Tatty_One (Jan 7, 2013)

it would be interesting to run a HD benchmark for each drive such as CrystalDiskMark......

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

depending on the results, it may become quickly obviously which drive there could be a problem with as a start.


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## de.das.dude (Jan 7, 2013)

are you sure you are transferring between different drives and not just between different partitions? its easy to mix up partitions.

My suspicion is that one of the HDDs is getting bottlenecked.
Also if you are copying from the OS partition carrying HDD to the other one, it may show some amount of drop in performance due to system related read write tasks in the background.

Also are you sure you are supposed to get 150MBps, specially on the Seagate? i think the WD black will give >120MBps after its aged a bit.


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## Flash (Jan 8, 2013)

Both drives are quite old (~5 years).

I will download the 2 programs and will let you know the results on Thursday.


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## karolpl2004 (Jan 9, 2013)

you cant ever go wrong with a ssd upgrade for your primary drive =).


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## speed208 (Jan 11, 2013)

May be HDDs are getting bottlenecked. Check for this problem


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## Suhidu (Jan 11, 2013)

Fragmented file system(s), damaged drive(s), non-optimal southbridge(or SATA Controller) driver(s), outdated BIOS... these are my ideas. Or perhaps you're just trying to transfer 500,000 2KB files, and that's slower to do than a sequential copy of several gigabytes?

Also, 150MB/s is the theoretical peak of SATA 1, and despite common SATA 1 performance being somewhat less than that (depending on chipset), the limiting factor here would be your 5+ year old mechanical hard drives...
...or likely any brand new mechanical hard drive.


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## Flash (Jan 13, 2013)

Ok, I have used HD Tuner. 

HD Tune Pro: WDC WD6401AALS-00L3B2 Benchmark

_Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 36.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 117.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 91.1 MB/sec
Access Time           : 12.5 ms
Burst Rate            : 136.4 MB/sec
CPU Usage             : -1.0%_

I could not test writing, it says it's disabled and I need to remove all partitions

Under Info I get: 

_HD Tune Pro: WDC WD6401AALS-00L3B2 Information

Firmware version : 01.03B01
Serial number    :      WD-WMASY5384152
Capacity         : 596.2 GB (~640.1 GB)
Buffer size      : 33553920 bytes
Standard         : ATA/ATAPI-8 - SATA II
Supported mode   : UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133)
Current mode     : UDMA Mode 7 (Ultra ATA/512)

S.M.A.R.T                    : yes
48-bit Address               : yes
Read Look-Ahead              : yes
Write Cache                  : yes
Host Protected Area          : yes
Device Configuration Overlay : yes
Firmware Upgradable          : yes
Automatic Acoustic Management: yes
Power Management             : yes
Advanced Power Management    : no
Interface Power Management   : yes
Power-up in Standby          : yes
Security Mode                : yes
Native Command Queuing (NCQ) : yes

Volume        : 
Capacity      : 
Free          : 
Usage         : 
File system   : 
Serial        : 

Volume        : (C
Capacity      : 77119 MB
Free          : 30564 MB
Usage         : 60%
File system   : NTFS
Serial        : 9E51-2CE7

Volume        : (D
Capacity      : 533255 MB
Free          : 187382 MB
Usage         : 65%
File system   : NTFS
Serial        : 0293-CFAB_

So it looks like the HDD runs under Ultra ATA/512? Instead of SATA? If this is true, then it makes sence I only get about 40MB/s writes. 

I was under the impression I am running SATA. In BIOS AHCI is enabled.

For my Seagate, I have no info displayed.


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## terrastrife (Jan 17, 2013)

40MB write speed is perfectly acceptable for an older drive (less density) which is also over 50% full.
Write speeds tend to be slower than read speeds, and being a mechanical disk performance drops off quickly (see your min read stat, real world performance will be even slower than this). Combined with file fragmentation, 40MB/sec is normal.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 17, 2013)

Yep, 40MB/s write speed isn't unheard of on older drives.  You should do a test with Crystalmark, but I'm guessing it will show you about 40MB/s write speeds on the drives.

The rated transfer rate of the connection, SATA or IDE, are nothing but marketting.  Most mechanical drives don't even surpass SATA 1 speeds, and 5 years ago most didn't even surpass IDE-100 speeds.


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## OneMoar (Jan 17, 2013)

40 to 80MB/s is as about as good as platter drives get without spending a lot of money


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## Aquinus (Jan 17, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> Yep, 40MB/s write speed isn't unheard of on older drives.



Older drives? I have ripped some 250GB and 320GB drives from some newer Core 2 and i5 Macbook Pros and they top out at about 50MB/s. It's simple, 5400RPM laptop drives are just *really* slow.



Flash said:


> Transfer Rate Average : 91.1 MB/sec



I don't see the problem. All drives have speed dips for one reason or another.


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## kn00tcn (Jan 17, 2013)

yep, everything is fine here

that's why when buying a hard drive for speed (& i suppose noise/cooling), you want to get as few platters as possible & as dense as possible

sata1 is just the connector, nothing to do with the drives themselves... in fact it's not normal to hit 150mbytes/s even at the edge of the platter except for modern dense drives (1-4tb varieties from the last at most 4yrs let's say)


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## terrastrife (Jan 19, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> Older drives? I have ripped some 250GB and 320GB drives from some newer Core 2 and i5 Macbook Pros and they top out at about 50MB/s. It's simple, 5400RPM laptop drives are just *really* slow.



I have an old 2.5" 12.5mm 5400rpm 1TB laptop drive (when 1TB first hit 2.5"), it does 130-80MB/sec.


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## DRDNA (Jan 19, 2013)

terrastrife said:


> I have an old 2.5" 12.5mm 5400rpm 1TB laptop drive (when 1TB first hit 2.5"), it does 130-80MB/sec.



Yeah maybe if you made a 1GB PARTITION and it was the 1st partition that was tested.


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## Aquinus (Jan 19, 2013)

terrastrife said:


> I have an old 2.5" 12.5mm 5400rpm 1TB laptop drive (when 1TB first hit 2.5"), it does 130-80MB/sec.





DRDNA said:


> Yeah maybe if you made a 1GB PARTITION and it was the 1st partition that was tested.



Also since the 3x higher data density obviously has nothing to do with that either...  Also 1TB 2.5" drives are not very old. They also cost a lot in comparison to other drives.

Screenshots or it never happened.


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## terrastrife (Jan 19, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> Also since the 3x higher data density obviously has nothing to do with that either...  Also 1TB 2.5" drives are not very old. They also cost a lot in comparison to other drives.
> 
> Screenshots or it never happened.



I bought it in 2009, it's long gone now. My apologies, it was a 15mm HDD, not 12.5 <:


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