HD Sudden Slow WRITE Speed

[Zvi_T]

I have 10 hard drives on my computer. 4 internal and 6 external (USB2). I noticed lately that one of the External ones (Seagate FreeAgentDesktop 1000) has a VERY low write speed when copting files to it.

I did a test with HD Tune Pro and low and behold, all of my other HDDs have a write speed of 25MB\s and the problematic one has a write speed of 5MB\s.

I did many kinds of tests on the drive but every one says that the drive is healthy. Not overheated, not fragmented, nothing.

I googled this issue and can't find any solution for this problem. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Karnac]

Have you tried another USB port to eliminate the port as the source of the slowdown?

[Zvi_T]

Yes I have tried all USB ports on my computer and other computers. Also, it's set to use DMA in case someone asks.

[Karnac]

Have you eliminated the cable from the drive to the port as a cause.....

[Karnac]

You might want to have a look at this website......there may be something for you .... especially the paragraph where DMA switches to PIO and a slowdown occurs.

http://winhlp.com/node/10

[Zvi_T]

Actually, that I have not tried yet (cable\wire) . The drive is in use so I will try it later.

About DMA, it is not reverted to PIO as I mentioned in my post. It is set to DMA.

[patio]

After trying the cable if it's still slow i would DLoad and run the SeaTools diagnostics on it...
You didn't happen to install the Free Agent software on it did you ? ?

[Zvi_T]

I tried the Seagate tool. All came out healthy. I just couldn't do a write test because it can't have a partition on it to do a write test and I would have to format to do that. But anyway, I already did a write test with HD Tune so I know the problem exists.

I don't use the Free Agent software but installed it because it has a diagnose tool as well.

[patio]

Since it's an external why not try and run the tests on another PC ? ?
It may be the machine's fault though i doubt it.

[Zvi_T]

I did that already but thanks.