Insanely slow HDD writing speed

Hi all,

I recently noticed a drastic performance drop in one of my HDD. It seems to take forever to copy even pretty small files.

The HDD is a SATA/600 2TB Seagate Barracuda.
CrystalDiskInfo says Health Status is "Good" and all SMART attributes seem fine:



I ran CHKDSK in Windows: it says no issues were found.

But when I ran CrystalDiskMark 8, I found insanely slow Writing speed: around 75 to 100x slower than other HDDs in my PC!



I can't remember having changed anything in my hardware configuration recently.
All other HDDs run at their usual speed.

I first thought "oh oh, no good, this HDD is about to die soon", but the fact that neither CHKDSK or CrystalDiskInfo find any issue makes me think this may not be the case. I've seen many HDDs dying in my life and it always comes with reading or writing errors first. Mine reads and writes well. Writing is just so slow.

So what is it? Do you have any idea?

Thanks in advance guys


* Windows version: 21H2 (OS Build 19044. 1466)

Have cables to the problem drive been reseated and\or replaced? That would be the first thing I would try to rule out a cable issue.

Also what does Event Viewer show?

Might be worth checking to see if that offers any clues as to what the problem might be.

To do that open Event Viewer, go to Windows Logs -> System and from the right hand column select 'Filter Current Log...'

Set Event Level to Critical and Warning and then from the Event Sources: drop down select the following:

disk
Disk
Ntfs (Ntfs)
Ntfs (Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs)

Select OK

steve108 said:

Jambon28 hello,

Which chkdsk option did you run?

I suggest "chkdsk X: /r" to check the entire disk.

Do you let Optimize Drives defragment it?

Download Seatools and see what it says - check for firmware updates.

Thanks.
I ran a simple CHKDSK by right-clicking the HDD in Explorer.
I am now running a "chkdsk X: /r", it takes a while, I'll let you know.

Calm Horizons said:

Have cables to the problem drive been reseated and\or replaced? That would be the first thing I would try to rule out a cable issue.

Also what does Event Viewer show?

Might be worth checking to see if that offers any clues as to what the problem might be.

To do that open Event Viewer, go to Windows Logs -> System and from the right hand column select 'Filter Current Log...'

Set Event Level to Critical and Warning and then from the Event Sources: drop down select the following:

disk
Disk
Ntfs (Ntfs)
Ntfs (Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs)

Select OK

No, I didn't touch the cables at all, but thanks, it makes sense.
Actually there's a lot of errors appearing in the Event Viewer, always the same.
I don't know what it means but it confirms there's an issue with my HDD, but what precisely?

Fixed!

Thanks to all of you guys: I replaced the SATA cable with a new one and also plugged it onto another SATA port.
Writing rates are now back to normal!

I don't know what is the culprit, if it's the cable itself or the SATA port but anyway I'm happy.

By the way it's the first time in my life I see such a phenomenon: if this is due to the cable, I really don't understand how it can have worked for years and suddenly doesn't work anymore?! This is weird. And if this is the SATA port, well, I'm not too sure either ... maybe the motherboard starts to dysfunction a bit, it wouldn't be that strange as I bought it in 2014. I don't know.

Anyway, thanks again to you guys, I really appreciate this forum!

Cheers

Congratulations. Now, you should mark thread as solved.