Computer disk speeds are bad

Mobile Tech
43

Ok, so forget about sanitizing your program selection, that is not the first step you need to take.

Something - some part of your operating system (Windows) or a program (like, your internet browser i.e Chrome or Firefox.) are reading and/or writing to your disk all of the time as a substitute for reading and writing to the RAM, because there is maybe too little of it.

If you check with the task manager or process explorer as explained by @HK-47 referenced underneath here. You will be able to determine whether that is the case.

So, when your computer is slow, check and determine if disk I/O is near 100% and look at how much of your RAM is in use and report back.

Also, have you done the disk defragmentation and taken a look at which startup programs you do and don't need?

44

My RAMn rarely goes over80%

45

And your disk I/O is near 100%?

I'm not too sure about how windows deals with it, but in linux the page file (in linux called the swap partition) is used way before you run out of RAM. In most distributions it's set at 60%. So, that means by the time your RAM is at 60% the OS looks for things that are not in use right now, like cahced data, and begins putting it on the hard drive, thus flooding the disk I/O capability which you might want to use for launching a program for instance.

CORRECTION EDIT: Setting the swappiness to 60 does not mean it starts swapping at 60%, it's merely an indicator of how aggressive the system is at using the swap partition. So you could set it to 60 and if the system decides there is no benefit of moving stuff to the swap it will not do so. It all depends on what is in your RAM, though with most day to day use, the swappiness indicator is a good measure of how much it will use the swap partition, even though it's an arbitrary number and, to reiterate, does not correspond to any percentage of your RAM usage.

Here's an explanation on how Windows use the page file if you are interested.

But really, you should do the things people have suggested on here, if you have and nothing has changed it might be time to get more RAM and perhaps an SSD.

46

If you open the Task Manager (right clicking the task bar and clicking task manager), then go to the performange tab and click on your C: drive located in the left pane.

The thing's I'd look for is the read and write speeds and the response time. If you see a lot of activity then click on the text at the bottom of the window where it says "Open resource monitor" and click on the Disk tab, there you can see which processes are reading and writing to your disk. You can click on "Total" the column to the right.

47

So I downloaded defraggler and it says my hdd temperature is 41 degrees Celsius and it says WARNING for the health of my drive. However my computer doesn't feel like it is

100 Degree's Fahrenheit I'm american so I do temps in degrees F. As for the health of my drive is there anything I can do to cleanse my hard drive?

48

So does anyone know how to create a page file for windows?

49

...or you could run Tron

50

Okay so I just skimmed the comments on here and there is a lot of superfluous information I want to clear up. First, please post a picture of the performance tab of your task manager. Second, please test your actual disk read and write speeds.

De-fragmentation isn't a thing anymore. It hasn't been since Windows 7. Yes I know the utility is still there, but it is basically useless.

I have never de-fragmented any of these drives. Your system should do it automatically.

Next I would like to address the RAM. As some have already said if you have too little RAM Windows will use what is called a "paging file" this is used to offload things that aren't currently being used so that your computer can continue to function when it doesn't have enough RAM. If this is constantly being read and written to then it will hurt your HDD I/O. Windows doesn't necessarily start using swap/paging when it hits 100% usage. If it did then it would crash to a halt. Hitting a high enough percentage will start using paging. As you can see in the photo below, every process I have running has data in paging even though I have over half of my memory free.

Clipboard02.jpg480x872 294 KB

As I said before, please check your HDD speed (http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html), and post a picture of your task manager on the Performance tab.

2 Likes
51

41C seems pretty normal for a drive these days... If your hard drive is failing and you get a warning, then don't defragment or do anything else. The only thing you should be doing is backing up your data to a new drive. Maybe someone can help you diagnose using SMART tools or something, but I would suggest to backup all your important data whether it turns out ok or not. When drives start relocating sectors internally it usually means there is something physically wrong with the head, the platters or the circuit board. But once the sectors are relocated your drive will seem very sluggish because it is no longer storing contiguous blocks contiguously, and thus it is seeking around much more often and defragmenting will only make it worse...

Once you get a backup and get the hard drive sorted I would think about upgrading the RAM since more RAM will make your swap file irrelevant. You may think that 4GB is enough and that you are only using 80%, but that is because Windows needs to keep some of it free for new stuff and it does this by swapping it to the hard drive and then back when it needs it. So more RAM will make your computer significantly faster than it is now. You may only need 8GB of RAM to really do your system some good, but I went from 4GB to a max of 16GB in my laptop and I don't ever want to think of going back. You also have the option of getting faster RAM over more RAM, and in my experience the more RAM option is always cheaper. In other words, RAM capacity is more important than RAM speed, so favor larger amounts of RAM over faster RAM when considering price.

3 Likes
52

Here is crystaldiskmark.

Capture 21.PNG684x636 84.2 KB

and here is my task performance

Capture task.PNG651x604 23.9 KB

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Thats not a HDD speed test it's just SMART data. It does show that your drive is reallocating sectors though which means that some are going bad. As for the task manager you are pushing the limits of your RAM. You're sitting at 65% usage with 24% cached data. The cached data is data that is no longer in the working set but could be brought back into the working set if needed. Other than that spike the HDD usage looks pretty low. What else were you running on the computer at the time? If it was just TM and crystal disk mark then I'm pretty sure that RAM is your issue and possibly a failing HDD.
Check your read/write speed. It should be about 80MB/s. If not then there is probably something wrong with the drive and a cheap SSD might go a long way.
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/4030/TOSHIBA-MQ01ACF032

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Here is a picture of my task manager.

TaskManager-reference.gif665x595 436 KB

Its nothing that is blazing fast or top of the line, but it works great with more RAM. Basically, I have purchased the cheapest laptop I could get and it was the floor model so there were no others in the store like it. It came cheap at around $200 US and I had unused gift cards that I threw in. Later on I purchased an SSD and 16GB (2x8GB) of decent speed RAM and swapped those in. Now this computer went from nearly unusable all the way to "OH MY GAWD!" with just those two upgrades. Its very responsive now with just a few hundred dollars more put into it. I removed the DVD drive and put the old HDD into a caddy that slides into the DVD slot so I have that as a backup area and extra space (Disk 1 (X:)). And if I do upgrade to a new laptop the SSD can always go into the new one as well.

Please note that the memory usage there is my computer at idle with just ~12 tabs in Chrome open and I have Chrome configured to use my 4GB RAM drive as its cache folder. So 4GB of that memory usage is Drive 2 (D:). When I open Visual Studio and a virtual machine running Ubuntu memory usage starts to get crazy, but it can still handle it with room to spare. Same thing if I'm recording audio, I open a program like Reaper to record ~8 tracks at once and the RAM usage can go up, but 16GB isn't going to max out with just that.

That said, your mileage may vary of course. But just having 8GB would mean less of a need to use virtual memory and that would be more than enough RAM to keep the constant swapping of pages to disc and back from completely destroying your HDD. These days, I would not build or purchase a computer with less than 8GB simply because the OS and the software that runs on it thinks that RAM is an infinite resource. Having too little available RAM can mean swapping to disk and that means wear on the HDD and I'd rather have too much RAM than too little. Having 8GB is a nice compromise between too much and too little, but I couldn't resist maxing out my little laptop.

1 Like
55

What I haven't explained yet is that this is a laptop that I got for free that is around 4 years old. I have another computer it is a Asus k fifty five n. It has six gigs of ram with 2 five hundred gig HDD. The only issue with it is that the piece that holds the computer together is broken.

What I want to know is if there is any way I can cleanse my drive so it is not allocating sectors?

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get a new dirve and move data to it asap

57

sectors are failing thats a normal thing, hdds die of age , some later some earlier.,so they are relocated to keep the data integrity so you will be able to use it as long as possible.If its progressing it means that you should start backing up important stuff while the data isnt corrupted.

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so where are you guys today?

have he defragmented his system drive?
has he moved his page file out of his c: system drive?

if every1 is done here are some more advanced tweaks.

regedit
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile]
"SystemResponsiveness"=dword:00000000
(default: 20, recommended: decimal 10 for general applications, 0 for pure gaming/streaming)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
SystemResponsiveness=0
(DWORD, default is 20 denoting 20% of CPU reserved, recommended: decimal 10, or 0 for pure multimedia/gaming performance)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
Size=3
(DWORD, default value: 1, recommended value: 3)
minimizes used memory
balance used memory
optimal setting for file sharing and network applications

cmd
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global dca=enabled

~edit~
here's some more

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
REG_DWORD: NtfsMftZoneReservation

Values
1 if volumes typically store fewer files.
2 or 3 if volumes typically store a moderate number of files.
4 if volumes typically store a large number of files.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
REG_DWORD: NTFSDisable8dot3NameCreation
Value: 1 (disables old 8dot3 name creation, read up on 8dot3names to understand this)

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
REG_DWORD: DontVerifyRandomDrivers
Value: 1 (disables verification of random drivers)

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
REG_DWORD: NTFSDisableLastAccessUpdate
Value: 1 (This gives a lot of performance )

And here are some basic copies

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Copy To]

@="{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Move To]

@="{C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]

"AutoEndTasks"="1"

"HungAppTimeout"="1000"

"MenuShowDelay"="8"

"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="2000"

"LowLevelHooksTimeout"="1000"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]

"MouseHoverTime"="8"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"=dword:00000001

"LinkResolveIgnoreLinkInfo"=dword:00000001

"NoResolveSearch"=dword:00000001

"NoResolveTrack"=dword:00000001

"NoInternetOpenWith"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]

"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="2000"

59

Is it really worth it though my laptop is getting older every year. By that I mean the laptop I have is 10 years old.

60

is the info on it important. are you using it everyday? if yes to either one of those then yes its worth it. a 500 gig HDD where i am at is $40 and you can go to most pc repair shops and pick up a smaller sized one for about 20. if you dont have the $20 -40 for a new HDD visit a plasma center ( dunno if they have these where you are) and now you do.

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80%? That's a lot, even if you weren't using paging.

41 C isn't too bad. I've never seen mine go over 44 C. You can get SpeedFan and program it to warn you if the drive temperature gets too hot. You can also configure warnings for sensors all over your mobo.

Your drive is reallocating sectors. If you haven't yet, I would start backing up regularly. There's no telling when you'll experience failure. This way when you do, you'll hopefully have a recent backup to restore to. SMART isn't always reliable for detecting impending drive failures, as there have been drives with excellent SMART reports that just spontaneously fail. There is no substitute for a current, tested backup.

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There is no way to repair the drive without erasing all the data. To reclaim a drive that has reallocated sectors you need to use special tools and reset it to factory, which involves a low level format of the drive. And the odds of getting those tools and then all that work paying off and the drive being 100% again are still pretty slim. That means you're better off getting a new drive.