I just got a Seagate 2TB external hard drive to expand my PC's storage, and I've been noticing some frustrating download speeds. When I start downloading games, the speed is decent initially, but then it drops dramatically and doesn't recover like it does on my main hard drive. Could this be due to the hard drive itself, or am I just imagining things?
4 Answers
Your download speeds might be exceeding your hard drive's write speed. If your internet is fast enough to download at Gbit speeds, the hard drive could definitely be slowing things down, especially if you're using USB connections. You can check your write speeds in Task Manager to see if that's where the bottleneck is.
Check the specifications of your hard drive. The type and speed of your USB connection matter a lot. For instance, connecting a high-speed NVMe drive to a USB 2.0 port is a waste. Also, keep in mind that Windows can slow things down too, especially when moving a lot of smaller files due to how it handles file operations.
There are two main reasons for slow downloads: one, the hard drive itself is inherently slower compared to SSDs, and two, if it’s connected via USB, that can also limit your speed. So it's a combo that usually leads to issues like you’re experiencing.
It sounds like the connection to your external drive might be the culprit. If you're using USB 2.0, that's likely maxing out around 30-40MB/s. The initial speed burst is just the buffer filling up, but once it’s full, you hit the speed limit. Try hooking it up to a faster port if you can!
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