Hey everyone! I booted up my PC today to transfer some files from my phone to my Seagate Barracuda 2TB 5400 HDD, and I noticed it's running super slow. The drive keeps making spooling sounds and its read/write speed drops to 0 every few seconds, averaging around 1MB/s, with occasional spikes up to 10MB/s. I've tried a couple of troubleshooting steps like changing the SATA power cable and using a different SATA cable from another HDD, but it's still sluggish. Browsing folder contents takes forever, and copying important files is practically impossible right now. I'm currently running a defragment pass to see if that helps. I also included a DiskInfo-SMART screenshot for reference. After defragmenting, I noticed that the speed can jump to about 130MB/s for some files, but it tanks again for others. Any insights or suggestions would be super helpful!
2 Answers
It sounds like you're running into the classic issue of HDD performance with lots of small files. Large files tend to copy faster, while lots of little ones can slow things down considerably. I’d recommend checking your SMART data for any additional signs of trouble, though it sounds like you’re already on top of that!
Have you checked the drive for any bad sectors? Sometimes HDDs start to fail and that can lead to these kinds of performance issues. Running a diagnostic tool can help you identify if there’s any physical damage happening.
Good point! If there are bad sectors, that could explain the fluctuations in speed. Definitely worth running a test!
Yeah, I’ve shared a SMART screenshot above. It’s been weird because I’ve copied larger files before without any issues.