# Slow Hard Drive WTF

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 16, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943 "2009-06-16T14:36:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943/1 "2009-06-16T14:36:01Z")

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Okay, I have 3 PCs on my desk at work.  
Two get used for virtual PCs, the third runs Office/etc.  
The one on the left is a Dell GX280 with a 3 GHZ PIV, XP and 2 GB of RAM. It’s got an ST340014AS drive.

I consistently get right about 1.5 MB per second on writes to this disk.  
I notice that “Enable write caching” is turned off for this disk.  
Should this really bring the disk down from 25 MB+ per second to 1.5-ish MB per second?

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**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943/2 "2009-06-17T04:14:58Z")

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It hasn’t dropped into PIO mode, has it?  
[http://winhlp.com/node/10](http://winhlp.com/node/10)

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**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943/3 "2009-06-17T14:06:53Z")

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Have you done any scans for bad sectors?

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**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943/4 "2009-07-01T15:06:36Z")

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> [@Cugel](#):
>
> It hasn’t dropped into PIO mode, has it?  
> [Winhlp.com is for sale | HugeDomains](http://winhlp.com/node/10)

Cugel’s suggestion for the win.  
The vbs on the linked page fixed what ailed me.  
I’m getting 20+ MB/sec now.

PS- It appears all sectors were just fine.

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**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slow-hard-drive-wtf/499943/5 "2009-07-01T18:38:35Z")

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Get the latest BIOS update for your hardware. I had this problem with an HP laptop and it would occasionally rear its head until they updated the BIOS.