How Do I Maintain Steady Copy Speed in Win 8.1?

PlatypusKnight

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As soon as I post this I'm going to ensure that my system specs are correct and posted.

I did three copy operations. From an external drive connected via USB 3.0 to a discrete partition of a single drive. The drive being copied to has 138 GB free of 600. The external drive has 123 GB free of 500. Both win defrag and a two third party defrag utils report that the external drive has less than 1% fragmentation while the drive being copied to has more than 50% fragmentation according to one of the third party defraggers but Window says fragmentation is 3% while the other third party defragger reports 6%.

I will run a defrag and see whether that resolves these issues.


  1. 4.18 GB - 24 files
  2. 5.8 GB- 21 files
  3. 5.3 GB - 23 files

Each of them started at 41.5 MB/S
After about 15-20 seconds copy speed plummeted to 11.1 MB/s and fluctuated between 11.1 and single digit MB/s.

Why is this?

How can I curb or curtail this behavior in future?

This may be relevant, but I have noted that pausing the copy operation mid way and unpausing will return the copy operation to the original faster speeds as long as copying is paused for more than 10 secs give or take.

Is there some cache somewhere that I should enlarge?

Thanks in advance for helping me thresh this out.
No pun intended. :cool:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual boot: Win 8.1 Pro x64; Win 7 HP x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP dv7
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3610QM @ 2.30GHz
    Motherboard
    Hewlett-Packard 181C
    Memory
    8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD Graphics 4000
    Sound Card
    IDT High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17 inch Generic; HP 27 inch Monitor
    Hard Drives
    Hitachi 750 GB
    WD Elements 500 GB
    Antivirus
    Win 8.1 Defender
See whether enabling Write Caching will help - in device properties of the device manager.

2015-06-03_1645.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Vista and Win7
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2xHP, 2xGateway, 1xDell, 1xSony
    Hard Drives
    5 SSDs and 12 HDs
Isn't that a bit dangerous for a removable disk ?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
Isn't that a bit dangerous for a removable disk ?

Not really - if in doubt, use 'Safely Remove'. Then nothing can happen.
If a disk has activity light than it's easy to find out when cache finished and cleared but without it safe removal is a must.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
Thanks for the information guys. And thanks for helping me out with this.

Here's the options for the drives relevant here.

Hard drive:

Hard Properties.png

Removable drive:
Removable properties.png


So I did some more testing last night. I notice that it doesn't matter where the copy operation takes place. It doesn't matter if its from removable to hard drive or from hard drive to hard drive. The slowdown occurs.

So there has to be some sort of cache in there someplace. Where is it, and how do I enlarge it?
I don't know if it's caching this material in ram. I really wouldn't mind if it used 75% of my RAM for copies. I almost always have about 3.5 GB of ram sitting around not being used anyhow.

Would copying be faster if it used RAM?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Dual boot: Win 8.1 Pro x64; Win 7 HP x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP dv7
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3610QM @ 2.30GHz
    Motherboard
    Hewlett-Packard 181C
    Memory
    8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD Graphics 4000
    Sound Card
    IDT High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17 inch Generic; HP 27 inch Monitor
    Hard Drives
    Hitachi 750 GB
    WD Elements 500 GB
    Antivirus
    Win 8.1 Defender
Remote Differential Compression?

There is a Windows feature called Remote Differential Compression. I did a test some years back with my (previous) Vista system with and without RDC. I found that *without* RDC, my file transfer times were about 1/3 faster. I have also read articles that says RDC makes no such difference. For better or worse, with my 8.1 I have RDC turned off. I only mention this in case you run out of other ideas. Perfectly willing to be talked into reversing my choice. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 (OEM)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy 700qe
    CPU
    3.40 gigahertz Intel Core i7-4770
    Motherboard
    Hewlett-Packard 2AF3 1.0
    Memory
    12GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GT 640
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP Pavilion 25xi Pavilion IPS LED Backlit
    Hard Drives
    Primary 1TB
    Secondary 1TB
    Cooling
    Fans
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wireless
    Mouse
    Logitech Wireless
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Computer came with Windows 8.1 OEM.
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