Hard Drive - Read/Write Speed Cap?

I've tried googling and fixing this issue for 12+ hours. Here's the deal: whenever I open new programs, my hard drive jumps up to 100% usage. The problem is my read/write speed looks like it's capped around 10 MB/s. The manufacture says I should get an average of 156 MB/s.

I have a 6 month old Dell XPS 8500 (i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB-7200 rpm hard drive). I consistently take care of it (defrag, clean sweep, virus/malware protection). Please see the dropbox link or PDF attached for examples of my issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Dropbox Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gfwob672t5beo9/Disk Manager Problem 100% (PDF).pdf
Dropbox Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a22w0koifthgtwb/Disk Manager 100% (Video).mp4

Actually, this looks normal, it is just taking a long time for one or two of those apps to get past Initialization stage. What is that "VProtect" thing, and I don't like that "Antimalware" thing you got underneath it.

If this is a Laptop, then it is most likely you are capped, at 5400rpm. I am going to check something, BRB.

Ok, "Capped at 10mbps" looks better than mine, the highest I see on mine is 5mbps. But I need to check my system while it boots.

When I boot this PC, all of the stuff that is loading makes everything peg out at 100%, not just HD, but CPU and RAM as well. But once it gets past it, everything goes down to very low use.

Those two items, are suspicious, who makes them, what are they - Vprotect and Antimalware?

OK - I see now, Vprotect is a port scanner, in the form of a TOOLBAR, by AVG - Toolbars are a waste of programming, I never use any of them.

Do you have AVG free or is it a paid version? I would dump AVG and get Eset NOD32 which uses much less resources on startup and during use. Some people here use AVG and like it, but I've never really seen that program MATTER when it comes to removing Virii and protecting you. It used to be good, what is that, Kaspersky? Kaspersky makes good tools for removing Rootkits, but they lack performance for getting rid of Virii.

Try removing that program then look at your performance, if it is much better, then you should at least try NOD32, or different antiviral programs, I use NOD32, because of all the AV programs I have tried, it has the smallest footprint.

This is something I want to know, if anybody here has a PC that gives HD performance higher than 10mb/s. Cos it looks to me, like 10mbps is too high of use, none of my running processes are higher than 0.1 or 0.2, if I'm reading it right!

Vprotect - I just got rid of the AVG Toolbar. It was installed automatically when I used CrystalDiskMark (or some other hard drive program). It does not make a difference.

Antimalware - Is part of Windows Defender.


I use Windows Defender. This is a desktop PC. Any idea if this is a Windows 8 issue or a driver issue? Everything is up to date on my machine. My mb/s should be reaching a minimum of 155 MB/s. I'm constantly capped at that 10 MB/s, which makes my computer slow when opening up programs. My hard drive runs at 7200rpm.

If it's part of Defender, then it's OK, I never noticed it. You do have a lot of programs and services starting, try trimming it back a little, keep going until it takes less time to get to fully booted mode. My system here, takes about five minutes or all the programs to fully load and during that time everything is pegged to 100%. But I just live with it. I only have 2 GB of DDR2 anyway. My other system has 3 and it boots up much faster, but it doesn't have as much stuff loading.

If Chrystal Disk Mark creates an image over a period of time, then it's running in the background while it is making the image. Try shutting that of after it makes it;'s initial test.

Have you tried adjusting the "Power Options"?
Perhaps it might be faster if you use the "High Performance" option.

My WD Green HDDs (in my Desktop) normally run at ~50 MB/s.
I have seen much higher speeds for short periods of time (often beyond what the WD specs state).

Yes, power options set to High Performance. This is an issue many have had with Windows 8 but no one seems to have a solution. Can anyone help point me in the right direction?

Ok, I just ran a process in Sound Forge and my usage went up to 22mp/s.

Exactly what kind of drive do you have, WD, Seagate? Samsung drives are pieces of poop, I bought 2 80 gigs once and they were the slowest drives I have ever seen.

If you can find the model number, Aida64 might be able to pull that out of your system,

AIDA64 | PC Benchmark | System Diagnostics | Stability Test .

Should be a free trial.

Please see the original attachment. I have all specs, etc. listed in the first document.

That does not look normal to me. Disable all startup programs and retest. The HD response time is horrible!

I'm concerned with the opening of programs. As listed in the attachment these are the specs on this computer: Dell XPS 8500; i-7; 8 GB RAM; 1 TB HD (Seagate Barracuda - 7,200 RPM).

Anyone have an idea if this might be a driver issue?

Have you tried downloading and running Seagates's HDD diagnostic tool (assuming they have one)?

adawg said:

Please see the original attachment. I have all specs, etc. listed in the first document.

Click to expand...

Ok, it was hard to dredge that info out of it. You have a Seagate ST1000DM003, and it's a SATA-II Drive.

Is the drive on a SATA-II Bus? Maybe on a slower bus it has limited functionality. I'm reading the Data Sheet for the drive now...

The Drive has these special features:

Seagate OptiCache™ Technology
Seagate AcuTrac™ Technology
Seagate SmartAlign™ Technology

I would go to the Seagate Site and see if there are any Programs that need to be installed to invoke these features. At least look them up.

On a couple of Laptops I had, there was a special Driver from Intel for the HDD, and after installing it, the performance was a lot better. So check your Motherboard too, if you have any Intel Chipsets, you will need the drivers.

I just re-edited my attachment so it's easier to follow. Please see the following updated links:
1) Dropbox PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gfwob672t5beo9/Disk%20Manager%20Problem%20100%25%20%28PDF%29.pdf
2) Dropbox Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a22w0koifthgtwb/Disk Manager 100% (Video).mp4

I've run Seagates's HDD diagnostic tool and everything comes back fine. I tried a couple of other 3rd party apps, and it also shows it is fine. I did a fresh install of Windows 8 upon receiving my Dell XPS 8500.

This must be an issue with Windows 8. My reasoning - I just got a new Dell Latitude E5430 laptop this morning (literally 3 hours ago). I am experiencing the same problem with the hard drive slowing up the machine.

The Video looks like it is confirming my Suspicions, you may have some driver missing. Since it is a DELL system, there should be a Chipset download, they use Intel Chipsets.

Try installing ALL INF files related to the MB, even if it says they are installed, because this kind of behaviour is similar wo then you are running a System without Proper Video Drivers, you know how that is? A System w/o the right Video Driver will do almost the exact same thing. SO I think you are missing something or something did not get installed correctly

Your Hard Drive should be FLYING, it should go WAY past my 22 mb/s. So you have some kind of Bottleneck in the System, it's got to be in the Data Bus that pulls data from the HDD.

The only other conceivable thing I can think of is that your HDD is bad, and I don't want to suggest that. But maybe you can try installing Windows 8 to another HDD, and see if it behaves the same way. Did I suggest changing out the SATA Data Cable? Everything points to the Bottleneck being in the Data flow from the HDD.

I am having the same problems. I just ran disk speed and it shows 4kb blocks being written @ 23mb/s. However, 64kb blocks are being written @ 157mb/s. When I am using disk intense processes my computer will slow down and the task manager will show usage at 100%. It also shows max disk usage around 6~7mb/s.

That may be something there.

Is the OS in question a 32 or 64 bit OS?

He may want to run the same test. Is Disk Speed in the OS or is it a Program I have to download? I wanna check that on my machine.

I'm running 64 bit.

Here is disk speed.
Roadkil.Net - Roadkil's Disk Speed Program Download

If I run it on logical C: it acts weird. However if it is run on physical 0 it seems to behave more normally. Make sure to run it as admin.

ALSO: If you want to see something really odd bring up task manager and run them side my side and sort by disk usage and watch the percentage usage at the top and then look at max usage by program which is displayed in mb/s.

I found HDtune Trial, it says the best my drive can do is 40mb/s.

I'd like to see his HD Bench from any of these programs, it may tell a different story than his Resource Monitor.

I also found that when downloading games on my laptop it would act like it was being bogged down. My windows 7 desktop was never like this. Granted it is much more powerful and has 7 hard drives, but a when the disk is being used it shouldn't affect he performance of currently running programs stored in ram.

Just to point something out about windows 8 as well: I have built 3 desktops running windows 7. My parents have a laptop runnig windows 7. Not once has any of them BSOD'd. The first Win 8 laptop I had BSOD'd on the first day. The second one I currently have BSOD's if everything isn't perfect. And by that I mean it will BSOD after flashing a new BIOS or installing new drivers. I then have to restart it multiple times to get it to clear. Overall I think these are problems with windows 8.