i recently bought a new wd re4 2tb with 2014 datecodes. when i got around to testing it tho in victoria hd tester, the write speed was very slow at 14 mb/s with a 256 sector transfer size. when i increased the transfer size to 1024 sectors, the write speed increased slightly to 44 mb/s. read speeds and sector verify speeds were fine and at normal speeds.
so i just ass-u-med the drive's poor performance was due to it being an advanced format drive and i was using it on winxp. when i tried cloning my system disk to this wd re4 2tb drive and writing to it in linux, the write speed of the drive was normal at 150mb/s so i ass-u-med again that it must be due to 4k sector misalignment in winxp, so i just put up with the slow-ass writes for the time being.
a few weeks later, i got tired of the slow ass writes taking over an hour to copy an 8gb file from partition to partition and taking over 15 mins to transfer a 5gb file from the usb thumbdrive. a flash based thumbdrive being faster at writes than a hard drive!! couldnt believe it! so i decided to migrate the system over to an older re4 2tb drive with 2011 datecodes that should certainly have legacy format 512 byte sectors. i connected that older drive to the system to perform some write testing on it but i was shocked to see the same old slow-ass write speeds on this drive. dafaq...
after some googling about this issue, i came across a thread in the bleeping computer forums about "Performance HDD is killing my Benchmarks....what can I do?" started by cat1092. the ts complained about slow sequential write speeds on his new wd gold 2tb drive in win7 but random 4k writes were fine.
on the second page of his thread, it was found out that the enable write caching setting in device manager properties for the drive was disabled, causing the slow sequential writes. when enabled, the sequential writes were up to speed. i checked the same device manager drive properties for both the 2011 and 2014 re4 2tb drives and they were both disabled by default for some reason. i enabled them and performed write testing in victoria and atto disk benchmark and presto! the write speeds for both drives were up to speed again at 150-160 mb/s! yay! finally found the fix!
damn! i almost wanted to sell that 2014 re4 2tb drive thinking it was a hidden advanced format drive not stated on the drive label. not sure why winxp disables write caching by default on the re4 2tb drives. the hitachi 7k3000 2tb desktop drives and wd cav black 2tb drives i was using previously on the system had no issues with slow write speeds so their write caching must be enabled by default.
so just posting about this computer bug of the month for me. if u are having slow sequential write speeds but read speeds are fine, do check the write cache setting in device manager hard drive properties for the hard drive u are having slow write speed issues with. if its disabled, thats most likely the culprit. yes, some system benchmarking programs require u to disable that setting to not be disqualified for ranking in the benchmark. just disable that setting for benchmarking and when u are done, re-enable it again. just a minor inconvenience...
so i just ass-u-med the drive's poor performance was due to it being an advanced format drive and i was using it on winxp. when i tried cloning my system disk to this wd re4 2tb drive and writing to it in linux, the write speed of the drive was normal at 150mb/s so i ass-u-med again that it must be due to 4k sector misalignment in winxp, so i just put up with the slow-ass writes for the time being.
a few weeks later, i got tired of the slow ass writes taking over an hour to copy an 8gb file from partition to partition and taking over 15 mins to transfer a 5gb file from the usb thumbdrive. a flash based thumbdrive being faster at writes than a hard drive!! couldnt believe it! so i decided to migrate the system over to an older re4 2tb drive with 2011 datecodes that should certainly have legacy format 512 byte sectors. i connected that older drive to the system to perform some write testing on it but i was shocked to see the same old slow-ass write speeds on this drive. dafaq...
after some googling about this issue, i came across a thread in the bleeping computer forums about "Performance HDD is killing my Benchmarks....what can I do?" started by cat1092. the ts complained about slow sequential write speeds on his new wd gold 2tb drive in win7 but random 4k writes were fine.
on the second page of his thread, it was found out that the enable write caching setting in device manager properties for the drive was disabled, causing the slow sequential writes. when enabled, the sequential writes were up to speed. i checked the same device manager drive properties for both the 2011 and 2014 re4 2tb drives and they were both disabled by default for some reason. i enabled them and performed write testing in victoria and atto disk benchmark and presto! the write speeds for both drives were up to speed again at 150-160 mb/s! yay! finally found the fix!
damn! i almost wanted to sell that 2014 re4 2tb drive thinking it was a hidden advanced format drive not stated on the drive label. not sure why winxp disables write caching by default on the re4 2tb drives. the hitachi 7k3000 2tb desktop drives and wd cav black 2tb drives i was using previously on the system had no issues with slow write speeds so their write caching must be enabled by default.
so just posting about this computer bug of the month for me. if u are having slow sequential write speeds but read speeds are fine, do check the write cache setting in device manager hard drive properties for the hard drive u are having slow write speed issues with. if its disabled, thats most likely the culprit. yes, some system benchmarking programs require u to disable that setting to not be disqualified for ranking in the benchmark. just disable that setting for benchmarking and when u are done, re-enable it again. just a minor inconvenience...
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