Gaming Slow Hard drive???

[Westside]

So recently I've noticed that my hard drive slowed down after installing programs. it is a 1T HDD with 70% occupied. I do not have spyware and malicious software because I use autoruns and process explorer to check my system registry, processes, startup files, etc. I haven't used chkdsk yet, but I did use fragment 2 weeks ago. Does hard drive speed drops after some time? The reason being that my friend's shitty laptop responds faster than mine. I have intel i7 with 6 gigs of 1.6GHz RAM, etc. He has a laptop that is an old celeron with 1gig of ram and 5400RPM HDD whereas I have 7200. We both use windows 7.

 

[Raiser]

Odd indeed.

Even if you use autoruns and Process Explorer, I'd still recommend a scan with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware.
Also, clean out any dust in your computer.

If you're continuously doing things like shutting off your computer via the power switch in the back, or using the hard reset button on the front, yeah, it'll damage your HDD a little.

 

[Elritha]

Does hard drive speed drops after some time?

No, they don't just drop speed all of a sudden unless they are physically damaged. I am assuming by slowing down you mean Windows is and not the actual drive? Windows typically gets bogged down and slows with time. Left over drivers and applications can be a cause of that.

As your drive becomes full its performance can also degrade. Mainly because data placed on the outer edge of your drive can be accessed faster. When your drive fills up this is no longer possible. It shouldn't effect performance much however.

Cut down on what's loading at startup. Do a chkdsk, virus scan and also look for rootkits.

 

[GutsMan.EXE]

1) Backup
2) Format
3) Fresh install
4) ???
5) Profit!

No but really once you format and fresh install everything will go back to normal and hdd will increase back to what it used to be.

 

[dilav]

I'm having the same problem well not as bad as yours, the only main slow down on mine is the OS booting up, even though there are barely any startup programs. Also have AV prog and malwarebyte, defrag, chkdsk scaned.

I'm running a Seagate 1TB (2 partition both 500GB[approx.] each), 6GB ram, i7-920. I got a few 2TB green drives to backup my data and I'm going to do a fresh full format/install.

Normally people who want speed have a second smaller faster HDD for their OS, and a bigger one just for data. I read that if you don't it is a good idea to have a smaller partition for the OS. So you may want to try this, but I would still suggess running malwarebyte anti-malware and maybe a anti virus prog first.

Interested on what someone you have to say...

 

[Originality]

Aside from physical defects/damage, there are only 3 reasons why a drive slows down. Firstly, as Edhel pointed out, where the data is located on the platter defines how quickly it can be accessed. The more a drive is filled up, the slower the drive gets as it has to write closer to the centre, and things tend to get cramped in the centre.

Secondly, fragmentation. The more the header has to move to read the fragments of data, the slower the entire process gets.

Lastly, communication. A number of things affect the quality/speed of communication between the drive and the computer, from the SATA controllers (and USB, if it's external) to the Southbridge to the CPU (the busier the computer is, the slower it deals with read/write commands. Bad cabling can also slow things down, but I've only seen one SATA cable that ever broke (due to aggressive cable management), and whilst data could still flow through it, things were slow and corrupted a lot.

 

[FAST6191]

Just a sidenote but bog standard windows defrag (much like most other bundled programs) is less than brilliant, http://www.piriform.com/defraggler/download is a good start.

Equally comparing computers may not be the best idea- bad laptops might be running low spec/cheap versions of windows (such things came to the fore with Vista and more importantly aero). Not to mention logs/most recently used*, screen resolution, pre caching aka super fetch and more can come into play.

*most of us have probably done this with an internet browser and a large history, downloads list, bookmarks folder. Same idea for windows.

 

[Westside]

Just a sidenote but bog standard windows defrag (much like most other bundled programs) is less than brilliant, http://www.piriform.com/defraggler/download is a good start.

Equally comparing computers may not be the best idea- bad laptops might be running low spec/cheap versions of windows (such things came to the fore with Vista and more importantly aero). Not to mention logs/most recently used*, screen resolution, pre caching aka super fetch and more can come into play.

*most of us have probably done this with an internet browser and a large history, downloads list, bookmarks folder. Same idea for windows.

So you're saying I need to watch less porn?

 

[Rydian]

Hah. XD

Setting your browser to only keep history for a day or three, and lowering your cache size could help.

And yes, application logs tend to be annoying. You can use WinDirStat to see what is using up how much space and where it is.

 

[FAST6191]

Assuming you are sitting behind some decent protection (adblock, noscript and the like) it is probably better- the average porn film lasting what 6 minutes likely generates less browser clutter than flicking (20-40 odd clicks/pages a minute perhaps) around social networks full of people with no idea about web design.