djangounchained11

Thanks for the ideas. Removing some not needed programs does indeed seem to improve write speeds (albeit slightly to roughly a fifth instead of a tenth of write speeds). Am I correct in thinking that write speeds should be able to match read speeds in terms of mb/s if the drive is not limited by available space?

Recently I've noticed considerable slowdowns of my Surface Laptop 1. After doing a CrystalDiskMark test, I notice that the write speeds are significantly lower than the read speeds. SMART diagnostics come back 'OK'. The drive inside is a Toshiba THNSN0256GTYA. Does this indicate that the drive is about to fail, or could there be another cause of this issue? Are there any other diagnostic tools I could use? Sadly, in this laptop the drive is not user replacable, meaning a drive failure would be the end of the line for this laptop :(. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I am looking for a graphics card that does not require power (or very little) from the PCI-e slot and gets most of its power from a 6 or 8-pin PCI-e connector. Do any cards exist that do this? I am running my graphics card through a PCI-e riser, but my case only supports very flexible riser cards. I have a riser card that fits in the case, but cannot transfer enough power from the PCI-e slot to the card for it to run. Other riser cards I have bought that are shielded better are able to power the card, but do not fit into my case. My current graphics card is a MSI Radeon R7 370. Thanks!