Need help in incresing HDD's performance.

[UnknownEngineer]

As the title says, I need some advice on what to do to my HDD to make it faster. A "nooby" question yes, but you'll see why I am asking when you read through.

Details:

All my specs are in my sig, but what you may or may not know is that my HDD has an unnecessary partition on it. It is -as far as I could guess-the previous installs "system reserved".

I already made a separate topic of the partitioning problem here, however this is not the focus here. 

When I open crystal-disc it shows me this. NOTE: The HDD is ~2 years old, as you can see it is OEM, or what ever you call hardware that came from a pre-built machine.

I didn't know which version of Crystal-disc to download, so downloaded the one with the largest file size, I need not you comments about the outlook of the app.....I did not know this was what I was getting....

1. I can see that there is a problem with my HDD, but I don't know if I can do anything about it. If my guess is correct those would be damaged sectors that cant be used and the files they contained were transferred.

2. Every game I have on my HDD takes ages to load textures or maps and every file is transferred at a snails pace.

Problem(s):

(MAIN): I want to know what I should do to make my HDD faster, the reason I am asking is because I have an SSD. I don't want to mess that up and I wont trust any software unless I know for certain that it wont touch my SSD.

(Secondary): I want to know what I can do to make my HDD live longer, I get the feeling that it is nearing the end of it's lifespan. I cannot buy a new HDD yet, I will most likely inquire on what to buy when I do. (I don't know much about good HDD's)

(OPTIONAL): If you have a solution for me that would allow me to merge the D partition with E -so that I would only have a single HDD partition- then I would like to hear it. EDIT: I do not want to lose any data from the E partition, that is absolute, I will not re-download ~680Gb just to make a partition go away.

 

Answer the main and secondary questions, those are required.

Further details/images -If you think you need any- will be provided if asked, I don't know what else possibly useful info I can give.

Hopefully I didn't make any grammatical mistakes....

[UnknownEngineer]

Erm Stop a moment... Could you copy a 1-2 GB file(s) in the HDD? If Reallocated Sectors Count Threshold reduces after that then the HDD is dying, and If you have lots of files copy them now before it's unusable.

But you said it's slow... is it A LOT slower than it's original speed? Does it freeze?

I copied a ~5Gb rar file and the numbers stayed the same. I don't really have anything invaluable on the HDD, it would just be a massive pain, but I know that the backup procedure is also a pain. I might make a back-up in the next few day's. I will be monitoring that number from now on.

It is currently giving me 45% to 55% of the speed I was getting after filling the fist 200Gb, but I though that was because I had not done anything but add files to it. When I was extracting a mod for ARMA2 (minutes before I posted) the explorer window froze, it din't crash, but mousing over it gave me the "busy" icon. I assume it was not responding, but I dind't pay much attention to it.

EDIT: I have not actually benchmark the HDD, not when it was empty and not now either, I have no actual numbers, just experienced delays in apps.   

[UnknownEngineer]

OK, If you'd hear/record the sound of the HDD when it freezes that'd be more informative

I know that either the HDD or the GPU start making noise (I guess it is coil-whine?) in certain apps, ill try locing my GPU's fan-speed and seeing if the HDD makes the noise.

Recording it...I would need to upload it some where and my upload is not great.

[Sonefiler]

Defrag m8

[UnknownEngineer]

IDC about GPU I mean HDD... and HDDs don't coil whine...

What I want to know Is how does it sound when it freezes to see if there's a mechanical failure

My GPU's fans used to make high-piched noise at certain speeds, at least I think it was the fans, I cant see any other components in the GPU making noise. 

I managed to record the sound on my phone, not the best sound quality, but I have a sample. If my GPU is making the noise then I might as well declare my entire setup to be dying.

I am not sure if I can replicate such a freeze, I'll try extracting the same file again and then recording my HDD's sound. 

[UnknownEngineer]

@DEcobra11

I managed to replicate the "freeze".

All I could hear was the HDD's arm moving while the progress bar was stagnant, I think the disc was still spinning normally, could it be caused by other programs reading something of the HDD while it is trying to write the file(s).

The HDD didn't make any unusual noise this time, just the barely audible sound if the disc spinning, and the occasional sound of the arm moving.

I suppose that you could tell me what the noise was? I couldn't have been the fans in the PC (speeds locked), and the only mechanical part other than those fans is the HDD.

[UnknownEngineer]

That "occasional" sound was cyclic? Any clicks?

No clicks, and yes, I think the sound was cyclic.

I wish I could give a better description of it, but English is not my native language, it would ultimately only complicate things more.

[UnknownEngineer]

It could be the head hitting/trying to read bad sectors

Ok, my 2 main questions still remain unanswered, is there any software I should use to maintain my HDD, and is there any way to merge the partitions without losing data.

[UnknownEngineer]

Sorry for making you wait... I was out. To merge partitions you can use EaseUs Partition Master (it's free)

About Maintenance... IDK about any... Never though about HDD maintenance bc it's like if an HDD has a physical damage what could software do? nothing ... Please explain what you mean with this

Do I need any software for de-fragmenting and re-arranging files. I used to use advanced system care, but I am not sure if I can limit it to just my HDD.

I don't want software messing with my SSD unless it can give an actual performance boost. Witch is highly unlikely.

[UnknownEngineer]

For defragging you can use windows' defragger... you can select the drives that you want to defrag (via control+click)... at least on windows 7

But if you want to use different software there are options like defraggler, EaseUS Partition Master can defrag aswell

I still have a few questions, I feel a little sorry, bothering someone this much.

Is it possible to rename a partition without freaking out all the programs, applications and games installed on it? I was wondering if all the file paths will still be valid.

Problem: I have a secondary steam library on the E partition, while steam itself is installed on the SSD, will changing the letter of the E drive mean that I will have to re-install/verify all the games on the second library. How do I make sure that all applications, even the ones on my SSD, will update their file-paths to the new letter. Those would be steam, origin and possibly a few others.

Or does changing the letter edit the paths at all. (Is it a visual change only, or is there paths being edited)

 

If I can make my current (E: eMachines) drive be (D: HDD) without messing up steam, then I can die happy. 

 

I know that the old partitions must have been created early, so they should be near the outer edges of the disc (hopefully). Maybe I can use the 14.1GB I have un-allocated as a fast partition. Is it possible?

 

Again, sorry that I am still inconveniencing you with these questions.