HDD running slower than expected

[Caylon Wilkins]

Recently I built a computer, one of the components is a Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 hard drive. It is advertised as capable of 6Gb/s and the motherboard is also capable of 6Gb/s, but doing video editing it caps at about 100MB. Any ideas what's going on? is it a problem with the 64MB cache being too small? The driver was written in 2006, but it says it's up to date. Is there a cheap hardware upgrade I need or does it require an SSD to get more speed?

 

I could really use the extra speed. The video editor is using about 1% cpu 10% memory and 98% Disk, and 20min to save a video edit is just far too long.

 

Thanks for helping.

[samcool55]

SSD is the only option, the problem is that your hdd itself just can't work faster than that. You can get faster hdd's but compared to ssd's they really aren't that good anymore. 

 

edit: you can get a raid array if you have some other hard drives to spare but there are a lot of things to think about if you go raid.

Still an ssd seems the best idea.

[s3ns3]

It is advertised as capable of 6Gb/s

rofl

Edited September 14, 2014 by s3ns3

[Uranus]

6gb/s refers to sata bandwidth (max speed possible through a sata 6gb/s  ) .

 

 

If you want to see hdd's real speed try this : http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

[Caylon Wilkins]

I've heard of using an SSD as a cahce for a HDD, would this help or does that just benefit smaller or more frequently used files

[FizzyFantom]

6gb/s refers to sata bandwidth (max speed possible through a sata 6gb/s  ) .

This is correct. It is only the maximum possible transfer speed across that SATA connection. HDDs are a slow form of storage. While they are sufficient for mass storage and playback of videos and music etc. they don't perform as well as SSDs. If you are looking for a faster drive you should consider a WD Blue or Black drive, the Blue drives only go up to 1TB and Blacks are faster, but I have a Blue and I get very good performance out of it (about 170MB/s sequential).

Here is a comparison of WD Black benchmarks with Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 benchmarks:

http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Black-1TB-2013-vs-Seagate-Barracuda-720014-1TB/1822vs1849

 

I would expect a Seagate Barracuda to perform better than 100MB/s (unless it's quite old).

 

I've heard of using an SSD as a cahce for a HDD, would this help or does that just benefit smaller or more frequently used files

You can use an SSD as a chache and it will probably improve performance, but HDDs are very good in sequential reads and writes which would be involved in video editing and rendering. You should consider a WD Black.

[s3ns3]

You can use an SSD as a chache and it will probably improve performance, but HDDs are very good in sequential reads and writes which would be involved in video editing and rendering. You should consider a WD Black.

if he uses ssd for cache it will just improve the access time,not speed.  for sequential the seagate is better that wd black(which i think thats what he needs)

[Caylon Wilkins]

http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Black-1TB-2013-vs-Seagate-Barracuda-720014-1TB/1822vs1849

 

I would expect a Seagate Barracuda to perform better than 100MB/s (unless it's quite old).

 

You can use an SSD as a chache and it will probably improve performance, but HDDs are very good in sequential reads and writes which would be involved in video editing and rendering. You should consider a WD Black.

 

 

benchmark says sequential write on the WD is slower than what I have. I know it's more dependable, but it's not like my work is worth thousands so no point in considering it.

 

The HDD is new (2 months old) so where should I start looking for that expected extra speed.

[ManWithBeard1990]

6Gb/s is only how fast you can send data over the SATA cable. It can't read from or write to the platters that quickly. If all you need is storage and sequential read/write I'd start looking into RAID. Although if storage isn't that important SSD's will, for the same price, be able to beat any HDD RAID outright.

[Caylon Wilkins]

Let me ask you this.

 

If you where building a machine on a budget with video recording and editing in mind, what storage option would you use?

[rovor]

I have 4x3TB Seagate Barracuda drives, and the best speed I can get out of them is at most 160MB/s. Which, considering they are HDD's, is amazing! I remember when it was a miracle to get 50MB/s from a HDD. Although, I also remember when getting 50MB/s from an SSD was incredible! lol Those were the days... As many have already stated, repeatedly, the only way to get faster speeds is either with a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks - although 'inexpensive' is certainly subjective...), I would only use RAID for the purpose of redundancy, since now you can get a single SSD for a low price that will perform faster than all but the most expensive RAID subsystems.

I currently have both, however... I have the 4x3TB RAID 5 in my server for redundancy against a drive failure, and I also have 2x250GB SSD RAID 0 in my desktop for speed... I get around 1,150MB/s read speeds. So if you are looking for the absolute fastest data transfer speeds, but do not really care if you lose data (or if you have a regular backup system) then RAID 0 is definitely the way to go!

[Caylon Wilkins]

Ok, thanks for the info. It'll be a while before I can afford an SSD, but it's something to save up for thanks.