Very Weird Hard drive Speeds w/ Video Explanation

[ShadowWolf810]

So have been battling extremely slow USB 3.0 transfer speeds and I'm getting some very weird and inconsistent results when trying to test it. So I made a video running through most of what I've done so far, and hopefully someone will know whats going on! 

 

 

 

[Gwersebe]

Thats really weird Try crystal disk mark maybe it is the software that is the problem. http://crystalmark.info/redirect.php?product=CrystalDiskMarkInstaller its the weird results thats leading me to believe it is a software problem.

[ShadowWolf810]

6 minutes ago, Gwersebe said:

Thats really weird Try crystal disk mark maybe it is the software that is the problem. http://crystalmark.info/redirect.php?product=CrystalDiskMarkInstaller

So I've tried Crystal Disk Mark and ATTO but the results are still the same. 

 

No matter where I plug in the 'My Passport' drive other than the USB 3.1 gen2 card, its always capped at 20 MB/s. In this video when it was in the USB 3.1 card it seemed like a after a bit it came back up to 100 even when the beginning of the test was showing 20, but I've left My Passport running for like 10 minutes now in other ports that aren't the USB 3.1 card and its solid at 20 MB/s.

 

Here is a screenshot of Crystal Disk Mark with my Mobius Raid enclosure that was 270 MB/s in the video plugged into my front case USB ports. 

https://gyazo.com/04bf2f318cfae2dee6c47e627444afc5

 

I've also tried with regular test files as opposed to a test program and its the same issue. Even using my USB 3.0 card reader to transfer the footage to make the video was capped at like 25 MB/s and the SD is rated to read and write at 95 MB/s 

[Gwersebe]

Do you have another computer if you do put a fresh copy of windows on it and see if anything changes.

[Gwersebe]

It seems like a software issue to me

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

it will either be something like a missing driver or the other simple error,  when was the last time these drives were defragmented, if its testing on a fragged then a empted sector that could explain some of the randomness 

so get the drivers for the my passport, the external raid, then defragment if needed

[ShadowWolf810]

Just now, Gwersebe said:

Do you have another computer if you do put a fresh copy of windows on it and see if anything changes.

Do you mean to put a fresh copy of Windows on the desktop in the video, or put a fresh copy of it on a different computer? I have a laptop but the thing is that on there, or on the Macs at school the My Passport gets normal 100 Mb/s speeds consistently

[Leonard]

wooo...even the video was long, imagine that in text...gezzzz......anyway, you have talked about the bandwidth but nothing about UEFI configuration and which ports did you use to connect the case's USB 3.0. You can set the PCIe speed in the UEFI and if you have the USB3.0 in say one of the Asmedia connectors then this is normal for Asmedia drivers.

[Gwersebe]

1 minute ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

Do you mean to put a fresh copy of Windows on the desktop in the video, or put a fresh copy of it on a different computer? I have a laptop but the thing is that on there, or on the Macs at school the My Passport gets normal 100 Mb/s speeds consistently

If you can put a fresh copy on the desktop. I do a lot of networking stuff and when there is really weird issues with it putting a fresh copy of windows on usually fixes the problem.

[ShadowWolf810]

1 minute ago, Deep Fried Mars Bar said:

it will either be something like a missing driver or the other simple error,  when was the last time these drives were defragmented, if its testing on a fragged then a empted sector that could explain some of the randomness 

so get the drivers for the my passport, the external raid, then defragment if needed

Well these drives haven't been defragmented in quite some time if ever. However I get the same file transfer speeds with real 10 and 20 GB test files, so wouldn't that only explain the software tests messing up, and not actual file transfers? 

[Technomancer__]

40 minutes ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

So have been battling extremely slow USB 3.0 transfer speeds and I'm getting some very weird and inconsistent results when trying to test it. So I made a video running through most of what I've done so far, and hopefully someone will know whats going on! 

 

 

 

try to connect a powered usb hub on the pcie 3.1 and then the external on it

also defrag drive

[ShadowWolf810]

2 minutes ago, Leonard said:

wooo...even the video was long, imagine that in text...gezzzz......anyway, you have talked about the bandwidth but nothing about UEFI configuration and which ports did you use to connect the case's USB 3.0. You can set the PCIe speed in the UEFI and if you have the USB3.0 in say one of the Asmedia connectors then this is normal for Asmedia drivers.

So my motherboard is the Asus X99 USB 3.1 Deluxe. I'd be happy to check whatever you like in the BIOS and report back but as far as I know the PCIe speeds are set to 4x and the headers for the case USB 3 ports and my card reader are just plugged into the two USB 3.0 headers on the motherboard

[ShadowWolf810]

1 minute ago, Ethocreeper said:

try to connect a powered usb hub on the pcie 3.1 and then the external on it

Hmmm I don't have a powered usb hub on hand, but the RAID enclosure is externally powered instead of being powered over the USB bus. And when I plug my raid into the front of my case it still drops down to 20 MB/s, so I don't think its an issue with the drives having enough power 

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

2 minutes ago, Ethocreeper said:

try to connect a powered usb hub on the pcie 3.1 and then the external on it

if your thinking its simply the my passport not getting enough power its not

[ShadowWolf810]

@Deep Fried Mars Bar

 

So I tried looking up the drivers like you said but can't find any on their websites. Looked at these two for the My Passport and Raid enclosure. 

http://support.wdc.com/product.aspx?ID=232&lang=en#WD_downloads

https://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/3R2-EB3-M.html

[Leonard]

1 minute ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

So my motherboard is the Asus X99 USB 3.1 Deluxe. I'd be happy to check whatever you like in the BIOS and report back but as far as I know the PCIe speeds are set to 4x and the headers for the case USB 3 ports and my card reader are just plugged into the two USB 3.0 headers on the motherboard

I had a feeling this is an ASUS MOBO. I would advise you check your manual to see which USB 3.0 ports on the MOBO is controlled by the Asmedia chipset and which is controlled by the Intel chipset and then plug the USB 3.0 into the Intel ports. Also, before you do any of this ASUS AI Suite has a USB 3.0 boosting feature for such devices that meets the requirements, when you plug your devices into the USB ports as you have shown in the video check if they register in the boost feature.

 

What to check in the UEFI...

You will have to find the PCIe slot and make sure that the speed is not set to auto and as the highest your device can use, be it x2/x4.

 

Also, did you format your disk with NTFS or Fat32?

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

WD Drive Utilities for Windows -it was right at the top, its mostly bloatware junk, but if theres a driver its in there

it seems like the raid imports its drivers like a usb flash drive does, however it does have a fireware update if yours if more than a years old https://oyendigital.com/tech/firmware/Mobius_2Bay_Update_8TB.pdf

[ShadowWolf810]

1 minute ago, Leonard said:

I had a feeling this is an ASUS MOBO. I would advise you check your manual to see which USB 3.0 ports on the MOBO is controlled by the Asmedia chipset and which is controlled by the Intel chipset and then plug the USB 3.0 into the Intel ports. Also, before you do any of this ASUS AI Suite has a USB 3.0 boosting feature for such devices that meets the requirements, when you plug your devices into the USB ports as you have shown in the video check if they register in the boost feature.

 

What to check in the UEFI...

You will have to find the PCIe slot and make sure that the speed is not set to auto and as the highest your device can use, be it x2/x4.

 

Also, did you format your disk with NTFS or Fat32?

I don't actually even have the ASUS AI Suite installed. I will check the PCIe slot to make sure that its set to the correct speed. Here's a screenshot of my device manager.

https://gyazo.com/6e66ce263018bc23e2b03b96f0c1c4af

There's this one Intel driver that shows up in "Other devices" and I've uninstalled the Intel drivers and reinstalled them but this one never gets installed properly. I looked up the unique ID of it online and downloaded it but when I did my wireless USB headset stopped working properly and the start up time of my computer went to over 3 minutes and so I just rolled back my computer to a previous back up because I didn't have time to let things be messed up. 

 

As far as the format of the drives, they are actually both formatted as HSF+ and I'm using MacDrive 10 to be able to read them on my Windows system, but I'm frequently taking these drives back and forth between Mac and Windows Machines so this was the best option. 

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

^dont bother to install ai suite its crap

 

[ShadowWolf810]

1 minute ago, Deep Fried Mars Bar said:

WD Drive Utilities for Windows -it was right at the top, its mostly bloatware junk, but if theres a driver its in there

it seems like the raid imports its drivers like a usb flash drive does, however it does have a fireware update if yours if more than a years old https://oyendigital.com/tech/firmware/Mobius_2Bay_Update_8TB.pdf

Yeah thats why I didn't download the WD Drive Utilities because of the bloatware stuff but I'll give it a shot. And for the raid enclosure I saw the firmware update but didn't do it because it said that its for support of 8 TB drives in each of the bays which mine are not. But i'll update the firmware as well and see if that changes anything

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

be careful, its a bios it could brick your raid

 

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

26 minutes ago, Leonard said:

wooo...even the video was long, imagine that in text...gezzzz......anyway, you have talked about the bandwidth but nothing about UEFI configuration and which ports did you use to connect the case's USB 3.0. You can set the PCIe speed in the UEFI and if you have the USB3.0 in say one of the Asmedia connectors then this is normal for Asmedia drivers.

this still seems the best shot, 

[ShadowWolf810]

Just now, Deep Fried Mars Bar said:

be careful, its a bios it could brick your raid

 

Hah oh great... I guess I'll start with the My Passport driver then. May not do the firmware update because it shouldn't have anything to do with that anyways. 

 

I agree, what @Leonard suggested about the PCIe speeds and UEFI config does seem like the best option. 

 

@Leonard can you explain why you said that this is normal for the Asmedia drivers? 

[Leonard]

1 minute ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

I don't actually even have the ASUS AI Suite installed. I will check the PCIe slot to make sure that its set to the correct speed. Here's a screenshot of my device manager.

https://gyazo.com/6e66ce263018bc23e2b03b96f0c1c4af

There's this one Intel driver that shows up in "Other devices" and I've uninstalled the Intel drivers and reinstalled them but this one never gets installed properly. I looked up the unique ID of it online and downloaded it but when I did my wireless USB headset stopped working properly and the start up time of my computer went to over 3 minutes and so I just rolled back my computer to a previous back up because I didn't have time to let things be messed up. 

 

As far as the format of the drives, they are actually both formatted as HSF+ and I'm using MacDrive 10 to be able to read them on my Windows system, but I'm frequently taking these drives back and forth between Mac and Windows Machines so this was the best option. 

From that screenshot it seems that you don't have the x99 chipset controller installed or it is corrupted. Install it again but going to here and selecting your OS and then get the latest chipset and sata drivers. Also, i think your m.2 settings should be checked too in the UEFI. For the front panel, the bottom mid-board USB slots are for the Intel driver. 

 

Manual

[Deep Fried Mars Bar]

^the short version about the asmedia usb drivers (just about every board has some to compliment the 4-8 that the cpu drives is that the driver was shit. Luckily I timed my last "fucking windows 10 update making me reinstall half my drivers" quite nicely 

out of curiosity find the intel ones (might need to use google) and try your drives in those