My disk is 95-100% when downloading consistently, should I be concerned?

[holladi]

Hi there, this is my first time posting here. I really need help. I'm concerned about my computer that I just built.

I'm going to try to give all the information I can because I'd really like to figure this out! 

Here is my build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KGdZFt

If the link doesn't work I'll attach pictures too.

 

Anyway here's my story:

I just built this computer yesterday with the help of my boyfriend who built his own as well.

Everything basically went smoothly until we got to the heat sink and trying to use the push pins on it. With much struggle and an hour of sweating we got it to fully attach.

Everything else went swimmingly and no other issues.

Fast forward to today.

I installed all my normal drivers, I installed Windows. I updated windows 10. Then as I was trying to start downloading games from steam I noticed that it was choppy at times...we have gigabyte internet so it's not our internet.

I opened up task manager and sure enough it was maxing disk from 95-100% consistently and the only two processes were System and Steam.

I also noticed that Network would dip at the same time that the disk would dip as well? I don't know if that means anything, like let's say the disk randomly dipped to 30-60% range for a little bit the network would dip way down as well from 60+% to 10%-20% or so..

I don't have any other disk issues that I know of, only with steam? I downloaded overwatch on blizzard pretty smoothly but I wasn't watching my disk on that one.

I'm currently running a disk defragment and I did a disk cleanup.

Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

I didn't get an SSD with this computer. Only and HDD so I'm not quite used to only have one disk and I want to make sure there's nothing blantently wrong. (I'm a worrywart)

Thanks ahead of time for any tips! I'm just confusing myself more by trying to Google answers.

[AskTJ]

No. Nearly all drives go up to full load when reading/writing.

[Skiiwee29]

That is what happens when you are reading or writing data to it.. Those packets need to be written as you download them and reassembled since they dont come in perfect order... 

[holladi]

1 hour ago, Skiiwee29 said:

That is what happens when you are reading or writing data to it.. Those packets need to be written as you download them and reassembled since they dont come in perfect order... 

Okay so it's not weird that it gets all choppy and it's not a consistent speed? Like it feels like it's almost overloading and then drops down and flies back up to 100%..and the network dipping has me worried too.. My old PC with an SSD I felt like wasn't this choppy. But I guess if this is considered normal I shouldn't be worried.

Mostly because from me googling it I found alot of confusing answers like people's HDD's were bad and whatnot..and I just want to be positive that that isn't a problem..

Edited August 5, 2018 by holladi

[holladi]

If I were to want to add another hard drive and keep the one I have for OS, would I get another HDD? Or would I need a different type to store everything but the OS?

[Mira Yurizaki]

In Task Manager, the disk usage stat is how full its command queue is getting, not necessarily how fast it's reading or writing data.

 

3 minutes ago, holladi said:

If I were to want to add another hard drive and keep the one I have for OS, would I get another HDD? Or would I need a different type to store everything but the OS?

It doesn't matter.

[AntiTrust]

2 minutes ago, holladi said:

If I were to want to add another hard drive and keep the one I have for OS, would I get another HDD? Or would I need a different type to store everything but the OS?

Alot of people do this. You have a really good system and I think you would see a huge benefit from getting a SSD to install your OS on.  It makes windows feel really really snappy. 

 

I have 2 SSD's and 2 HDs now

 

120gb - OS drive

500gb - games drive

2 TB - storage

2 TB - games overflow drive

[PlayStation 2]

Yeah with faster internet your hard drive will have to work, well, faster to write that data to storage. A number of games on Steam actually compress their data before being fully written to disk to save download time, so there's also that.

[W-L]

10 minutes ago, holladi said:

If I were to want to add another hard drive and keep the one I have for OS, would I get another HDD? Or would I need a different type to store everything but the OS?

As others have said your limiting factor is the read and write speeds of the drive itself, a separate HDD will help with offloading the reads and write if you do constantly hammer the drives but an SSD for the main OS would be more beneficial with a noticeable difference in day to day performance. 

 

-Moved to Troubleshooting- 

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, holladi said:

I didn't get an SSD with this computer. Only and HDD so I'm not quite used to only have one disk and I want to make sure there's nothing blantently wrong. (I'm a worrywart)

 

That is the Problem.

You should always get at least a seperate drive for the OS - or an SSD.

 

Because:

 

And the heads can only move so fast and they have to wait until the data tey want is actually under the head.

That is what one calls access time. And that is rather high with mechanical drives at a couple of (dozen) of milliseconds.

And the Reason why SSDs are so fast because they don't have to look for the data, they just access it and throw it back at you...

 

So the only solution for your problem is to get a seperate drive, if possible an SSD, for the OS.

If you're kinda out of money, a 64GiB one works, though I'd highly recommend going for 120GiB drive for the OS because with the 60GiB drive you can't install games, you can't install bigger problems and you have to keep your downloads clean. While it works, it requires more work on your end.

[holladi]

1 hour ago, W-L said:

As others have said your limiting factor is the read and write speeds of the drive itself, a separate HDD will help with offloading the reads and write if you do constantly hammer the drives but an SSD for the main OS would be more beneficial with a noticeable difference in day to day performance. 

 

-Moved to Troubleshooting- 

How would I go about transferring windows off of my main HDD to my SSD if I were to get one?

Thanks for all the help

[W-L]

6 minutes ago, holladi said:

How would I go about transferring windows off of my main HDD to my SSD if I were to get one?

Thanks for all the help

You can clone it, ideally I would recommend to always reinstall windows directly on the SSD. 

[Stefan Payne]

6 hours ago, holladi said:

How would I go about transferring windows off of my main HDD to my SSD if I were to get one?

Thanks for all the help

There are some programms.

 

BUT: You have to resize the Partition of the Drive the OS is on.

Then use a Clone Programm (wich I'm not too familiar with) and move it over to the SSD.

And if you are lucky, everything went wrong...

 

 

Since its a rather new Computer, wouldn't it be easier to reinstall Windows??

You can keep some settings but not all sadly...