USB Hard Drive Slows Computer to a Crawl

It's brand new from Dell and was made to order, so I would hope they would be updated.

I did run the Dell system updater and it found nothing.

I don't have faith in OEMs in keep their images up to date. That's one the vast majority of us wipe an OEM system clean, in the rare event we buy one. Those OEM updaters can be trouble, too, especially if the flash the BIOS without asking you.

Should I update the firmware or wait to see what you guys find in the logs I posted?

No one is suggesting any kind of firmware update. Did you check on the chipset drivers?

Yes, chipset driver is up-to-date.

just got a call back from Dell customer support and they are still clueless

You could try a clean install. Since it is new, you should have recovery discs...or should have a tool to create them. Then wipe the drive and do a clean install with all latest drivers. Not only will your system be a lot more responsive, but then you;ll know for sure if it is a hardware or software problem.

Has anyone taken a look at the logs I posted?
Thanks again

Be sure that indexing options are turned off for the drives. If they have a large number of files could create performance problems.