slow access to hard disk

[zivshosh]

Greetings
OS: Win7 ultimate x64
CPU: I7
4 HDD: 1 Kingston SSD, 1 Seagate, 2 older WD (1TB, 2TB)
access to WD is slow. after accessing for the first time, work is normal.
details of HDD:
KINGSTON SV300S3
ST3000DM001-1CH1
WDC WD10EADS-65M
WDC20EADS-00S
are the WD sata2 as opposed to the Seagate, hence the slow access?
thanks

 

[zivshosh]

forgot to mention: the 2 WD hard disks were moved from an older PC I had with winXP x32.
Is the format different between win7 x64 and XP x32?
thanks again

 

[Mark Phelps]

The two WD could actually be SATA 1 (which I believe is 150, not 300) -- but even then, you should not notice really slow performance. Unfotunately, I had three WD drives fail on me last year, one only a few months old. So, I no longer consider WD drives as reliable.

You should go to the WD site, download and install their drive health checking tool -- and run it.

My guess, if the drives are really slow, is that they are failing. The WD utility will tell you if this is the case.

 

[OvenMaster]

Check your Event Viewer for data transfer errors, and Device Manager to see if the drives are defaulting to PIO mode.
When I had this same problem, replacing the cheap cables that came with my mobo with new ones with metal latches solved it..

 

[zivshosh]

slow access to some hard disks

Thank you for your quick replay
I don't like WD myself but and they're far too new to be SATA1. I do believe they're SATA2 but I'll check on WD site and check their status as adviced.
I'll try to replace sata cable, that's easy. I did see many errors and warning on the event viewer but no concerning the hard disks (I think). most of them relate to Service Control Manager. Don't know what it is.
Warnings are by Kernel PnP.
Thanks again