Why are my HD write speeds so slow?

Question

Why are my HD write speeds so slow?

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 1,1 Quad 2.66 running Leopard

I just installed a second harddrive in one of the internal bays. Formatted the drive and started copying files over. The first copy was 12GB (2 DMGs) and it took forever (like 30-40 minutes).

After copying over, I tried copying the files back to the boot drive and they copied MUCH faster. Tried copying them again to the 2nd drive and still slow. I ran diagnostics on the drive and everything looks okay.

Why are the write speeds so slow when copying to 2nd drive over sata?

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 7:02 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jul 22, 2011 5:54 AM in response to Nathan Sawyer

You have not said anything about what drives you are using, formatted etc.

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Answer 2

Jul 22, 2011 6:45 AM in response to Nathan Sawyer

The boot drive is the 250GB Seagate that came with the Mac. The second drive is a Maxtor pulled from an old iMac with bad graphics.

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Answer 3

Jul 22, 2011 6:50 AM in response to Nathan Sawyer

Also, I ran a disk read/write test using AJA System Test and it confirmed it.

The Write was 5MB/s, the Read was 60MB/s

Could jumpers have anything to do with this. I forgot to check them before I put the drive in.

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Answer 4

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jul 22, 2011 7:12 AM in response to Nathan Sawyer

WD Caviar Black Series

Those will give you 100MB/sec

I would use the Seagate as emergency backup drive only.

Those are both really old and the first SATA drives were just PATA with an interface bridge.

55-65MB/sec was normal for SATA in 2004 and even up to 2006.

the 10K WD Raptor was popular then as it offered 90MB/sec.

Any current drive should do much better.

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Answer 5

Apr 13, 2014 5:07 PM in response to The hatter

I actually put 2 WD raptors in a raid 0 configuration around 2009 I got around 235-265mbs read/ write speeds, i loved those drives todays la[top 2.5 inch 5400rpm drives can get 135-165mbs running at only 5400rpm's (if you get a good manufacture and not as you say a PATA drive with an adapter. Or in really bad drives a late 1980's early 1990's ultra wide scsi 40mbs drive with an adapter to put a sata 6 cable on it. Why someone spends the extra 20 dollars to have the HDD conect on SATA 600 mbs when SATA 300mbs is too fast for any single HDD curently on the market which is just faster than sata 150mbs. SATA 600mbs is for SSD, SATA 300mbs is for newer hd, sata 150mb is for older drives. Look at the drive specs/ customer reviews. the new time capsule says its built for speed, its only a true statement if we are in the ea90's. Do not pay the extra $20 to wd to have the sata 600mbs adapter put on a drive that cannot fully run on a sata 150mbs, let along a sata 300mbs.

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