3TB WD Green drive suddently reading/writing super slow

[mkygod]

Been using this drive for about 6-8 months as my main download drive that i write/read often from. It has worked well up until the other day when transfer speeds suddenly slowed down to crawl.

Doesn't matter if im writting or reading to it, it trudges around at under 1 MB/sec.

Also, it takes about 10 minutes for my computer to recognize it as a drive upon Windows bootup.

It takes me 15 minutes just to delete a folder with 200mb of files and a similar amount of time to backup files from it. I have 2tb of data on it, so backing it up at this speed will take an eternity. I took out the hard drive and put it inside an esata enclosure with the same results, so I know it is not the SATA cable.

SMART data from CrystaldiskInfo and WD Diagnostics seems okay. Checkdisking it seems like it will take a lifetime. Don't know if I feel like waiting that long to find out if a drive is good or not.

Do you guys think this is a file system issue, or is this a sure sign of a failing hard drive? There's nothing important on the drive that I can't just redownload again and I'm still within the warranty, so RMA is an option.

 

[Joepublic2]

No file system issue would cause it to read/write that slowly. OS misconfiguration like DMA being disabled is possible but even that should't cause a 3TB drive to transfer data that slowly (I'd still check that it's not disabled). The fact that it hangs for 10 minutes when your computer boots up also seems like a hardware problem. I'd just RMA it if you have backups.

 

[masteryoda34]

Quality control on the multi-TB drives has gone severely downhill over the last few years. It would not surprise me one bit to encounter a failing/failed drive.

You should probably try using the drive on at least one other computer and see if you have the same problems before you RMA it though.

 

[fuzzymath10]

It will take a while but try chkdsk /r to see if you have bad sectors which can mess with transfers until they are mapped out. Had a similar problem with a 1.5tb WD green. Incidentally, none with my Reds or Seagates.