copying large files slows system to a crawl

[ledzepp98]

ok, first of all this problem occurs on the "big bastar" system on my rigs page. when i copy large files (or even a lot of smaller files i think) that are hundreds of megs or >1gig in size, the system slows to a crawl and dosn't recover until after the copying is done and everything is re-cached. the drives all have dma enabled, they are not slow drives, they perform they way they are supposed to when using hdtach, i have tried both the via driver and the microsoft driver for the 686b southbridge, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. does anyone else have this problem and know why it happens or what to do about it? did i leave out any important info? thanks...

 

[Shooters]

Where are you copying to and from when it happens?.....one hard drive to another, one hard drive to itself, or CD-ROM to hard drive? Do you have the hard drives on the onboard IDE controllers or on the Promise ATA66 controller? If they're on the onboard controllers, then try putting them on separate channels if they're not already. Having them on the same channel can slow down performance if you're copying from one drive to the other. Do the same if they're on the Promise controller. If they are on the Promise controller, then don't worry about the 686b southbridge since devices connnected to Promise won't use the southbridge anyway, unless of course you'r copying from a device that is connected to the onboard IDE controllers.

 

[Shooters]

By the way, exactly how slow are we talking here? If you're copying more than 1 gig of data, that's pretty hefty. When you're copying large amounts of data the read/writes heads on the drives are constantly transfering data. If you try to run another application then the heads have to jump back and forth between reading/writing the data and whatever application you're running which is going to cause a severe slow down in performance.

 

[ledzepp98]

after i made the post i realized i should have specified where everything is connected...

onboard ide1:
master - maxtor
slave - western digital

onboard ide2:
master - plextor cd-rw
slave - ls-120

promise ide1:
master - pioneer dvd
slave - none

promise ide2:
master - samsung 13gig (not listed in the rig description yet)
slave - none

it happens when copying from one drive to another. i'm not sure about large internal transfers (like one partition to another) or from cd-->hd since i haven't done that recently. at first i was thinking that it was becuase i am using the same ide channel when i copy from the maxtor to the western digital (or vice versa). however, it also happens when copying between the western digital and the samsung. i'm stumped...

 

[ledzepp98]

i see what you mean about the read/write heads... i'm not saying that the transfer itself is that slow...it seems about right. i guess maybe i'm expecting too much if i want to transfer a 1gig movie from one drive to another and multitask while doing it. even though the hard drive is working hard, should background stuff slow to an absolute crwal? i'm talking about just flipping between open windows taking 20 seconds or more, when it would normally take <1 second. this slowness continues after the transfer is done, until i refresh the screen and maximize stuff, etc...basically re-caching everything. am i crazy here?

 

[Shooters]

Hmmm.....I just tried copying a 1 gig file from my hard drive to itself, and flipping between windows was slower but definitely didn't take 20 seconds. I suppose it could be a 686b problem, but most of the stories I've heard involve data corruption and not necessarily a slow down in speed, and since you said that the transfer rate seems okay, I doubt it's the problem. Of course you can test this out by just copying a file from your Samsung drive onto itself since it's on the Promise controller and won't use the southbridge. Also, try temporarily replacing the Pioneer with another hard drive and see if you still get the same results by going from one drive to the other when they're both of the Promise Controller. Are your drives heavily fragmented? That could also be causing some problems.

 

[ledzepp98]

i never really thought about it until now...i'm doing a lot of rearranging of large files (divx/avi/mpeg mostly). when i get a chance i will shuffle devices around and see if it matters. also, now that i'm paying attention, that 20 second figure was a bit of an exaggeration...it's more like 5-10 seconds...but when you are used to &quot;click-->you're there&quot; and no waiting, 5-10 seconds feels like an eternity.

 

[Shooters]

but when you are used to &quot;click-->you're there&quot; and no waiting, 5-10 seconds feels like an eternity.

Hehehe.....I can totally understand that. If it's just like 5 seconds then I wouldn't really worry about it especially if you're running a lot of apps. Just arrange your drives so that they will perform well for what you do. For example, if you do a lot of transferring between the WD and the Maxtor then put them on separate channels, if you do a lot of on the fly burns then make sure you put your Plextor and Pioneer on different channels, etc etc etc. I'm sure you get the idea. Also, just make sure you keep your drives nice and defragmented and you should be a happy camper.