Slow WD SE hard drives?

[TJones2]

Took delivery on a WD5000AAKS 500gb WD drive this week. Tested it with HD Tune, and while I got decent throughput numbers, what surprised me was the access time. It was 19.1ms. Check with others online and found just about everyone who's bought this drive up until recently get 13ms. Even my older drives do better than this. So I tried the drive in another system to make sure it wasn't something in my computer causing it. Same result.

Then I asked others who bought recently and found four others who are getting the same result I am, 19ms. One person bought six of them, all exhibit the same slow performance. All had bought drives within the past couple of weeks.

Tried HD Tach, and got the same result as with HD Tune. Contacted WD via email a week ago, and again a few days ago, and no replies. Seems they did something to the drives. So, if you buy one of these and they're a newer batch, be sure to check them with HD Tune and report back.

 

[hclarkjr]

i just ran hd tune on my WD500AAKS and got the following results -
HD Tune: WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 38.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 71.3 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 59.4 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.4 ms
Burst Rate : 115.7 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.3%

 

[TJones2]

Originally posted by: hclarkjr
i just ran hd tune on my WD500AAKS and got the following results -
HD Tune: WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 38.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 71.3 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 59.4 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.4 ms
Burst Rate : 115.7 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.3%

Typical pre-late nov results. I strongly suspect we'll be seeing a lot more 19ms ones soon.

 

[hclarkjr]

is NCQ enabled?

 

[TJones2]

Nope.

 

[hclarkjr]

maybe try enabling that, i just ran hd tune on my RE2 and got these results -
HD Tune: WDC WD5000YS-01MPB1 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 35.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 71.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 57.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.8 ms
Burst Rate : 115.6 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 2.3%

 

[TJones2]

Unless I'm willing to reinstall Windows, that won't be an easy task. I've actually investigated this issue pretty thoroughly, and it does appear to be the more recent drives themselves. I've been checking with people who don't have NCQ enabled, there are those getting 13ms and those getting 19ms. The difference being whether they bought the drives in the past two weeks. Its also not a firmware issue as there are samples of both that use the same firmware.

 

[Ika]

I just ran my brand-spankin' new WD5000AAKS (inside a Fantom 500gb external HDD unit) through HDTune and this is what I got.



HD Tune: WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 31.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 33.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 33.0 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.3 ms
Burst Rate : 27.7 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 9.8%

 

[TJones2]

What was the manufacture date and place of manufacture if I may ask? BTW, you're throughput is rather low.

 

[TJones2]

For reference, this is mine:

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/1816/wdqz9.png

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would RMA, 19ms access time is way out of spec.

 

[TheVrolok]

There's an OEM WD5000AAKS sitting unformatted in my closet right now awaiting more parts for my new system. Once I get it assembled within the week I'll let you know what I get as a result. I'm a little dismayed to hear this news; especially since RMA'ing this one most likely won't be an option.

 

[TJones2]

I contacted my retailer about an RMA but they can't assure me it will be from a different (older) batch. The other option is WD, and they haven't even answered my week old email yet. And all the same, they offered another guy in the same boat as me a refurbished drive in exchange for our brand new drives...not acceptable. Might just pop it in an external enclosure and buy a new drive (Samsung or a Deathstar).

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: TJones2
I contacted my retailer about an RMA but they can't assure me it will be from a different (older) batch. The other option is WD, and they haven't even answered my week old email yet. And all the same, they offered another guy in the same boat as me a refurbished drive in exchange for our brand new drives...not acceptable. Might just pop it in an external enclosure and buy a new drive (Samsung or a Deathstar).

All of the HD companies ship refurbs for RMAs.

 

[TJones2]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: TJones2
I contacted my retailer about an RMA but they can't assure me it will be from a different (older) batch. The other option is WD, and they haven't even answered my week old email yet. And all the same, they offered another guy in the same boat as me a refurbished drive in exchange for our brand new drives...not acceptable. Might just pop it in an external enclosure and buy a new drive (Samsung or a Deathstar).

All of the HD companies ship refurbs for RMAs.

I know that. I paid $100 with tax and shipping for the drive, so its not really worth it to send it back on my dime only to get a refurb. I have no faith in refurbs. I'm just warning others that they might be in for an unwelcome surprise if they buy this drive.

 

[OdiN]

I ordered some recently. They are in a RAID array but got 13.5ms

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: TJones2
What was the manufacture date and place of manufacture if I may ask? BTW, you're throughput is rather low.

The throughput is low because it's running on USB (external). I haven't checked the date and place of manufacture; if it's on the label, I'll pop it open soon and let you know.

 

[John]

Here's mine running off a DFI NF4 SATA controller w/ NCQ disabled.

HD Tune: WDC WD5000AAKS-22TMA

Transfer Rate Minimum : 41.5 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 86.9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 69.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.7 ms
Burst Rate : 120.4 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 5.0%

 

[TJones2]

Again, I'd expect ALL WD5000AAKS drives to get 13ms that are more than two weeks old. More drives getting 19ms are likely to show up in the coming weeks, if my theory is correct. Everyone who has contacted me having drives running 19ms bought theirs in the past couple weeks.

BTW, what would most of you do? I paid $80 for it, cost $10 to ship it and i'll probably have to pay to ship it back. Maybe I should just keep it and use it as an external device? So far, it seems faster than my old Seagate 7002.10. What do you guys think? I'll then replace it with an Hitachi Deathstar.

 

[Ika]

Hmm. Guess the date on my drive is 24 Sept 2007. Scratch that.

 

[soccerballtux]

Why do people have NCQ turned off?

 

[TJones2]

I'm pretty sure at this point that the effected drives where made after about October 20th. Mine was made Oct 24th, others reporting the problem were made Oct 30th.

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Why do people have NCQ turned off?

Because it doesn't make much difference on a desktop and it takes some effort to activate it especially if you already have windows installed (XP that is, not Vista).

 

[dderolph]

May I ask, you're talking about SATA drives here? And, NCQ only applies to SATA, right?

NVM, I know the answer now.

 

[Kinnara]

Try disabling Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM).

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah I was going to suggest that, may be a new AAM setting that's bogging it down. Try either disabling AAM or if this option isn't available setting it to the highest performance setting.