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Slow external HDD

1

10-Dee-Q

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 10, 2006
511
32
Bandung, West Java, Indonesia & Singapore
hi i just bought a seagate external HDD 1TB
but when i tried to copy my file to the drive it's slow..
and also when i tried to copy a file from the external to internal on my MBP its slow as well

i don't know how slow it is but for example when i watched a 720p MKV from the external HDD using VLC it sttuters about every 10-20 seconds,
is that normal ?

i dont think thats the External HDD fault as i tried using my friend's external HDD for watching a 720pMKV, it sttuters as well.

can somebody help me ?
or the speed od USB 2.0 is to slow to trasnsfer the 720p MKV file ?

1 more thing that i noticed is that everytime i plug an eexternal HDD my spotlight try to "index" it, and i don't need that function, maybe that's the culprit ?
but how do i set it so that my spotlight wont try to indexing the external HDD ?

thank you.
 
10-Dee-Q said:
...
i don't know how slow it is but for example when i watched a 720p MKV from the external HDD using VLC it sttuters about every 10-20 seconds,
is that normal ?
or the speed od USB 2.0 is to slow to trasnsfer the 720p MKV file ?
Click to expand...
No, 720p or 1080p .mkv files don't have a bitrate high enough to fully saturate the USB 2.0 interface, which offers 30 to 37 MB/s.

1 more thing that i noticed is that everytime i plug an eexternal HDD my spotlight try to "index" it, and i don't need that function, maybe that's the culprit ?
but how do i set it so that my spotlight wont try to indexing the external HDD ?
thank you.
Click to expand...

System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy and add the HDD to that list.



Have you tried AJA System Test yet to benchmark your HDD?
 
ooops okay i didn't see it just now :p

my MBP comes with 2 x 2GB ram, the brand is hynix if i'm not mistaken
then i bought this corsair CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 http://www.corsair.com/memory/mac-m...-ddr3-sodimm-memory-kit-cmsa8gx3m2a106c7.html

its the correct DDR3 PC 8500 1066 CL7

thats the only thing that i upgraded

thats should be okay right ?

how to check wheter i have a bad ram or not ?

----------

Mac Book Pro 5.3 15" core 2 duo 2.66Ghz (late 2009 Model)
 
10-Dee-Q said:
i'm using VLC
no the file is fine if its played off the internal HDD
the problem only occurs if its on external HDD
Click to expand...

What did AJA System Test report then?

You could also analyse the .mkv file via VideoSpec (I prefer that, though it hasn't been updated since 11/2009), MediaInfo Mac (10/2010) or MediaInfo (4/2011, there is a Mac OS X version to download, VideoSpec and MediaInfo Mac are using the same library as MediaInfo) and attach the report to your next post.
 
10-Dee-Q said:
so how do i fix it ?
he drive seems to be normal when attach to my friens MBP

:(
Click to expand...

Run AJA System Test again to verify, you could also try XBench. But other than that, I don't know how to fix it, only to measure it.
Maybe copy a large file to the HDD and look under Disk Activity in Activity Monitor.

Btw, have you checked the .mkv file with one of the tools I recommended yet?
 
If you can transfer the data off the external you could try to reformat it. You could also try to repair the disk with Diskwarrior or Disk Utility prior to doing that. Other wise it could be a bad cable, bad I/O port or faulty (almost dying) hard drive.
 
the mainstream shopping habit...

10-Dee-Q said:
hi i just bought a seagate external HDD 1TB
but when i tried to copy my file to the drive it's slow..
and also when i tried to copy a file from the external to internal on my MBP its slow as well

i don't know how slow it is but for example when i watched a 720p MKV from the external HDD using VLC it sttuters about every 10-20 seconds,
is that normal ?

i dont think thats the External HDD fault as i tried using my friend's external HDD for watching a 720pMKV, it sttuters as well.

can somebody help me ?
or the speed od USB 2.0 is to slow to trasnsfer the 720p MKV file ?

1 more thing that i noticed is that everytime i plug an eexternal HDD my spotlight try to "index" it, and i don't need that function, maybe that's the culprit ?
but how do i set it so that my spotlight wont try to indexing the external HDD ?

thank you.
Click to expand...



The biggest problem with external HD's are the hard competition and price points of the retailer to make profit. If you bought your external HD just around the corner at some retailer, you usually end up with a very bad quality. I bet you got a "good deal" below 100 bucks.

This means a cheap HD controller, a slow 5400 rpm hd with 8 MB cache max and a cheap china plastic case body with toxic lead paint. Of course you got no FW 800, no FW400, no SATA, no fast controller - so what do you expect?

You might as well complain about a One Dollar Burger (sales price!) at xxx in terms of missing quality, missing nutritional value, missing organic origins and monsanto included poisons..

If your external HD price tag was below 70 dollars, there is a high chance your HD was assembled by a 5 year old that works a 16 hour shift at Foxconn, living in a dumpster.
 
AlexMaximus said:
The biggest problem with external HD's are the hard competition and price points of the retailer to make profit. If you bought your external HD just around the corner at some retailer, you usually end up with a very bad quality. I bet you got a "good deal" below 100 bucks.

This means a cheap HD controller, a slow 5400 rpm hd with 8 MB cache max and a cheap china plastic case body with toxic lead paint. Of course you got no FW 800, no FW400, no SATA, no fast controller - so what do you expect?

You might as well complain about a One Dollar Burger (sales price!) at xxx in terms of missing quality, missing nutritional value, missing organic origins and monsanto included poisons..

If your external HD price tag was below 70 dollars, there is a high chance your HD was assembled by a 5 year old that works a 16 hour shift at Foxconn, living in a dumpster.
Click to expand...

Politcal Much??
 
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, but you should try a new cable, and if that doesn't work then I would order an enclosure only (with no drive) and take that drive apart and put it in the new enclosure. Your best bet on a mac is to get a firewire one, you will see speeds of 60+ on the firewire drives. Before spending any more money though you should also see if you can borrow a friend's USB drive and check it with AJA as well. If you're getting the same abysmal results (especially the 1mbs write) then you may have a USB issue on your system. BTW when you run AJA make sure you run it several times and get an average sample of the results.

The RAM would not be causing these issues, but if you're paranoid about it, take the new RAM out and put the old RAM back in, it's not that hard to change out the ram.
 
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