Here we go again. I need HDD gurus help!

[tweakboy]

Ok I have a F4 320GB and one that is being RMAed.

Originally when I first got F4 I ran crystal mark and it was avg 118mbps and 115mbps write on first column of CrystalDiskMark

Many of my guru friends helped me with this and we figured out the drive was using 4KB cluster size, and the drive is specced to use 512K per cluster,

Soo I got Partition Magic and changed it to 512k and then I ran CrystalMark

I got 154mbps on read and 139mbps write on first column.

That hard drive eventually started dying and I RMAed it. Now with this drive I bought I put windows image on it and its 512k . I changed the to 512k then I did a create image,, then I brought it back to F4 from external and I get 118mbps what I used to get with my original one after prior to changing to 512k

reading says 512k per sector, Now why arent I getting the performance like 150mbps and 140mbps write . Its on 512k and Im trying to change it to 4KB then bring it back down to 512k but it wont let me do that, says not enough free space on drive. If I can somehow change it to 4KB then convert it to 512 I might get the performance back.

Second screenie is 4KB , the first on 512k after I converted it and it took up my performance by almost 40mbps. but that was the drive that got RMAed.

I dont know what else to try, I mean the drive is 512k sector ,it should give the performance of my first screenshot. The second screenshot is at 4KB cluster size.

What can I do here to get this drive performing up to par. Thank much in advance for your replys, Thanks all. gb and gg :awe:

 

[Russwinters]

Are you sure the drive they replaced the old one with is new?


could be a refurb.


disks can have random performance, some may perform at "full potential" and some may be bad eggs, and never fail but never perform what they are 100% capable of, this is the unfortunate side effect of a mechanical device, slight inconsistencies causing variable performance.


set it up as a secondary drive in your system, not the boot drive, and then run:

www.hddscan.com

click the button in the center, select surface tests, then select add test for read.

go down to the test list and double click it, change to map view and make sure you uncheck "disable dynamic update"

 

[tweakboy]

The drive I have now was bought brand new. There is on in RMA and I dont know when I will recieve that drive.

Ill just put the drive they send me and replace it and give this F4 to my dad. Thank you RussGuru for the response. Makes sense.