Tech Support Forum - View Single Post - Hard Drive in External USB 2.0 Enclosure Download Lag

Shard413 · 01-05-2008, 01:08 PM

Quick Stats:
Athlon 64 3000+
1GB DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro (up to date on patches as far as I know)
Seagate Ultra ATA/100 80 GB (using NTFS)

The Drive in question:
Seagate Ultra ATA/100 250 GB (using NTFS) in a generic CompUSA USB 2.0 3.5" External Hard Drive Enclosure

I put this drive together myself about 9 months ago, primarily as a storage dump for the media cluttering my internal drive. I shifted over 40 GBs to it the first day flawlessly at high speeds (50-100 MBPS), and didn't think much of it. More files have accumulated over time; music, video, photos, etc., and there now is about 100 GB on it. Only recently did I start storing some larger video files (~150 MB each) on it, when I began to notice a problem. When accessing either the larger video files or lengthy playlists (using Media Player Classic and WinAmp, respectively), I would get choppy/skipping playback. Additionally, I was recently given a iPod Shuffle, and when attempting to load files to it, the process was extremely slow (~1 MBPS). I quickly found that taking any file from the external back to my internal drive also went slowly, but I was still able to load files onto the external drive, either from the internal drive or internet downloads, at the usual high speeds. The only solution I've come up with was possible interference from my active virus protection (avast! Home Edition), but disabling it had no effect. As a possible added quirk, the drive has always been listed as a "local" drive by windows, not "removable storage" like every USB flash drive I've used on this PC (maybe that's normal, just struck me as odd).

Any advice/help/guesses would very welcome, thanks in advance.

01-05-2008, 01:08 PM	#1 (permalink)
Shard413 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 5 OS: XP Pro	Hard Drive in External USB 2.0 Enclosure Download Lag Quick Stats: Athlon 64 3000+ 1GB DDR RAM Windows XP Pro (up to date on patches as far as I know) Seagate Ultra ATA/100 80 GB (using NTFS) The Drive in question: Seagate Ultra ATA/100 250 GB (using NTFS) in a generic CompUSA USB 2.0 3.5" External Hard Drive Enclosure I put this drive together myself about 9 months ago, primarily as a storage dump for the media cluttering my internal drive. I shifted over 40 GBs to it the first day flawlessly at high speeds (50-100 MBPS), and didn't think much of it. More files have accumulated over time; music, video, photos, etc., and there now is about 100 GB on it. Only recently did I start storing some larger video files (~150 MB each) on it, when I began to notice a problem. When accessing either the larger video files or lengthy playlists (using Media Player Classic and WinAmp, respectively), I would get choppy/skipping playback. Additionally, I was recently given a iPod Shuffle, and when attempting to load files to it, the process was extremely slow (~1 MBPS). I quickly found that taking any file from the external back to my internal drive also went slowly, but I was still able to load files onto the external drive, either from the internal drive or internet downloads, at the usual high speeds. The only solution I've come up with was possible interference from my active virus protection (avast! Home Edition), but disabling it had no effect. As a possible added quirk, the drive has always been listed as a "local" drive by windows, not "removable storage" like every USB flash drive I've used on this PC (maybe that's normal, just struck me as odd). Any advice/help/guesses would very welcome, thanks in advance. Last edited by Shard413; 01-05-2008 at 01:10 PM.