how to measure and enhance the HDD access speed?

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G

Guest

Hi
I would like to know how I can measure the data read/write speeds of my PC
hard disk.How to check whether it is operating in PIO or UDMA mode? What are
the ways to enhance on this speed apart from disk defragmentation?
 
David said:
Hi
I would like to know how I can measure the data read/write speeds of my PC
hard disk.How to check whether it is operating in PIO or UDMA mode? What are
the ways to enhance on this speed apart from disk defragmentation?
Click to expand...

To measure the speed of your HD, I suggest HDtach, from here:
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach
The free version doesn't do writes, so it is safe.

HDtune seems to give the same results, but I've used HDtach a lot.
 
To check the operating mode of the drive, right click on My
Computer. Click on Manage. Click on Device Manager. Click
on the + mark by IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Right click on
the Primary IDE Channel. Left click on Advanced Settings
tab. You should see the Transfer Mode: of DMA if available
selected. If a device is attached the Current Transfer Mode
should be the highest DMA or PIO mode that is available for
the device. If it is lower than what it should be (PIO
instead of DMA) you can click on the dropdown arrow on the
Transfer mode line and select a higher setting.

If after rebooting the system and using the drive for a
period of time it reverts to a lower setting the drive is
having repeated access errors and should be replaced.

You can check the Secondary channel devices also.
 
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