Games on HDD run slower suddenly

[Saminator28]

So I download whatever games that I play more on SSD, but the problem is that I don’t have enough space to fit them all there. My HDD used to be able to play games without lag, but suddenly the download speed dropped, the HDD throttles a lot, and even the performance of the game is worse. What might’ve caused this and how can I fix it?

[Elucidator]

I'd recommend checking the s.m.a.r.t. status and see if your disk is still healthy.
I also recommend running defragmentation on the hdd.

[Saminator28]

Originally posted by Elucidator:

I'd recommend checking the s.m.a.r.t. status and see if your disk is still healthy.
I also recommend running defragmentation on the hdd.

I can defragment but how do I check the s.m.a.r.t. status? Where is that?

[crunchyfrog]

There's your problem right there.

If you don't have enough space then that's why it's going slow.

You need to remmeber a few things for using Steam.

First off, games are encrypted and compressed. This means that when you donwload you MUST allow up to THREE times the total file size so it can unpack, sort and write the data. Also you need to NOT go over 90% usage of your install drive.

So for example, if you have a 1TB drive, and you've used 800GB then you've used 80%. You have 100GB left to play with. But if you then go to download a 80GB game, you won't have enough.

On top of this you need to be awqare that all games behave differently too, and games will typically download a chunk, then unpack. You can see this form the downloads graph.

So it isn't your internet connection that determines the speed, as it's down to a combination of your I/O, RAM, CPU, hard drive and so on. You can see thsi from Windows Task Manager.

Bottom line if you're running out of space either start being more diligent in uninstalling games, or simply buy another drive. I run USB drives and the last one I bought was £40 off Amazon for a 2TB one.

[Saminator28]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

There's your problem right there.

If you don't have enough space then that's why it's going slow.

You need to remmeber a few things for using Steam.

First off, games are encrypted and compressed. This means that when you donwload you MUST allow up to THREE times the total file size so it can unpack, sort and write the data. Also you need to NOT go over 90% usage of your install drive.

So for example, if you have a 1TB drive, and you've used 800GB then you've used 80%. You have 100GB left to play with. But if you then go to download a 80GB game, you won't have enough.
On top of this you need to be awqare that all games behave differently too, and games will typically download a chunk, then unpack. You can see this form the downloads graph.

So it isn't your internet connection that determines the speed, as it's down to a combination of your I/O, RAM, CPU, hard drive and so on. You can see thsi from Windows Task Manager.

Bottom line if you're running out of space either start being more diligent in uninstalling games, or simply buy another drive. I run USB drives and the last one I bought was £40 off Amazon for a 2TB one.

No. My HDD has a lot of space. But my SSD doesn’t. Games run good on SSD but I just don’t have enough on my SSD, but my HDD still runs slow with a lot of space. That’s what’s happening.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

If you do a lot of writes, and overwrites to HDD, this can cause apps to run slower, as it seeking data on a spinning drive. Defrag can help speed things up by moving all data to their respective places shorting the seek time on HDD.

Now there no way HDD will ever be fast as SSD due to the fact they have basically no seek really, they're don't have moving parts, it's flash memory on the fly, so there nothing to wait on really. HDD you have the header where it reads the spinning plates to collect all the data.

[Saminator28]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

If you do a lot of writes, and overwrites to HDD, this can cause apps to run slower, as it seeking data on a spinning drive. Defrag can help speed things up by moving all data to their respective places shorting the seek time on HDD.

Now there no way HDD will ever be fast as SSD due to the fact they have basically no seek really, they're don't have moving parts, it's flash memory on the fly, so there nothing to wait on really. HDD you have the header where it reads the spinning plates to collect all the data.

Alright thanks so much! I'll defrag it now.

[Elucidator]

use crystaldiskinfo for the smart info
yes, defrag the drive.
it will make it a bit faster temporarily.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

I also think it wouldn't hurt to do health check on disk, as well do a sector check for any bad sectors, or errors.

[Viking2121]

Yeah Crystal Disk info will tell you the status but its not always going to tell you if its having issues, I also suggest you Download Crystal Disk Mark and test the speed of the drive, if its low, like sub 100mb/s read and writes I would say the drive is on its way out.

Crystal Disk Mark = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Crystal Disk Info = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Good Luck!

[Saminator28]

Originally posted by Viking2121:

Yeah Crystal Disk info will tell you the status but its not always going to tell you if its having issues, I also suggest you Download Crystal Disk Mark and test the speed of the drive, if its low, like sub 100mb/s read and writes I would say the drive is on its way out.

Crystal Disk Mark = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Crystal Disk Info = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Good Luck!

HDD was 177mb/s so that could be why.

[Viking2121]

Originally posted by Saminator28:

Originally posted by Viking2121:

Yeah Crystal Disk info will tell you the status but its not always going to tell you if its having issues, I also suggest you Download Crystal Disk Mark and test the speed of the drive, if its low, like sub 100mb/s read and writes I would say the drive is on its way out.

Crystal Disk Mark = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Crystal Disk Info = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Good Luck!

HDD was 177mb/s so that could be why.

177 is kind of low, but not where I'd think would be to much of a problem, that about what a 5400 3.5 inch drive would get or an older 7200rpm drive with low cache.

What motherboard or CPU do you have, Is it an older system? Some older pre 2013ish systems had some Sata II's and some Sata III's

[Saminator28]

Originally posted by Viking2121:

Originally posted by Saminator28:

HDD was 177mb/s so that could be why.

177 is kind of low, but not where I'd think would be to much of a problem, that about what a 5400 3.5 inch drive would get or an older 7200rpm drive with low cache.

What motherboard or CPU do you have, Is it an older system? Some older pre 2013ish systems had some Sata II's and some Sata III's

That’s odd, I built my PC in November 2019. I have an i5 9600k and a MSI Z390-A PRO (MS-7B98) motherboard

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by Saminator28:

Originally posted by Viking2121:

Yeah Crystal Disk info will tell you the status but its not always going to tell you if its having issues, I also suggest you Download Crystal Disk Mark and test the speed of the drive, if its low, like sub 100mb/s read and writes I would say the drive is on its way out.

Crystal Disk Mark = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Crystal Disk Info = https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

Good Luck!

HDD was 177mb/s so that could be why.

What HDD is this if you know the model? Also did you left it as default when did test?

Originally posted by Viking2121:

Originally posted by Saminator28:

HDD was 177mb/s so that could be why.

177 is kind of low, but not where I'd think would be to much of a problem, that about what a 5400 3.5 inch drive would get or an older 7200rpm drive with low cache.

What motherboard or CPU do you have, Is it an older system? Some older pre 2013ish systems had some Sata II's and some Sata III's

Uh no that seem pretty good for HDD, because they can't make full use of sata part unless they have huge enough cache which is unlikely, and several headers those are like really pricy huge storage HDD.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Saminator28:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

There's your problem right there.

If you don't have enough space then that's why it's going slow.

You need to remmeber a few things for using Steam.

First off, games are encrypted and compressed. This means that when you donwload you MUST allow up to THREE times the total file size so it can unpack, sort and write the data. Also you need to NOT go over 90% usage of your install drive.

So for example, if you have a 1TB drive, and you've used 800GB then you've used 80%. You have 100GB left to play with. But if you then go to download a 80GB game, you won't have enough.
On top of this you need to be awqare that all games behave differently too, and games will typically download a chunk, then unpack. You can see this form the downloads graph.

So it isn't your internet connection that determines the speed, as it's down to a combination of your I/O, RAM, CPU, hard drive and so on. You can see thsi from Windows Task Manager.

Bottom line if you're running out of space either start being more diligent in uninstalling games, or simply buy another drive. I run USB drives and the last one I bought was £40 off Amazon for a 2TB one.

No. My HDD has a lot of space. But my SSD doesn’t. Games run good on SSD but I just don’t have enough on my SSD, but my HDD still runs slow with a lot of space. That’s what’s happening.

Then you're bottlenckecing.

I note you haven't answered the other points. What does the Task Mabger say as to your system resources?

[lolschrauber]

What did the smart values reveal though? I once had a 1 y/o drive that was dying. Microstutters and long loading times in games were the result.