WD60EZRX speed dipping

[Remcroft]

Hi,
About a year ago I noticed the speed on my drive was dipping down to ~10MB/s. Since then it's not got any better/worse and there are no SMART errors. As far as I can tell no data loss and a clone was just succesful. I've now replaced the drive with a new one but am curious what's wrong with it and if there are any possible solutions?



Here you can see during the clone on the bits where the speed would drop it would be ~10MB/s for 32 seconds then it would shoot up to max read speed for 8 seconds and repeat. Like clockwork.



This is from 5 years ago when the drive was new and working fine.



I've tested the drive connected directly to the motherboard and in an external USB dock with the same results. Also tested it unmounted to rule out drive access during the test.

Any explaination or solution welcome, seems a really strange one.

Thanks.

[Remcroft]

Thanks for approving the topic, this isn't the first one I posted though. In the first one I explained how I already posted this issue on hddoracle and got some helpful replys but my response to them is still in the mod queue, so I found this place and decided to try here.

The helpfull people who responded on hddoracle said this is a weak head issue. Do you concur and is this something a novice could fix with a bit of help from your good selves? Ok probably a lot of help. If you could at least point me in the right direction to get me stareted I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

[HddDonorMarket]

You need logic scan and add slow sectors to defect list and regenerate translator with a proper data recovery tools.
I am already refurbishing many wd and toshiba drives like that .

[Remcroft]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Can Victoria do that? I ran it already with it set to ignor, results here:

https://images2.imgbox.com/cf/36/HKrXMmn8_o.jpg
https://images2.imgbox.com/a3/49/VbMELtII_o.jpg

Shall I run it again with it set to Remap?

Thanks.

[Remcroft]

Ok so I guess there's nothing i can do. What are the repercussions if I keep using it?

[HddDonorMarket]

Hddtune would stop if meet bad sector. Look like probably ( guessimg not serach sector by sector. Its scanning bye blocks ie 256 sector or different) bad sector in disk. You could use drive if don't mind sometimes very slow response. But future that slow parts could be bad
Don't use it for important data

[Remcroft]

Ok thanks.

What's the software your using in your other thread, is that what I need?

[Remcroft]

What's the secrecy over this magical software? I'm not going to go into business and become your competitor.. I just don't want to throw this drive in the bin

[Arch Stanton]

Secrecy? He literally mentions the tool he's using in that thread, no? "I am using MRT."

[HddDonorMarket]

Ok thanks.

What's the software your using in your other thread, is that what I need?

Look at second message. Using MRT hardware and it's software

[Remcroft]

Ok thanks, I presumed he was refering to an option in the software he was using. Had I googled MRT hdd recovery it would of been obvious. Apologies.

Looking up that hardware it's not an option because it costs more than a new drive, so I guess I need to give up now. Just curious why the drive has gone like this.. is it a head issue or has the platter surface degraded?

[Remcroft]

btw I formatted it and was supprised to see the writes seem unaffected but reads still slow. To me that's just odd that reads struggle but writes are ok. Can anyone explain why that is?

[fzabkar]

Writes are blind. The drive won't know if a write was successful until it attempts to read the data.

[Remcroft]

Interesting, thanks. Guess that's how this issue went undetedcted for so long as well.

[DR-Kiev]

5 years it is good term for hard disk drives nowdays. Mechanics is simply degrades.

[Remcroft]

I know your right, had to be the bigest one though didn't it, have many smaller ones that are a lot older and going strong still, guess I'm lucky overall haha.