Slow File Movement?

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

I have an i5 760 @ 3.5GHz.

When I move files they sometimes start off going really fast, over 100MBps but then it’ll slow to like 20MBps. Why would it be able to start off transferring really quickly and then in a few seconds slow to a crawl?

Edit: Also, since I already made this thread.

When I download stuff directly, as in using an internet browser, it downloads rather slowly, it could get as low as 20kBps. When I download using Steam or through bittorrent, though, it can get up to 1MBps. Any solution for that?

#2

Moving files? That depends on your HDD, not your CPU.

Also, your browser might be internet explorer.

#3

Actually, IE9 is the fastest browser. Not that it actually matters, it’s useless anyways.

#4

Usually when my files get slow as fuck.
I :

Check the task manager for the process ‘explorer.exe’
THAT is the system that runs your Desktop.

Sometimes, THAT system gets a stick up its ass, and eats up to 50 CPU.
THAT can slowdown pretty much everything. Even download/performance/power.

Check that first.
Is it eating up ludacris CPU?

#5

Sounds like the initial estimate is based upon what was in memory at the time (fast) and the rest is how long it takes to read and write to the output. This depends on many things, your hard disk being one of them, the Bus that the Hard Disk is using to transport data is also a factor, it’s unlikely you have less than a cap of 150MB/s, but if it’s an old IDE drive it may be possible. The other factor may be the write destination. If this is slow (most cheapie USB flash drives are) there’s nothing you can do about that bar coughing up for some new kit!

The reason that downloads can be slow sometimes is not related to your browser. Check your Router doesn’t have a QOS (Quality Of Service) restriction on web browsers/http traffic. It could also be simply related to the host you are communicating with - if it’s max upload speed is 20kB/s that’s as fast as you’d be able to download from it.

Hope this helps.

Matt.

#6

Also depends on the type of file you are moving, if you are moving many small files it will take a lot of time. There is a certain overhead with moving a file, if you are moving many you spend a higher percentage time doing the overhead tasks and not actually transferring the files. Hence slower speed, a big file has a lower percentage overhead and so the transfer is faster.

As to the internet, you can only download as fast as the server can upload as snoogins says. Steam have pretty high speed servers compared to what some home webserver will.

#7

I’ll have to check which kind of HDD I have then. I got it OEM, it’s some kind of WD one I think. I’ll be more specific after I can actually check. It’s also whatever HDD are generally attached to, SATA or something.

I’m using Firefox for the downloads and the slow downloading happens everywhere, like on ModDB which I would think would have a rather quick upload rate.

#8

20MB/s??? Fuck your lucky. Mine stays on 4MB/s at all times. :frowning:

#9

Fuck his what?

#10

That’s why you should use proper grammar and punctuations.

#11

HDD read and write access is traditionally a huge bottleneck in computing; this is why SSD’s are making such a stir. My guess - made with relatively minimal knowledge of how a hard drive actually works - is that you’re filling up your memory and/or your page file on your hard drive, which is slowing the process. How much RAM have you got?

Also, are you talking about moving files from a location on one drive to another drive, or between drives? Or are you talking about copying files from one location on a drive to another location? In my experience, moving a file from one spot on one drive to another spot on the same drive should take no time at all, as nothing actually has to be moved; you just have to slightly restructure your file hierarchy so that the computer “knows” that the location of the file on the drive is now associated with a different spot int the file hierarchy.

#12

Fuck his lucky, obviously. Gotta read, bro.

#13

I would love to fuck Jack Freeman’s lucky.

#14

I have 8GBs of RAM. And as far as I’ve noticed it affects all the types of moving you’ve listed. The thing that sparked me creating this thread though was unraring a file. I’m not sure it that’s the same thing or not. I’ll test actually moving/copying something to give you some specifics.

Edit: Hm, you’re right. I just moved my Call of Pripyat backup folder to a different place and it was pretty much instantaneous. That was only 1GB though :confused: . I don’t feel like moving shit around right now. I’ll reply again when I have some example.

#15

If you cut and paste, it doesn’t actually move the file on your HDD. You need to copy and paste to test that.
(cut/paste just changes the file that tells Windows where your stuff is)

#16

Well, unarchiving a compressed file is completely different than moving files around. That’s a processor-intensive task. I’m only familiar with the latest generation of Intel chips, but I asume the i5 you have still has four cores? If that’s the case, then you have four threads, and unarchiving shouldn’t be a huge deal.

Unless you’re still using that “evaluation copy” of WinRar that’s been floating around for like at least a decade. Dump that in favor of 7Zip, which is multithreaded, and you should see some gains.

#17

I was using 7zip.

#18

Basically, if you´re moving files, spindle hdds (all except ssd) take time to spin up, so, the bigger the file, the faster it can go, if you´re moving say 2000 files of no more than 1 or 2mb or something like that, say photos, it is normal for the transfer rate to be slow. If it makes you feel safer though, you can always run a disk check to make sure it ain´t damaged but I doubt it aniway.

As for download speeds of the internet, is it always slow?, if only some times have in mind that the download speed isn´t so much about what your connection is capable of but more about the avaliable bandwith from the server on the other side.

#19

It typically is slow but I guess it’s what you say because It’s not always. I just downloaded a file yesterday and it was going at 1MBps. Typically on Moddb is is slow though :frowning: . And a few other places. Guess it’s their problem though, not mine.

#20

Yeah that sounds about right mate, normally most download sites, unless they have a premium subscription (like fileplanet) have their servers capped, I do the same on cd-2-dvd.com, this is provide fair use for everyone as no matter how good the connection is on a server, there´s only so much bandwith to go around : )

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