Hard drive suddenly slow

Question

Hello,
My internal hard drive got super slow today, I don't think I have done something what could cause this.
I've tested with hdparm -tT /dev/sdb, and the result was at about 100kb/s for cache and disk read, however, for my second hard drive it was around 12.000mb/s for cache, and 100mb/s for disk.
The disk in question is a Western Digital WD10EZRX.
If you need any extra information, just ask
EDIT:
smartctl -h /dev/sdb
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
smartctl -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-linux-3.16.4-1-ARCH] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green (AF, SATA 6Gb/s)
Device Model: WDC WD10EZRX-00A8LB0
Serial Number: WD-WMC1U1360255
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 206ac5e2e
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Fri Oct 10 21:18:22 2014 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (13260) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 146) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x30b5) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 140 132 021 Pre-fail Always - 3958
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2187
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 6412
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1458
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 170
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 147 147 000 Old_age Always - 159544
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 117 101 000 Old_age Always - 26
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 2
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.
Error 2 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 411 hours (17 days + 3 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.
After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
04 61 10 00 00 00 a0 Device Fault; Error: ABRT
Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
c6 00 10 00 00 00 a0 00 00:04:08.725 SET MULTIPLE MODE
ef 03 0c 00 00 00 a0 00 00:04:08.724 SET FEATURES [Set transfer mode]
b0 d8 01 01 4f c2 e0 00 00:03:53.305 SMART ENABLE OPERATIONS
Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 411 hours (17 days + 3 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.
After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
04 61 0c 00 00 00 a0 Device Fault; Error: ABRT
Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
ef 03 0c 00 00 00 a0 00 00:04:08.724 SET FEATURES [Set transfer mode]
b0 d8 01 01 4f c2 e0 00 00:03:53.305 SMART ENABLE OPERATIONS
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 444 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
Last edited by stephanvl (2014-10-10 19:36:18)

Answer 1

That's one of the intellipower green power drives that ramps speed up and down for power conservation and frequently parks: that's why you have a "Load_Cycle_Count" value of 159544 in your smartcl output. Perhaps it has an internal fault that smartctl cannot detect?
Western Digital has a freely available drive checking tool for DOS or (!) Windows - the software for the WD Green / GP drive is at...
http://support.wdc.com/product/download … =2&lang=en
http://support.wdc.com/product/download … =3&lang=en
If you have access to a Windows computer, you could take the drive to it and connect it via a free SATA port and then install and run the WD test from the Windows hard disk to see what it comes up with. The short test takes ~ 2minutes.
There are instructions on the above WD DOS version page about creating a bootable usb device under Windows using rufus and putting the DOS version onto it - if you cannot access a Windows machine, you could make a usb bootable device with something like UNetbootin with freedos and put the DOS version on to do the same thing.
Good luck!
Cheers
Paul.
Last edited by paulkerry (2014-10-10 21:12:06)