Utorrent drive buffer torrent client download faster than harddrive

Currently I have a 120GB Samsung 830 system drive and an old 2008-ish 500GB WD Blue (WD5000AAKS) for downloads and stuff like videos. I also have a 500mbps /150mbps internet connection and a major problem: when I download large files my hard drive becomes unresponsive and aborts the download as soon as the dl speed reaches 60-65 MB/s, regardless of where I download from or what protocol is being used (Steam, Ubishop, torrent)
If i limit the max download speed to 45MB/s, then everything is ok, no more cancelled downloads no more unresponsive HDD, but doesn't happen when I download the same files, at the same speed to my SSD. Personally I don't like either of the two solutions. I don't want to keep downloading to my SSD or limiting the speed from 60MB/s to 45MB/s. Yes I know, 45MB/s is a good speed, but if I'm paying for 60, then I want to be able to use it.

What i tried so far:
* Checked HDD for bad sectors - none
* Defragmented HDD - no improvement
* Replaced SATA cable - no improvement
* Changed SATA port - no improvement
* Updated to latest drivers - no improvement
* Re-installed OS from scratch, upgraded to Win 8.1 Pro in the meantime - no improvement

i5-2500k|CM Hyper 212 EVO|Asus Sabertooth Z77|G.Skill Sniper 16GB XMP|Asus GTX780 DCU2OC|Asus Xonar DGX|CM V850|Samsung 840 EVO|Samsung M3 USB3.0|Asus SDRW-08|Akasa ICR-07|CM 690-II|Asus VH242H

Have you checked the system event log for any HDD-related errors? What exactly does the error message say when the download fails?

If it was just a matter of the drive not keeping up, the download would throttle itself; there's something strange going on here.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Haven't checked the event log. Most of the times the program I download with (Steam, Uplay or uTorrent) just becomes unresponsive, displays the "(Not responding)" message in the titlebar, it becomes inactive and eventually crashes without any message. But rarely it displays a weird message like "Windows ran out of virtual memory [amount of memory]". Tried it with page file enabled on hdd and ssd too, but it made no difference. As I mentioned before, If I set the SSD for download location then it's no problem. I can download at 65MB/s without a hitch. I successfuly copied a 26GB iso file from the SSD to the HDD with an average write speed of 54 MB/s, which is 10MB/s less than my download speed. Is my HDD too slow? Is the 16MB buffer not enough?

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Do you have any tweaks or third-party "optimization" tools that you're using? This sounds like something is interfering with Windows' ability to properly manage its virtual memory.

When you re-enabled the pagefile, did you reboot before trying the download again? How much RAM do you have, and how large did you make the pagefile? Windows really does expect a pagefile; to eliminate one variable from the investigation, I strongly suggest that you leave the pagefile enabled until we've got this sorted out.

Cache size of the drive is irrelevant.

Please check your event logs and report back any warnings/errors which appear to be related to the hard drive or virtual memory.

Are you seeing any other system stability issues, or just this one problem with fast downloads?

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Try switching to an entirely different network adapter. For example, if you're using WiFi, switch to Ethernet and see if it happens again. If it doesn't happen, it could be the driver or chipset of the network device you are using.

I ran into a similar issue with a system using a D-Link Wireless-G PCI card with an Atheros chipset. The card ran completely fine in my system, but when I loaned it to my brother, it would freeze/auto-reboot the system during downloads. At first I thought it was heat, some motherboard driver, HD issue, etc., but no - it was a damn network card.

bjm wrote:

Try switching to an entirely different network adapter. For example, if you're using WiFi, switch to Ethernet and see if it happens again. If it doesn't happen, it could be the driver or chipset of the network device you are using.

Interesting theory, but seems to be a bit of a longshot to me. I'm having a hard time imagining a malfunctioning network adapter exhausting the VM pool. Still, this is probably worth a try.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

just brew it! wrote:

Do you have any tweaks or third-party "optimization" tools that you're using? This sounds like something is interfering with Windows' ability to properly manage its virtual memory.

When you re-enabled the pagefile, did you reboot before trying the download again? How much RAM do you have, and how large did you make the pagefile? Windows really does expect a pagefile; to eliminate one variable from the investigation, I strongly suggest that you leave the pagefile enabled until we've got this sorted out.

Cache size of the drive is irrelevant.

Please check your event logs and report back any warnings/errors which appear to be related to the hard drive or virtual memory.

Are you seeing any other system stability issues, or just this one problem with fast downloads?

No tweaks, never was a fan of so called optimization tools. My PC has 8GB of RAM. I started with letting windows automatically allocate pagefile size, after that I manually set a 4GB pagefile and increased it to 32GB by increments of 4GB, with multiple restarts and shut downs. I also set the OS to delete the pagefile after each shut down to see if that makes any difference. (Win doesn't delete the page file by default)
If you can, please elaborate why hdd buffer size is irrelevant.
Never had any other stability issues with the OS since Win7. Now I'm on Win 8.1 and it's perfectly fine. No bsod, no other crashes. Let me clarify that when the download crashes, only the HDD becomes unresponsive for a few seconds and not the OS (and the SSD it's installed on) Everything installed on the SSD still works fine.

bjm wrote:

Try switching to an entirely different network adapter. For example, if you're using WiFi, switch to Ethernet and see if it happens again. If it doesn't happen, it could be the driver or chipset of the network device you are using.

I ran into a similar issue with a system using a D-Link Wireless-G PCI card with an Atheros chipset. The card ran completely fine in my system, but when I loaned it to my brother, it would freeze/auto-reboot the system during downloads. At first I thought it was heat, some motherboard driver, HD issue, etc., but no - it was a damn network card.

There's only the 1Gbps Ethernet controller by Realtek on the motherboard. There's no need for a wireless adapter since this is a desktop PC. My PC is connected to a TP-Link WDR3600 router via a cat-5e ethernet cable, but I don't think this is relevant, since the SSD does not become unresponsive when downloading directly to it. The problem either lies with the pagefile allocation, the hdd itself or maybe the SATA controller.

i5-2500k|CM Hyper 212 EVO|Asus Sabertooth Z77|G.Skill Sniper 16GB XMP|Asus GTX780 DCU2OC|Asus Xonar DGX|CM V850|Samsung 840 EVO|Samsung M3 USB3.0|Asus SDRW-08|Akasa ICR-07|CM 690-II|Asus VH242H

you mentioned changing sata slot by that did u mean a different sata controller if not maybe worth a try?
from my experience this sort of thing only happens when i load a huge torrent it take time to allocate all that to the drive at which point the torrent program freezes and i have to wait for it to get over
and download HDTUNE to check drive performance of the HDD to give you an idea of how well it does in transfers

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HDD cache size is irrelevant because what matters in this case is the drive's performance on streaming writes. The size of the HDD's cache has minimal effect on this. Furthermore, even if the drive was choking on too much incoming data, this should not be capable of causing issues with Windows' VM subsystem.

If you are still running out of virtual memory even when you have a decent-sized pagefile allocated, then the most likely culprit is that some piece of software is misbehaving. This is puzzling, however, since you've indicated that it is happening regardless of what download client you are using. (That's why I asked about 3rd party "optimization" tools -- I was looking for a common factor.)

Try running a download, while keeping the Task Manager process list (sorted by memory usage) open. Maybe we will be able to tell if there's a specific process hogging all of the virtual memory.

And (for the 3rd time), please check your system event logs! They may contain some clues.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Just a general tip - leave Windows virtual memory settings alone and just leave them at default. The days of it being beneficial to tweak them are long gone, post-XP Windows versions are good at managing virtual memory as needed.

just brew it! wrote:

HDD cache size is irrelevant because what matters in this case is the drive's performance on streaming writes. The size of the HDD's cache has minimal effect on this. Furthermore, even if the drive was choking on too much incoming data, this should not be capable of causing issues with Windows' VM subsystem.

If you are still running out of virtual memory even when you have a decent-sized pagefile allocated, then the most likely culprit is that some piece of software is misbehaving. This is puzzling, however, since you've indicated that it is happening regardless of what download client you are using. (That's why I asked about 3rd party "optimization" tools -- I was looking for a common factor.)

Try running a download, while keeping the Task Manager process list (sorted by memory usage) open. Maybe we will be able to tell if there's a specific process hogging all of the virtual memory.

And (for the 3rd time), please check your system event logs! They may contain some clues.

Hardware events - 0
Two software errors got recorded today, the first one caused by PotPlayerMini64.exe. It's what I watch movies with. The program just froze when I wanted to resume watching a movie from where I left off. Restarting the movie solved the problem. The second one was "The Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service service depends on the Windows Search service which failed to start because of the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it"

BUT

while testing with HDTune the following error popped up which is not recorded in the event viewer:

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Sounds really bizarre. Check the Windows Logs as JBI mentioned, but you've done a clean reinstall and the other drive is not affected. I don't quite understand why a download would exceed a certain speed and cause issues, whereas a drive-to-drive copy (with an SSD capable of obliterating that speed) would throttle itself and be okay. The downloads should also throttle if the drive can't sustain the speed. All I can come up with is that it's some sort of error on the HDD's controller board.

It sounds like it might be time for a new drive anyhow. I would grab something of the 2-3TB variety and put it through a bunch of tests with the old 500GB still connected.

roadkill1 wrote:

while testing with HDTune the following error popped up which is not recorded in the event viewer:

Time to retire the drive.

While I am still having a hard time imagining how a failing hard drive could cause a download to chew up all of your virtual memory, the HDTune error really does seem to point to a hardware problem. I'm gonna agree with The Egg here -- the symptoms are bizarre and somewhat contradictory, but the next logical step is probably to try a different HDD.

I still think monitoring process memory usage while the download proceeds is a worthwhile experiment as well. Since that costs you nothing, I'd try that before replacing the drive.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

The virtual memory related message popped up only a few times, quite rarely actually, as I mentioned in my 2nd post. But the hanging/freezing/crashing issue a[[eared constantly if I hadn't capped the download speed manually. BTW, I thought that drive-to-drive copying with no issues were weird too...

Anyways, Thank You guys for all the advice, I'm going to monitor memory hogging processes with uncapped dl speed tomorrow. Having bought the drive back in 2008 I'm not even surprised it's starting to show it's age. Now if you don't mind I'm going to ask you which hdd you recommend to keep up with downloads, low noise, low failure rate and eventually an upgrade to 1000 mbps?

i5-2500k|CM Hyper 212 EVO|Asus Sabertooth Z77|G.Skill Sniper 16GB XMP|Asus GTX780 DCU2OC|Asus Xonar DGX|CM V850|Samsung 840 EVO|Samsung M3 USB3.0|Asus SDRW-08|Akasa ICR-07|CM 690-II|Asus VH242H

Sounds like the drive is going unresponsive - so then your machine tries to buffer as much as it can while waiting for the drive to come back. Whala, virtual memory exhausted.

I'd replace it and make sure you have a current backup while you're waiting for the new one to show up.


And easy check would be to run the HD Tune "Error Scan" and see if it reports and bad LBAs or shows up with any slow spots once it's finished. A happy drive will be smooth green across the board slowly fading to yellowish near the end of the drive (since the drive will get slower closer to the spindle). Any red spots scattered across the speed plot indicate weak spots that the drive is having trouble with.


Any larger drive would be a good replacement. I'm partial to the newer (4TB+) Seagate drives. I have a few thousand of them at work in an enterprise environment and they're pretty rock-solid even in that "poor" environment.


EDIT: Also, I hate you for being able to get internet speeds up anywhere near a gigabit.

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The Egg wrote:

roadkill1 wrote:

while testing with HDTune the following error popped up which is not recorded in the event viewer:

Time to retire the drive.

Yep, he got 6 good years out of it. It really sounds like it's on the deathbed. Best bet is to get a new drive and mirror it before it fails completely.

A most unfortunate, Freudian, double entendre is that hotel named "Budget Inn."

roadkill1 wrote:

* silence - the current hdd is the noisiest part of my pc

Get a "green" / 5400-RPM drive, it'll be very quiet

speed - keep up dl speeds

Even a 5400-RPM drive will easily pull over 100MByte/sec in the start of the drive, and 70+ in the end.

resilience - I'd be happy if the new hdd resisted 6 years, just as the old one

You want reliability, get an SSD, or do RAID-1 But in my experience, you'll want to avoid Seagate.


No, never. Extra noise, power draw, and double the chance of data loss.

Regarding prices, do take note that at the time of writing, the 2-3TB models are far better value for money.

Seagate has had multiple problematic models over the past few years. That doesn't necessarily mean current ones are bad, but it means that all else being equal I would buy something else.

WD Black are very fast for a mechanical HDD, but tend to run hotter and louder than other desktop drives (the faster seek times come at a price in both power consumption and noise level when the drive is being accessed).

RAID-0 is a terrible idea unless you make frequent backups (or don't care about data loss). You are effectively doubling the odds of a drive failure, and with RAID-0 a failed drive results in loss of all data on the RAID set.

I would also take a look at Toshiba. They bought Hitachi's desktop drive division, and Hitachi has had a good track record lately.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

A few years back, I happened upon this Hard Drive Capacity Database. It can be hard to find detailed information on hard drives, and I've found that guy's information to be quite accurate.

In general, you want to have the highest density platters available (speed), and the fewest number of platters for a given capacity (lower power, noise). Therefore, for a current 1TB model, you would want a single-platter drive such as the WD1003FZEX-00MK2A0.

Do you not have any other drive you can test with before purchasing? It seems like the drive is going anyways, but it'd be good to know beforehand if there's another one that you can test with.

For a new drive, I'd look at the WD Greens. I had one of the 10k RPM Raptor drives (160GB I think?), and a 1TB Green that was a couple years newer outperformed it in benchmarks. It might not seem like it, but spinning drives do continue to improve, performance-wise.