2 Western Digital Hard Drives (External USB 2.0), 1 very slow

[JohnDoeIII]

Hi yall,

I decided to switch to Linux full time on one of my laptops (an older Toshiba) and after trying multiple distros, I've settled on Linux Mint 18.02 with the KDE desktop environment.

Now here is my issue, I have 2 Western Digital My Passport Ultra USB 2.0 drives, 1 a 4TB and 1 a 1TB. The 4TB has 2 1.82 TB NTFS Partitions and it transfers data to my laptop at roughly 30 Mbps. Now the 1 TB on the other hand only has 1 NTFS partition but it will only transfer data at 1 Mbps, if that. Does anyone know how to improve the speed of transfers for this one drive? It has all the data from the laptop on it for when I installed Linux and it is taking forever to transfer the data back to the internal drive, which is formatted in ext4.

Any help is appreciated,
Thank you and have a great day,
JohnDoeIII

[WharfRat]

Hello John

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum

Are you using any particular mount options for the the externals

Also what is the current used and available space as reported by df -hT

[JohnDoeIII]

Hello John

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum

Are you using any particular mount options for the the externals

Also what is the current used and available space as reported by df -hT

Thank you,

Mounted normally as far as I know

Used 239G and I have 693G available. I'm using 26% of 932G and it says the "type" is fuseblk.

[WharfRat]

I hope you know that you can paste back the terminal text

Just for the heck of it try the big_writes option to see if that changes anything and maybe the noatime option.

I don't use ntfs at all here, but my thought is that it could be badly fragmented. Have you run chkdsk or a defrag program on it from a windows' machine

[JohnDoeIII]

I will give that a shot.

No it's been a while, I'm going to plug it my Windows machine and run check disk and check it for fragmentation.

I'm also thinking it could be due for a firmware update, so I'm also going to try running the Western Digital firmware updater on my Windows machine and see if that could be it as well.

Thank you again for all of your help, greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Mute Ant]

That sounds like the motherboard hardware identifying the connection as USB1 and limiting the interface-chip speed before Linux gets to talk to it. Try unmounting the problem drive... do a 'Safely Remove Drive'... then plug it back in with Linux up-and-running. Also, confirm the drive has a hub all to itself.

[JohnDoeIII]

That sounds like the motherboard hardware identifying the connection as USB1 and limiting the interface-chip speed before Linux gets to talk to it. Try unmounting the problem drive... do a 'Safely Remove Drive'... then plug it back in with Linux up-and-running. Also, confirm the drive has a hub all to itself.

I've unmounted and mounted multiple times and still a no go. I only have 2 USB Ports (old laptop) and it is the only device plugged in at the moment. I've tried a firmware update on the drive itself (from a windows machine), I checked for fragmentation, and ran chkdsk on Windows and didn't get any errors from that, I've tried changing USB cables and I'm still getting the same errors.

The only thing I haven't done is, enable big_writes and that is because I don't know the command, lol.

And I want to thank everyone again for your help, it is greatly appreciated.

[WharfRat]

To see how it's connecting run lsusb

On the right of the ID is the vendor:product e.g., Bus 002 Device 005: ID 152d:9561 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp

Next run lsusb -vd vendor:product as per mine:

Code: Select all

[bill@XPS] ~ $ sudo lsusb -vd 152d:9561|grep bcdUSB
  bcdUSB               3.00
[bill@XPS] ~ $ 

The bcdUSB indicates it's USB 3.0

[JohnDoeIII]

To see how it's connecting run lsusb

On the right of the ID is the vendor:product e.g., Bus 002 Device 005: ID 152d:9561 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp

Next run lsusb -vd vendor:product as per mine:

Code: Select all

[bill@XPS] ~ $ sudo lsusb -vd 152d:9561|grep bcdUSB
  bcdUSB               3.00
[bill@XPS] ~ $ 

The bcdUSB indicates it's USB 3.0

bcdUSB 2.10

[WharfRat]

Try a health check of that device, if it's supported, by installing smartmontools and gsmartcontrol.

sudo apt-get install smartmontools gsmartcontrol

You'll find gsmartcontrol in the system tools menu.

You can also run sudo smartctl -a /dev/sd? changing ? to the device designation.

[JohnDoeIII]

After running an extended test, these were my results:

Code: Select all

smartctl 6.5 2016-01-24 r4214 [x86_64-linux-4.10.0-38-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, http://www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Elements / My Passport (USB, AF)
Device Model:     WDC WD10JMVW-11AJGS1
Serial Number:    WD-WX51AA365287
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 604009a47
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity:    1,000,171,332,096 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Wed Nov 15 19:41:50 2017 MST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Status not supported: Incomplete response, ATA output registers missing
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
					was never started.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
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: 		(18120) 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: 	 ( 203) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: 	       (0x7035)	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   131   126   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       4441
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       368
  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   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       435
 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   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       139
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       85
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       2561
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   101   088   000    Old_age   Always       -       46
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   100   253   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
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%       435         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       431         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        80         -

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.

[WharfRat]

The disk is in good shape so I'm kinda stumped here as to what could be causing the slow transfer.

Is the 1TB Passport powered via the usb port or does it have a ac plug adapter ?

[JohnDoeIII]

Powered by USB and no option to plug in a power cord to it. But I did notice, the firmware update didn't take, so I've got to reattach it to a Windows PC and try again.

[WharfRat]

Powered by USB and no option to plug in a power cord to it. But I did notice, the firmware update didn't take, so I've got to reattach it to a Windows PC and try again.

I should have asked about the 4TB too. Is that ac adapter powered

I recall reading somewhere that externals drawing power from the usb port sometimes have issues especially with laptops.

[JohnDoeIII]

Powered by USB and no option to plug in a power cord to it. But I did notice, the firmware update didn't take, so I've got to reattach it to a Windows PC and try again.

I should have asked about the 4TB too. Is that ac adapter powered

I recall reading somewhere that externals drawing power from the usb port sometimes have issues especially with laptops.

Yes, they are both Western Digital Passport Ultra models that are both USB powered.

[WharfRat]

[
Yes, they are both Western Digital Passport Ultra models that are both USB powered.

I forgot to ask if it behaves the same when connected to a windows machine because right now it's down to the drive or the filesystem.