HDD Slow Read Write Speed Windows 10? Fix It Easily Now!

Scenario

Hello, my PC is getting really slow. My hdd is a 2tb seagate hard drive. I've been using it for about 4 years. It started responding slowly since I upgraded to windows 11, sometimes i've even noticed the disk usage is constantly at 100%. Any way to fix the HDD slow read write speed? Thanks a lot!

How to make HDD read/write speed test?

To know how slow your (external) hdd reads and writes, you can use the Task Manager, which will show you a rough result of the read/write speed.

If you need a more comprehensive and accurate report, it is better to apply a professional disk speed test tool like the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, which recently developed the "Disk Speed Test", the "Pro Mode" of which is able to test sequential or random speed of hard drive. Besides, you can set the Test Number, Test Duration, Partition Block Size, Queues, Threads as required before starting a test. The demo version is available for your download and try.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Click on the HDD and choose  "Test"> "Disk Speed Test" .

Step 2. In the next window, the first partition of the selected HDD will be chosen by default. You can choose another partition to have a test. Then, click on "Pro Mode".

Step 3. Then, you will enter the Pro Mode window where you can change some settings as mentioned above. Finally, you can click on "Start" to begin the HDD read/write speed.

Step 4.When finished, the detailed speed information will be displayed, and you can export the result as you like.

What cause the HDD slow read write speed?

If the above test result shows the HDD really slow read write speed, you may want to know the causes. Generally speaking, the following are some common issues responsibe for that.

>Bad sector: they are specific areas in the hard drive that won't respond to any read/write command. More bad sectors on your hard drive, the slower it will get.

>File fragmentation: fragments of a single file will scatter throughout the hard drive and can't be accessed quickly. So, large mounts of file fragments will cause a drop in hard drive speed.

>Little free space left: if your HDD is filled with all kinds of programs, apps or other personal data part from operating system, the hard drive will become slow as well.

How to fix slow read/write speed of HDD?

After getting the behind causes, it’s time to take some measure so as to optimize the HDD performance. Luckily, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional provides the powerful features for the HDD slow read speed and write speed improvement. Just keep reading.

Method 1. Check and fix bad sector

Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Right-click the HDD partition and select  "Advanced" > "Check Partition". 

Step 2. Here, choose the first method: check partition and fix error..., and then click on "OK".

Then wait for a moment until it is done.

Method 2. Defrag your HDD

Since fragmented hard disks can slow down the performance of a hard disk, it is best to defrag the hard drive to boost its speed and performance. Via the Defragmentation process, the scattered bits of a file will be pieced together in a single block to be accessed more quickly by the hard drive. 

To defrag the hard drive, you can use the built-in defragmentation feature or the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. The latter one is more recommended since it allows you to defrag drive more flexibly with many schedule settings.

Step 1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click the disk you want to defrag and choose "Disk Defrag".

Step 2. Tick the target drive and click on "Schedule" to enter the "Schedule Setting" window.

Step 3. Tick the "Defrag" and you can choose from the given options.

Step 4. You can define the conditions where you want to start the automatic disk defrag. Just click on"Conditions".

At last, click "OK" to confirm the defrag schedule. You can also click "Defrag" in step 2 to directly start a defrag immediately.

Method 3. Upgrade the HDD

If it is the full storage space that slows down your HDD, you can try to clean and free up space, which including deleting temporary files, uninstalling unnecessary programs, and so on. What if they won’t make a difference finally? Then, it is best to upgrade the HDD to another larger HDD.

For this task, AOMEI Partition Assistant can help a lot with the "Disk Clone Wizard". It can directly clone the slow HDD to another HDD or SSD with more storage space and transfer everything to the new hard drive including the OS so that users don’t need to reinstall anything during the disk upgrade process. Check the notes and steps:

Notes:✎...

Connect the secondary hard drive to your computer and make sure it is detected.

All data on the destination hard drive will be erase, so please make a backup if necessary.

If the HDD is your boot disk, please check out the partition style and you can convert the destination disk to the same one (MBR or GPT), so that you don’t need to change the boot mode after clone, which is necessary if you clone MBR boot disk to GPT, or GPT boot disk to MBR.

Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click on "Clone" > "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose a method for disk clone: the "Clone Disk Quickly" only clones used sectors to destination disk, allowing for cloning a larger disk to a smaller one; the "Sector-by-Sector Clone" clones both used and unused sectors.

Step 3. Choose the HDD with slow read/write speed as the source disk.

Step 4. Select destination disk and click on "Next".

Step 5. Here, you can edit the partition size on the destination hard drive.

Step 6. A boot note appears for your reference.

Step 7. Click "Apply" to commit the pending operation.

When the clone process is finished, you can reinstall the destination hard drive internally and boot from it. Then the HDD slow read write speed can be fixed effectively.

Summary

So, when you meet the HDD slow read write speed issue, there are 3 methods you can have a try. To avoid the similar issue in future, it is advised to scan and clean your hard drive regularly, defragment your hard drive from time to time, empty the Recycle Bin periodically, etc. Obviously, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a great disk partition manager for Windows PC users. If you are using Windows Server, the Server Edition can satisfy you well.