How to Boost Your External Hard Disk Drive Speed

It is frustrating to have a sluggish, creaking hard drive. The read/write speed of a mechanical hard drive directly affects your efficiency when using computers or other devices. An extremely slow disk may also indicate potential errors.

Nowadays USB is the generally accepted standard for connection of various devices to the system.  But in some rare cases, an external HDD won’t even be recognized when connected to an older model of computer. This is because USB interfaces are by default deactivated on older computers. You’ll need to restart the computer and enter BIOS and Enable onchip USB.

Besides that, in the design of some motherboards, there are some differences between front and back USB ports in power level. When you cannot get your external hard drive to work when connected to the front port, try the back ports. The back USB ports are usually soldered to the motherboard and are able to support devices that require more power to function.

Partitioning divides your hard drive into independent units. It reduces the risk of complete data loss in events like bad sectors or partitions index file lost. However, overdo this will slow down the speed and pose potential risks. Generally, 2 partitons will be enough. You can use different file systems if you have the need to support different devices.

Sometimes one may encounter errors like cache error when the external HDD is reading or writing a large size file. Data transfer may be interrupted when such error occurs. One of the reasons might be defective cables. If you are sure your cable is fine, you can make a few settings to speed up your HDD speed. Disk Write Caching is a feature that improves system performance by enabling write caching on the device. You can enable this feature by opening right-clicking on the drive letter and select Properties. Click on the Hardware tab and select the disk drive. Click on Properties button  and go to Policies tab. Check the Enable Write Caching on the device checkbox to enable the feature.

Also, mantainence is inportant to your external HDD.  Regular defragment will decrease the read/write head seek time therefore increase running speed. Check and clear recycle bin, temporary files and caches and also improve performance. Remember not to disconnect the external HDD from the computer when the LED light is blinking. Unsafely removal when data are being read and written can lead to various problems including bad logical sector, hardware failure caused by power surge.