hard drive read error rate crystaldiskinfo reddit

Tl dr: There is special information written to the disk that the disk uses to position the heads, and the magnet erased it. My memory of this is all really hazy, but a quick Google search turned-up this page by someone who seems more knowledgeable: (called the 'servo track') If the servo track is damaged, the drive no longer knows where to position the read/write head, how fast it is spinning (I think), etc. Precise servo positioning for each track is determined at the factory during the manufacturing process and is written to a specific area of the disk. (due to slight imperfections in platter shape, etc.) Because of this, the read/write head needs to move constantly to stay over the track it's trying to read/write. Data on a hard disk is written to 'tracks' which are not perfectly round. > Wait, magnetizing a blank hard drive makes it unusable? If SMART status is reporting a lot of errors and you've noticed trouble accessing certain folders (slow to open) then the disk is probably on its way out.

You can check your drive's SMART status (diagnostics reporting built into the hard drive) using a program like HDDScan, although SMART diagnostics don't always give a clear picture on the state of a drive's health. A full or failing hard drive is also likely to slow things down. If you have a lot of programs running in the background it can slow down the update process so you might want to close out programs you don't need and see if it helps.

Patching is resource intensive and can take a while depending on how the Dev packaged the files. This is why it takes around twice a game's installation size to update it.

Once Steam downloads the update it makes a backup copy of the game, proceeds to create updated version of the game using the patch files, then validates the new version before removing the backup. Preallocation is the first step where Steam reserves the necessary disk space before it begins downloading an update.

Hard drive read error rate crystaldiskinfo reddit