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So I got this WD Elements 4TB external drive, that was an Amazon Warehouse Deal (I wanted a new one, this used one arrived, they already refunded). I decided to give it a go, but it has its problems, such as randomly lowered speeds on the area that's not free space. I've never seen anything like this. The test is conducted in Safe Mode Windows 10, nothing is accessing the drive. SMART data is healthy, there are no errors or bad sectors anywhere.

Earlier screenshot (see below) shows that when I used like 800GB, the random spikes stopped at ~800 and the standard downward curve started at that point. As I added more data, the graph changed, and the weird part grew in accordance with the used space. You can see that the pattern is the same, so it's not random.

~800GB used ~1200GB used

Firsh - justifiedgrid.com
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    While I understand what you are saying. The results are identical on both graphs. The speeds are the same. The downward curve is exactly the same. The average and peak speeds are exactly the same. The only explanation is that this is a read test and it is reading the files on the drive when it can. – Appleoddity Jul 14 '19 at 17:19
  • Could you show the SMART information in the "Health" tab? – u1686_grawity Jul 14 '19 at 17:47
  • @Appleoddity I don't think it's actually reading individual files, what I have and on what part of the disk shouldn't have any effect on this graph. It's just sequentially reading the bits, not caring for files, theoretically. For reference, I'm attaching a screenshot of the source drive (that has the same contents, as I'm backing that up in its entirety). It's an internal WD 3TB Green drive, with lots of small files. Perfectly normal graph as expected: https://i.snag.gy/HWru3L.jpg – Firsh - justifiedgrid.com Jul 14 '19 at 19:17
  • @grawity: https://i.snag.gy/R3NTin.jpg – Firsh - justifiedgrid.com Jul 14 '19 at 19:17
  • Just a wild guess, an SMR drive? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_magnetic_recording – ralph May 03 '21 at 23:30

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