Very slow and thrashing hard drive

[casner]

I have a Windows 7 x64 system with quad processors and a 7200 rpm hard drive. I'm trying to use Beyond compare to compare and copy some files from my older WinXP computer. They are connected through a good Cisco switch running 1GB Ethernet to both computers. I have shared the old hard drive folders with myself on the new computer.

When I try to compare folders using the CRC option, my local hard drive thrashes to the point where even IE to this forum won't respond. The CPU is idling along at 1-2%, so it is definitely BC thrashing the hard drive. I get occasional "Stream read error" which causes BC to completely lock up, often to the point where I can't even use the Task Manager to kill it, and I have to force logoff to close it.

What am I doing wrong to bring such troubles on myself?

[Aaron]

How large of a comparison are you running? A CRC compare over a remote share would require downloading every file compared and then generating CRC codes on those files. While it should not lock up your system, it is an intensive task.
Here is our currently tested upper limits:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/suppo...z=kb_maxfilev3

One troubleshooting step to take would be to work on a subset of your data. Try comparing subfolders or specific folders first.

Also, did you use the built-in method in Windows XP to share the harddrive, and are accessing it from the Win7 machine that is running BC3? Or are you using another method or 3rd party product to access it?

Lastly, are you running the latest BC3.1.11 release?

[casner]

The files that were thrashing were three files on the order of 1MB, which seems small compared to FTP transfers I have done.

I managed to get a lot of the stuff I needed done with subfolders and by turning off background compare, but it still drags and thrashes the hard drive.

I used the built-in share from WinXP Pro, the default method.

I am running BC3.1.11 on the Win7x64 machine, using our site license.

[Aaron]

Generating a CRC on a 1 meg file over a network of reasonable speed should only take a few seconds. If your harddrive very fragmented?

If you copy some of your files to a temporary local folder first, and then perform the compare on the Win7 machine local<->local, do you experience similar problems?

[casner]

I defragment the hard drive on both computers weekly or more often. I will try the copy then compare. Do you recommend copying with BC3 or WinExplorer?

[Aaron]

Either should be fine. BC3 uses the same method Windows Explorer does for the actual copying of files.