Copying large files almost freezes my system!

[DeadHead]

I'm sorry if this subject shouldn't be placed under PL, since it has nothing directly to do with that. But maybe a solution may be found with the help of PL?

Anyway, here's the thing. Yesterday I copied a ~4 gig large file from one of my harddrives to a usb thumbdrive within explorer. During the time the file copies, my system almost dies. I can click things and such, but can't start new programs, Firefox web browser is completly unresponsive, trying to go to a new webpage during the copying takes place is next to impossible.

I do think my system should be able to cope with things like this without any issues as at all, so any advice what to troubleshoot would be greatly appreciated.

System:

Win 7 Pro 64 bit (swe) on c:
I7 920 @ 3.6 GHz
24 gig ram
3 sata disks
nvidia 460 gtz graphics cards (sli)
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4 X58 S-1366 ATX  motherboard

Pagefiles setup like this:

3096 Mb on C (physical disk 1)
2048 Mb on F (physical disk 2)
3096 MB on K (physical disk 3)

[DeadHead]

Hm, well that's odd. Now I just tried again, and no issues this time... what the h... ??

[Jeremy Collake]

It may be a saturated bus... though it's hard to know for certain without a lot of in-depth analysis . When a bus gets saturated, it can quite literally starve off connection with your other hardware devices that are operating on that bus.

[BenYeeHua]

Ya, you need to record it by using the Windows Performance Tools (WPT).

And here is my opinion about the PageFile.
As you has 3 HDD, disable the PageFile at the C:, as that place is where you put the software/system file/cache.
So when your Ram is getting full(I think it will only happen when heavy work)or the software is putting thing into the PageFile(some are to lie for some user that "we are using the ram a little only"), you can still opening the software faster while the os is writing on the other HDD.
That what I do on a 1G-128MB Ram computer.
----
If you are using a USB 3.0 pendrive(thumbdrive) and having 150mb/s, maybe it is causing by the saturated bus. 
And you can try FastCopy to see the speed will increase/problem will solve or not.

[Jeremy Collake]

I was thinking more of the PCI/PCIx bus, though didn't specify because I am a bit out of date on current motherboard designs. The word 'bus' covers it all, lol. The more I think about it though, this probably isn't it. It's going to be difficult to determine the true issue. Even if you manage to visualize the symptoms of the problem, such as high latency DPCs, you still don't get a clear picture of how it is happening, or what you can do about it.

In theory, the I/O prioritization of Windows might help, if the problem is an I/O bottleneck with the hard drive. However, in practice is probably won't matter much.

The fact that it is intermittent is even worse.

I have to agree with BenYeeHua on the page files. In fact, this could exacerbate your problem. 3 different drives for page files is also a bit overkill, and may be slower than a single drive since you end up with 3 drives that must issue seek commands, and 3 drives that might have to wake up from a sleep state.

[Jeremy Collake]

Oh, and I'd also play a video or something so you can gauge the true responsiveness of the PC vs. perhaps your input devices. If a bus is the issue, your keyboard and mouse may quit working, which can look a lot like a froze system.

[BenYeeHua]

Yup, just check the number of drop frame of player.

[DeadHead]

Since I've seen some weird behavior lately from my K-disk (about to fail perhaps), my first step to troubleshoot this was to remove the pagefile from that disk, if that in anyway could have had an impact. Will see how things go. Will try and run a movie or something at the same time I copy a file next time I try this. Thanks.

Edit: Spelling!

[edkiefer]

wouldn't that max out I/O of HD as it can only read/right one place at time .

[Jeremy Collake]

wouldn't that max out I/O of HD as it can only read/right one place at time .

It can only read one place at one time, though they do fairly well at concurrent operations. It was a possibility I mentioned a as a side note:

In theory, the I/O prioritization of Windows might help, if the problem is an I/O bottleneck with the hard drive. However, in practice is probably won't matter much.

However, while Windows 7's I/O priority isn't perfect, the *one thing* it should do pretty well is make sure any paging operations pre-empts all others. At least, that is how it was designed, and probably the #1 reason for I/O priorities. That said, I indicate adjustments aren't likely to help because paging is already the highest priority I/O.

[BenYeeHua]

Ya, a HDD that having 05, c5(S.M.A.R.T.) is willing to broken, if it only c5 then you need to shockproof your harddisk while using DiskGenius to repair the soft bad sectors(not physical bad sectors, but data damaged) until c5 reduced to 0.
I has facing many c5 on a same harddisk and the other harddisk is too shock(too vibrate) for that harddisk.
So I just repair, c5 again, repair.....
-----
Maybe you can buy a SSD.

[Jeremy Collake]

I've yet to have an SSD fail, even the older ones. Hard drives, on the other hand ;p... In fact, anything I've ever owned that is mechanical in nature has broken on me, lol.

[BenYeeHua]

I am getting other one, the laptop that having a lot of problems will fix itself when it come to my hand.
And restore the state after return back to the owner.

Except mouse.