Explorer has a habit (setting) to make thumbnails and can really drag on USB drives. Since content and USB speed varies you will get folk finding this or that drive is slower than the others.
Nothing broke here. But do try Explorer without only a File listing view for speed. (no thumbnails.)
i7 7700K (not OC as of right now)
Asus Maximus VIII Hero Alpha
Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4 2800MHz
Asus 1080 Strix
Corsair RX 850W GOLD
WD Blue 250GB SSD (OS and very heavy apps)
WD Black 2TB HDD (games and apps)
WD Blue 1TB HDD (files, projects, downloads, etc)
WD Red 3TB HDD (media storage, future NAS server)
So before you say anything about the 170 mobo, I had already purchased that one. I was offered the 7700K discounted and bought it considering I could upgrade mobo in the future or might as well keep the one I have.
In regards to the amount of drives, the blue one was a new drive I had lying around. The black I purchased it mainly to install lots of games and some editing apps.
I decided to go with a WD Red because I would like to get a media server so I can keep all my shows and BDs there, that way I don't have to rely on my PC so much and I can watch my stuff on my TV, PS4, laptop, phone, etc...
*****ISSUE*****
Ever since I installed my red drive and put all my media in there (aprox 700GB so far), windows explorer became very slow. (I'm running Windows 10 Pro)
Here are a few situations:
1- Red Drive installed (internal), Windows Explorer becomes slow on every drive, as I try to open a folder with a lot of files it just takes forever, if you try to go back then the file icons become invisible and in order to recover functionality I have to manually kill the wait chain threads through the task manger. Also note that disk usage is low, CPU load is around 20% or more (not normal).
2- Red Drive installed (external, USB 3.0), Windows explorer is slightly faster yet it is still very slow IMO. Same issues as 1.
3- Red Drive not connected, explorer is very fast, CPU load 1% - 2%.
Returning the drive is no longer an option because I am no longer in the US so shipping by itself would be higher than the refund I would receive for the drive and selling it is very difficult even at low price since it is a NAS drive and it looks like people here are not interested in NAS drives. I'm thinking about buying a 4-5 TB WD black because I am tired of this (rather not due to expensive shipping but will do if issue persists). I have disabled multiple services which have somewhat improved the speed.
Can anyone explain how is this drive affecting the entire system in such a way even though I am only reading the drive? I would understand multiple threads would make it slower but it is just way too much to the point it becomes unusable.
I would appreciate mature responses and greatly appreciate it if you could point out any noob mistakes? other than the ones I already stated above. Have you experienced this issue yourselves? Do you know how to fix it?
I've read on some forums I found while looking for answers on Google that other people have had similar issues...
I don't use reddit very often so let me know if I shouldn't have posted this here.
TL;DR
WD Red 3TB (media storage only) possibly making windows explorer (WIN10PRO) extremely slow when connected.

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