Windows Installer using usb drive for temp purposes

I have a 1 TB USB drive attached for backups.

I have noticed that whenever I install Windows Updates [both on Win 7 & Win 8] , the system creates temp files on this hard disk instead of internal hdd. Obviously this slows down the things substantially. This occurs only when Windows Updates are installed other installation program behave as expected by writing their temp file to the path in TEMP variable.

I have searched for this anomaly & came across this Windows Installer using usb drive for temp purposes. Many people have experienced the same but there is no solution, as far as I can tell.

Anything to remedy this situation or do I have to just bear it ?

 

I have a WDC My Passport external HDD. It is the G:\ drive when not signed into and I leave it that way when downloading and installing Windows 7 and 8.1 updates. Before I sign in to the ext. drive I delete all temp files. When I sign in to do a backup the ext hdd becomes the H:\ drive and I do not get any temp files on my backup drive.

 

lj50, what do you mean by "sign in to ext. drive" ?

 

When I click on the G:\ WD Unlocker Drive and sign in a dialog box appears I enter a password. After I sign in and unlock the G:\ Drive my actual backup drive is now H:\DV2167SB. Did you install the WD Smartware.

 

Its Seagate Expansion Drive & I am not using any extra software with it.

I think Tony's advice is logical & should work. Would try that out.

 

Interesting topic. I avoid using USB for external drives so have not experienced this. I cannot find anywhere a way to avoid using the drive with the most free space if the drive is connected via USB, except as suggested by Steve (disconnecting the drive first).

That said, is it really that much slower? Maybe it is time to look at using Ethernet or eSATA for NAS connections.

How much RAM is in these systems?

 

Bill I am not using this external USB hard disk for anything other than backup which is taken daily by Crashplan. It just takes few minutes & is in the background, so speed is normally not an issue.

I already have a Linux machine which I also use for backup.

 

I am just curious about the apparent speed (or lack of) issues with Windows Updates and this ext. drive, as compared to an internal drive. How much slower is it and are you sure it is the external drive and not the Updates themselves consuming the time?

That said, not sure you can answer the "how much slower" part - unless you uninstalled the updates, removed the external drive and timed updating again using local drives only.

I would make sure your ext. device is connected to the fastest USB your motherboard supports. Make sure the drive is alone on that "pair" of USB ports so the drive has full bandwidth through that USB interface.

Hopefully your computer supports USB 3.0, even if your enclosure is 2.0. If no 3.0 ports on your computer, I would consider getting a USB 3.0 PCIe card, or better yet, an eSATA or Ethernet capable enclosure.

With a PCIe USB 3.0 card, you can expect transfer rates up to 5Gbps.

 

TonyT He just asked how I did it and I told him. I know he didn't state who the manufacturer of the drive was.

 

My computer is only USB 2.0 & so is my drive. So I don't have a choice about faster USB ports.

The throughput on USB drive is around 25 Mbps vs 60 Mbps on internal drives. So I would say that external drive is around 100% slower than the internal drives.

 

Well, it (math) does not really work that way. 60 is 240% faster than 25. 25 is about 41.7% of 60 (or 58.3% slower).

"100% slower" equals a dead stop.

HOWEVER, your point is the same. Internal connections are typically much faster (and IMO, more reliable) than external - especially via USB.

That said and MY point here is specs on paper (the theory) rarely jive with real-world. And that is especially true when other variables are introduced. And when you run Windows Update, there are several other variables - much more is happening than just file transfers. So that 25/60 comparison is no where near a true representation or reflection of the performance differences running WU from an internal drive vs external. There is just too much happening with WU.

So again, I wonder if it is really the update processing rather than data transfer speeds that consumes the most time?

And I say that because I run SSDs on this machine and I have a very fast Internet connection, an i7 and 16Gb of RAM. If WU speeds was that drive-speed dependent as you suggest, and because SSDs are much faster than harddisk drives, my updates should (in theory) nearly instantly install. But they don't at all!

There are delays while updates are "applied ". If a reboot is required, there are delays while shutting down and more delays during the first boot after applying the updates. These delays are due mostly to the crunching and "processing" being done in RAM by the CPU - not reading and writing to the disk.

 

Sorry Bill, it should have been 50% slower instead of 100%.

I take your point about there being more variables in update than just hard disk but when it is unpacking/reading the files it takes a long time.

I had applied the fix as per suggestion by TonyT & it works much faster than before.

 

Unpacking (decompressing) might as that is done in RAM. But reading the files is a function of the drive and not really a factor here - unless the drive is old and slow with a tiny 2Mb buffer, crowded (low on free disk space) and/or heavily fragmented.

If you don't have gobs of RAM, Windows and your CPU will be forced to spool much of the data to and from the page file - typically located on a slow (compared to RAM) HD. That impacts performance, but if the HD is crowded (low on free disk space) and/or heavily fragmented, that will impact Windows Update even more.

@Tony - that's an interesting tip I will have to remember. But I wonder if it might cause problems for some who swap in and out different removable drives as the drive letters shuffle about and are assigned to different devices.

 

Pardon my off the wall question here, but if the Security tab is missing (after clicking on Properties) from a USB device, I assume Windows will not attempt to store temp files on that drive / device?

 

I think the "if you manually assign a letter" is the key here. I just tried it with two sticks and did NOT manually assign a letter. Between SSD, Drive, and BD optical, I have C, D, E, and F. When I insert the 1st stick into the read, it appears as G: in Windows Explorer. Change sticks and it is still G.

No. That could simply mean the device is formatted with FAT32 and not NTFS.