HDD performance program?

A few days ago a heap of my games and programs installed on one of my hdd's started running really slow, Im worried that somethings gone wrong with it and its not transferring at the speeds its meant too. Iv checked the sata cable and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it, so Im wondering if anyone knows of a good free program that I could check the performance of my HDD's?

google crystal disk mark. I use that to bench my ssd's. You may want to go to your manufacturer's website and download some diagnostic tools, run the smart tests to make sure your hdd isn't failing.

A few days ago a heap of my games and programs installed on one of my hdd's started running really slow, Im worried that somethings gone wrong with it and its not transferring at the speeds its meant too. Iv checked the sata cable and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it, so Im wondering if anyone knows of a good free program that I could check the performance of my HDD's?

Kamuikankatsu

Define "running slow". Increased load times or periodic frame rate hiccups can be caused by poor hard drive performance, but if the issue you are experiencing is more like a general frame rate problem then it likely has nothing to do with your hard drive. Please post back with more info (specs, what games, more details of the performance issue).

-Byshop

Does updating hdd firmware do much for performance?

Also, the things that iv been noticing are, increased transfer times between HDD's, and constant freezing in FO3 along with insanely long load times. I know it shouldn't be doing this because Iv been playing the game for months running without an issues. Just all of a sudden yesterday, it started freezing up and running slow. Iv got 3 seagate HDD's running, an 80gb Barracuda 7200.7, 200gb Barracuda 7200.9 and 250gb Barracuda 7200.10.

As for my actual pc specs, Im running an AMD PII 545 at 3ghz, 2x2GB DDR3 1333 Gskill RAM, and an ATI HD4870 1gb.

ok, so I downloaded SeaTools and seem to be failing both Short and Long Drive Self Test on the HDD I suspected was having the issue. So, Could this be causing the long load/transfer times? And What exactly is a Drive Self Test...

Alright, just formated the HDD and now it seems to be passing all the tests. I'll re-install my games and programs, and see if I still have issues...