Check the properties of the ATA HD. Is it running DMA 5 or is it running less, possible even PIO mode? Note that placing a hard drive on the same controller as a slower device, like a CD/DVD reader/writer can sometimes degrade the HD performance. If that is the case, try temporailiy disconecting the optical drive. If that fixes the problem, then look for aother ATA controller to permanently separate the two.

Also, for a test, try turning off your antivirus protection. Some antivirus software check every file on every copy. That is generally a good thing, but depending on the CPU it could slow things a lot.
"David G" <david_g99352@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:OhwJOr77FHA.3752@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
My Dell 8400 came with a SATA HD, and I installed a second parallel ATA HD to use for data backup. I am experiencing data xfer rates from the SATA drive to the backup of around 1.5 - 1.6 MB/sec. Does this seem right? Seems slow to me. Is there something I can do to speed up the xfer rate?

TIA
David