Slow transfer speeds to USB 2.0 flash drive

Anonymous
2010-07-11T02:29:36+00:00

Hi all,

I know that this topic has appeared once or twice in these forums but there haven't been any resolutions and they've been quiet lately so I started a new one. 

Recently, I migrated from Windows XP to 7 and found this problem. When I try to copy a file (a 1.2GB video) to a usb flash drive that I know is usb 2.0 hi-speed (copying files to it in xp were really fast) it takes over 2 minutes. 7 reports that it is copying at 3-4 MB/sec. When I copy from the flash drive to my computer it copies at about 9-10MB/sec. I've also tried plugging it into the rear ports but that doesn't change the transfer speed at all. I know it isn't something related to the flash stick itself because transferring files to it in xp were a lot faster.

Some random information: Transferring files from one hard drive to another averages at about 60MB/sec (both of the hard drives are SATA II drives). I'm not sure what speed it should be but it doesn't feel drastically slower than on my xp machine. Windows 7 and my device drivers are all up-to-date.

System specs:

Dell optiplex GX620

Pentium 4 3.2GHz

2GB Ram

Windows 7 Professional 32-bit

AVG 9 free edition anti-virus

My setup is almost identical to how it was on my windows xp machine except I have less programs installed so there isn't something new that could have caused problems.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-03-02T18:34:11+00:00

    Thank you for your guys’ replies I think I know how to deal with my slow drive transfer speed problem.

    Thanks a lot!

    So the answer is??

    Same system

    boot to xp xfer great

    boot to RH5.6 xfer great

    boot to win7 xfer sucks

    boot to win8 xfer sucks

    All 'ms drivers are certified by MS, so the issue is MS, not the HW.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-18T01:41:01+00:00

    Thank you for your guys’ replies I think I know how to deal with my slow drive transfer speed problem.

    Thanks a lot!

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-01T10:16:53+00:00

    Well it seems like it is more complicated than I thougth... here's where I am now:

    • the formatting did not help, although it took well over 4 hours (!)
    • booted with Ubuntu 12, the latest stable version and tried to do the same copy, and the speed was slow as well.

    Next tests will be with another USB drive, I'll also try to see if the connector or cable could not be the problem but since I observed the same slow behavior with Ubuntu, it may not be Windows 7 after all.

    I'll keep you posted.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-01T02:32:52+00:00

    I happen to have the same problem.

    There is something wrong in W7.

    Microsoft, please admit it...!!!!!!!!

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-07-27T15:46:42+00:00

    After recently upgrading my computer (Dell Precision 390) from XP to Windows 7, I was trying to copy Virtual Hard Disk from the computer to a USB drive (FreeAgent Seagate 500 GB). No matter what I do, the copy process takes forever. I left it to run last night for a 6 GB vhd and it did not complete. A disk performance utility reports a write rate of 30 MB/s. If you do the math, it should take theoritically 6000/30 = 200 sec. Make it 5 times that to account for other IOs on the system and whatever, but it certainly should not take more than an hour!

    I reformatted the drive with exFAT, NTFS, same results. Tried TeraCopy and it generally hangs around 400 MB. Changed the setting to Performance on the drive, same thing. Removed indexing on the drive; disabled the anti-virus (AVG 2013 licensed); disconnected all other USB devices from the computer and it still does not copy the files correctly.

    While I'm writing this, I am formatting (unchecked the Quick Format) the drive with NTFS standard cluster size and will retest. Also, I am downloading an Unbuntu bootable DVD and will try this as well.

    I have to agree with many of the previous posters that there must be something fishy with the way Windows 7 handles USB file copy/move because this is not normal. There seems to be a number of reports of this situation, it is not new, and there is no official Microsoft solution to this.

    I'll try to post my findings when I'm done with the formatting and the Ubuntu distro.

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