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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-04-11T19:00:03+00:00

    I have searched support and answers, but don't see any other place for this problem (search tool the right way?)

    I am having the same problem with Windows 7 Ultimate edition.

    I have reported this problem 3 times over the past couple years.  (search does not find them).    

    My Win 7 ultimate copies at 3-4mb sec to USB sticks  If I boot Linux Mint from DVD on the same machine, using the same sticks and copy the same files it goes at 30-40gb sec.  Speed while I had a Win XP partition was fine too. 

    Something in Win 7 is broken in this regard.  Its so bad, that I actually keep a Linux Mint DVD in the drive, and reboot, when I need to copy a lot of data to a USB stick (I have two DVD drives).

    USB hard drives, although slower than Linux or Windows XP, seem OK.  

    Someday somebody at Microsoft should just try this.  I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate (just re-installed it with all the updates last week and I still have the same problem). 

    You can download a Linux mint bootable DVD to try it yourself.  Just copy a couple thousand good sized files to any USB stick -- from Win 7, then from Mint.

    When you get out of the box Win 7 (w/updates) running 80% or better of the speed of Mint -- then P L E A S E   post how you did it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-01-31T16:23:09+00:00

    Hello,

     Because this thread is older, please repost this as a new question.  Include any troubleshooting steps you have attempted, along with any detailed system information that might be helpful. 

    Microsoft Answers:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-01-25T15:29:52+00:00

    Same problem here, I barely use flash drive before. But recently, I need transfer files to Redhat linux. Transfer 500M to linux box took 20 seconds. It took 20 minutes to copy them to Win 7 computer.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-11-24T03:43:22+00:00

    Anyone find any answers to this? I have a very similar problem- I am trying to copy files from my Seagate Freeagent GoFlex 500GB drive to my new Acer w/ Intel i5 2.4GHz w/6G RAM.

    I have tried optimizing for performance, with no luck. the most frustrating thing is that the problem is intermittent. Yesterday I transferred 20 gigs with ~30MB/s transfer speeds. This is after I had speeds of 10KB/s (!), restarted and shut down all unnecessary processes.

    Today, I get great transfer speeds till about 80MB have been transferred, then the speed plummets until it eventually settles around 500KB-1MB per second. This is totally ridiculous. I'm thinking of returning the comp altogether, or exploring the idea of a different OS. I really don't want to spend 30 hrs moving my media....

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  5. Anonymous
    2011-11-01T04:17:16+00:00

    Any update on this? I have the same issue on a GW ML6721 laptop and a GW LT21 netbook. 3mb transfer speeds, even after optimizing for performance in the policies tab of drive properties. A friend just used my USB stick to transfer on her Dell and it worked much more quickly so maybe it is a driver issue. But on a newer computer, why aren't these drivers included in the Windows7 database versus being from the chipset manufacturer?

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