Seagate Backup Plus 3TB USB 3.0 transfer speed slow

[TYTSoldier]

I'm transferring over 200GB to my new Seagate external drive on a newly installed USB 3.0 adapter and it's going incredibly slow (4MB/s). Do you think I have a defective drive or adapter? This is my first time buying an external drive, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

 

[RealBeast]

Did you install the correct drivers for the adapter? You are correct that is way too slow. You can test the drive using one of the motherboard USB 2 ports and see what transfer speeds you get to tell if it is the adapter or the drive.

 

[SilverStar]

I have the exact same problem also with a SeaGate Backup USB 3.0 drive. My MoBo doesn't have USB3.0 so I had to install a SYBA USB 3.0 adaptor into one of my PCI-E x1 slots. I have an ASUS P5B MoBo.

Trying to copy over some large files, average 10GB per file from an external drive connecting through eSATA in the SeaGate. It starts off fast, but then it slows significantly.

Haven't been able to find a solution although I doubt it's the drive, I think it's the adaptor.
I downloaded the latest drivers from SYBA when I installed the card.

 

[RealBeast]

I have the exact same problem also with a SeaGate Backup USB 3.0 drive. My MoBo doesn't have USB3.0 so I had to install a SYBA USB 3.0 adaptor into one of my PCI-E x1 slots. I have an ASUS P5B MoBo.

Trying to copy over some large files, average 10GB per file from an external drive connecting through eSATA in the SeaGate. It starts off fast, but then it slows significantly.

Haven't been able to find a solution although I doubt it's the drive, I think it's the adaptor.
I downloaded the latest drivers from SYBA when I installed the card.

They are a cheap brand, so problem prone, but I have several that work fine. I had to reinstall the drivers using the update driver in the control panel.

Your transfers are still slow on an eSATA connection too?

Try a USB 2 connection and see if the speeds hold steady in the 20MB/s range.

 

[mltno]

I would love more input on this, i thought i got a bad drive. I took mine out installed in pc using same slots as other drives and it starts off fast but steadily goes down on large files at times can get down 30MB sec or less while my other non samsung drive is staying at 3x the speed.
Checking device manager driver is up to date but its 2006 any drivers needed to correct this issue ?

 

[RealBeast]

Best to start a specific thread for your particular issue and devices, rather than to hijack another thread, it just gets too confusing, especially when we get a double hijack.

 

[crosswire2005]

I'm transferring over 200GB to my new Seagate external drive on a newly installed USB 3.0 adapter and it's going incredibly slow (4MB/s). Do you think I have a defective drive or adapter? This is my first time buying an external drive, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

I recently bought 3 of seagate backup plus Seagate STCA3000101, 3TB drives.
I previously owned another 3TB model, the Seagate STAC3000102, and it worked well so I bought 3 more.

2 of 3 of the new 3TB drive, I filled with nearly 3TB of data. I did not time it exactly, but each took between 5-7 hours. I was happy with this performance.

The last one of the the new 3TB Drives was noticeable slower. It took 5 hours to copy 350GB of files to it (The same type of data files as the other drives) While copying, I could noticeable see a long pause (over a minute of more) on files that were relatively small, and this pause occurred often. I tested the data that was copied and I did not get any bit errors. The source data was was moved to another drive and it was moved steadily and took about two hours. I did some more copies to the 3rd 3TB, using 450GB of data and went to sleep and woke up and it did not finish copy in maybe 7 hours later and it was displaying long pauses on relatively small files. That same 450 GB was move from the source drive to another drive in about 2hrs. It is good however that even though the data copy seems slow to the 3rd new 3TB drive, I have not seen any error bits after running md5 hash data integrity check

I am using 16GB DDR3 @ 1600 good tested memory, Amd A6 dual core apu, Biostar board with 2 rear USB3 port, case with USB3 port at front. Also Windows XP 64ed

Note that I did format the 3rd new Drive in Windows Disk Management under Administrative tools, and that took 5hrs to do a full format. Note also, I did NOT format the first two new 3TB drives. I just move all the installation files that were on them to a backup location and used the drives as they were. At no time was the seagate software installed. The format was the only thing that I did "differently" to the 3rd new Seagate Drive and I do not know if that could be a cause to the slow copying. After, the first copy I did change usb3 port, reseat cables, and press down the bottom of the seagate drive (the part that seems like it can be removed somehow) just in case something got loose after the shipping. I am continuing to use it and test it to see if it will fail and let you know.

I did format two WD 3TB internal drives the same way, and used them without any problems. However, I did also create the partition on them. For the 3rd new Seagate, I did not re-create a partition, I just used back the existing one for the full format.
crosswire

 

[mltno]

Best to start a specific thread for your particular issue and devices, rather than to hijack another thread, it just gets too confusing, especially when we get a double hijack.

Didnt mean to hijack skimmed through post without reading fully and since ive been aching to so fix issue and it sounded similar replied quickly

I'm transferring over 200GB to my new Seagate external drive on a newly installed USB 3.0 adapter and it's going incredibly slow (4MB/s). Do you think I have a defective drive or adapter? This is my first time buying an external drive, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

For your issue i solved it by going to my motherboards website and downloading usb 3 drivers, also make sure you have it plugged into your usb 3 ports on pc (on mine they are different color then usb 2 ports)if your pc supports it

 

[SilverStar]

They are a cheap brand, so problem prone, but I have several that work fine. I had to reinstall the drivers using the update driver in the control panel.

Your transfers are still slow on an eSATA connection too?

Try a USB 2 connection and see if the speeds hold steady in the 20MB/s range.

No the transfer to the drive via eSATA is quick. I've never had a problem eSATA drive.

I've tried drag and drop from the eSATA to the USB3.0 drive and also trying something like Robocopy.
In each case, the transfer starts off very fast, eventually it seems like I'm hitting some sort of bottleneck somewhere and the transfer rate just drops off.

Not sure if it's related, but I've been having problems with a Dlink wireless adaptor, and losing connection.
I was copying something over to the USB 3.0 drive and as soon as I tried a "repair" from the system tray of the wireless signal, immediately, the transfer rate dropped.

 

[RealBeast]

You need to isolate the network issue from the transfer rate issue, if you can use an Ethernet connection, that would help.

 

[crosswire2005]

Well my 3rd new drive was found to be good i.e. 3TB external Seagate.

Reference Test:
I did a read & md5 verification test from the internal drive with 180GB of data in 779 files and it took 40 minuites

2nd Test:
I did the same read and verification from the External Seagate Backup Plus with the same data and it took about 1hr and 40 mins

I then changed the USB cable and also used the front instead of rear usb3 port then re-do the same test and it took 32 mins, ok. (So obviously re-formatting the seagate drive was NOT an issue)

I re-did the copy test that I mentioned in my previous post and it went smoothly and much faster. 455GB in 131,717 files and 4,919 folders was copied from the internal drive to the external seagate drive in 1 hr 15 mins. This was with the Seagate Backuo Plus still connected to the front USB3 port with the replaced usb cable. Well it would seem that the drive is ok. It did not slug at all. Some other issue may be present and it might be the cable or the port.

 

[Todd Nipper]

I'm transferring over 200GB to my new Seagate external drive on a newly installed USB 3.0 adapter and it's going incredibly slow (4MB/s). Do you think I have a defective drive or adapter? This is my first time buying an external drive, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

Try periodically checking the folder. The progress bar does not provide accurate transfer speeds. I have the Seagate Expansion 4TB external 3.0 drive. It shows 20 MB/s but, It's transfered 40GB in only a few minutes.