Question Slow Transfer Speed from External Hard Drive

[PewterScreaminMach]

I'm currently transferring 1.07 TB from my external hard drive to my desktop's internal storage drive.

External drive: WD My Passport Ultra 2TB

Internal drive: WD Black 6TB

I am using the USB 3.0 cable included with the external drive and plugged into a USB 3.1 (teal) port directly on the motherboard, not a front of case port.

It's showing another 4 hrs 30 mins of transfer time after five minutes or so and transfer speeds are hovering around 50-60 MB/s, spiking a bit higher here and there.

Task Manager Performance tab shows the external drive running around 90-95% pretty consistently and the internal drive running around 50-55% pretty consistently.

I don't know much in this area but my limited understanding had me believing these transfer times are many times longer than they should be for a USB 3.0 connection (I understand it's based on the slowest part, which is the 3.0 of the external drive, not the 3.1 desktop port). Please correct me if I'm wrong or if you have any thoughts or advice.

Thanks.

EDIT: I have cancelled the transfer twice now and tried on two different USB 3.0 (darker blue) ports, both on the motherboard, as well, and am seeing exactly the same results.

I'm guessing this would point to an issue with read/write speeds on one of the hard drives? It seems I'm basically getting USB 2.0 speeds on any of the 3.0 or 3.1 ports I use and my external drive and cable are both 3.0.

Seeing as how my external drive is showing nearly maxed out "performance" in the Task Manager and my internal drive is only around 50%, I'm guessing the bottleneck is with the external drive?

 

[Grobe]

What kind of files are you transfering? A few big ones or many small?

 

[PewterScreaminMach]

What kind of files are you transfering? A few big ones or many small?

Combination. Everything from small text files to large 4k videos a couple GB each.

 

[USAFRet]

Combination. Everything from small text files to large 4k videos a couple GB each.

And all those small txt files are dragging the transfer speed down.

A single 2GB file will transfer a LOT faster than 10,000 tiny files adding up to 2GB.
The OS has to find file 1 transfer it, stop, find file 2, start that, stop, find file 3, etc, etc...
Even with an SSD, this take 'time'.

 

[PewterScreaminMach]

And all those small txt files are dragging the transfer speed down.

A single 2GB file will transfer a LOT faster than 10,000 tiny files adding up to 2GB.
The OS has to find file 1 transfer it, stop, find file 2, start that, stop, find file 3, etc, etc...
Even with an SSD, this take 'time'.

Thanks for the info. I assumed that type of transfer would be slower than one large file but am surprised at just how much slower. Going to test a single large file transfer to see just how much faster it is, out of curiosity.

 

[USAFRet]

Here, we have results copying from one SATA III SSD to another.
Same source and destination.

On the left, 1,100 jpg, approx 5.5MB each.
On the right, a single ISO.
Both approx 3.5GB total.

If that left result were much smaller txt files, the overall difference would be much larger.

 

[PewterScreaminMach]

Here, we have results copying from one SATA III SSD to another.
Same source and destination.

On the left, 1,100 jpg, approx 5.5MB each.
On the right, a single ISO.
Both approx 3.5GB total.

If that left result were much smaller txt files, the overall difference would be much larger.

Thanks! That's good info.