Extremely Slow Transfer Speed Between HDDs

Hey guys,

This morning I plugged in a USB 2.0 external HDD and it said that I needed to format it before using it. I downloaded and ran a program called Partition Find and Mount and used it to get to the files. I decided to copy and paste all of the files to another external drive. However, I am getting around 500KB/sec transfer speeds. The HDD I am writing to is a USB 3.0. There are only around 85GB on that HDD but with 500KB/sec, I'll be transferring for the next 2 days.

Anyone know what's wrong or have any suggestions?

Thanks,

 

Let me get this straight:

Your USB 2.0 HDD had data on it and when you connected it, you had a message that you had to format it?

If that is the case, there is likely something wrong with the drive (corrupted data, drive is dying, etc.)

You then used a third party program to try to access the data in order to transfer it to another drive and the transfer is slow?

In that case, the slow transfer could be one of three things:
1) The drive being on its way out is just slow
2) You are transferring small files which tanks the performance (USB2.0 is noticeable slow with random read/writes and doesn't do lots of smaller files all too well)
3) The software you're using to access the USB2.0 drive is causing the slowdown.

 

Thanks for the reply.

That is correct. I have a USB 2.0 HDD and I am transferring files to a USB 3.0 HDD.
Most of the files are large files. In the past, I have moved around these files at much higher speeds. I am not sure why it is so slow this time.

Using this program, I am able to mount the partition. I assigned it to letter D as opposed to letter E, which is currently accessible without formatting. Currently, all of the files I have tired to access are uncorrupted.

 

It sounds like the hard drive might be damaged, and is taking its time trying to correct the data that is damaged on the disk. Probably best to finish the transfer you have started, check out as much data as you can on the USB3.0 drive to see if it all made it through the transfer okay, and then retire that old USB2.0 drive.

 

Alright. Will do. I'm a bit surprised it got damaged though. I plugged it in and it was working fine (I could access the drive). Then, I leave the computer for a few hours, and when I come back, it says I need to format to access...

 

I could be wrong on what's going on. But all hard drives fail eventually; it doesn't have to be damage that causes a drive to go.

 

You could also try checking the SMART status of the drive, to confirm that it is on its way out.

 

The SMART data may not reveal anything, but it's worth a shot, it usually detects drives on their way out, but not always. There are more thorough diagnostics you can run if the SMART data doesn't show anything. If you want to fun more complete diagnostics, finish transferring the data first, if it's a failing drive, it could die for good at any time.

 

Josh just out of curiosity when you unplug your 2.0 drive do you always use the windows eject from the systray or windows explorer ?
Also do you see any USB related errors in event viewer when the transfers are slow?

 

I'll do one of those when the transfer finishes.

 

I use the windows eject 95% of the time. Occasionally, the drive says its in use even when there is nothing open and no programs using it, but that happens to my other HDD and flash drives too. If i cannot hear the drive making any sounds when I put my ear to it, I pull it out.

There have been no errors so far.

 

Update:

I managed to get all my files off the hard drive, and it seems like all the files are okay. Here is the weird part. Using the program to mount the drive I can see that it is 147/232 GB. When I go to format I only see 31.9 GB capacity. Also, using WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics the SMART test passed.

Update 2:
Decided to write zeros to the entire drive since I already have the data.

 

Is it NTFS or FAT32 filesystem?

 

NTFS filesystem

 

I'd bet he was trying to format in FAT32 through windows which only lets you make 32 GB partitions. The drive might be NTFS right now, but that doens't mean that when you go to format, NTFS will be selected by default.

@OP: If you're only going to use this drive on windows computers, format in NTFS, if for some reason you need it to be FAT32 (PS3 backups and such), use parted magic or gparted.

 

When I tried to format originally, I had NTFS selected.

In any case, after I wrote zeros to the drive, I did the initial format through Computer Management. I have all 232 GB free now, and transfer speeds are back up to 28-30GB/s.

Still not sure what happened to it initially.

 

Man that's odd, keep an eye on that drive and maybe not store important data on it.

But i may just be paranoid.

 

Defintiely keep an eye on the drive and have a backup of anything on that drive. I always have a backup of the backup just in case.