Windows 10: Extremely slow file transfer from computer to external HDD

Extremely slow file transfer from computer to external HDD

I am almost sure it has to do with Malwarebytes real time protection which I recently installed, and I am not a complainer but this is almost ridiculous.

Robby





:)

 

transfering files from 64 bit Vista to Windows 10

Hi Alex,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community.

Sorry to know that you are facing this issue.

If you have an external HDD then you may first copy the desired data to the external HDD first. Once this is done plug in the external HDD to the Windows 10 pc and then move the files from the external HDD to the pc. Windows Easy Transfer is
not available in Windows 8.1 anymore.

If you transfer files from the old computer that contain malicious software, that software can be transferred to your new computer. We strongly recommend that you run antivirus and spyware protection programs at all times, especially on your
old computer, before you select files to transfer. After you're transferred files to your new computer, run those programs on the new computer to make sure that no malicious software was transferred.

Keep us informed to help you further.

 

Can't create a Restore Point.

What I do is save all files in an external HDD or in IneDrive then, create a local account (admin) delete the bad user profile. reboot pc and re-create the user profile (same name) and put files back from external HDD. it's simplier.

or you can.

Transfer all important files to an external HDD and reset your PC. all files and programs willl be deleted but your PC will be back to factory state. then, transfer all files back from HDD

 

Unfortunately transferring 1000's of small files takes longer than 1 large file, Your better off just compressing them all together with Zip or 7zip and then transfer them.

Is the drive a USB 2 drive, If it's a USB 3 drive is it plugged into a USB 3 port.

 

The external HDD are connected through USB, but it's a somewhat older computer with only USB 2 ports.

And yes there are a lot of small files which I need to back-up frequently.

Robby

 

AV etc often causes it to crawl as it scans on read and on write

 

Most likely, that's the downside of real time protection

 

I noticed a huge speed difference in copying from NTFS to NTFS is 30 x faster
Sadly my 2 (4Tb HDD) are formatted in exFat, and I can not change it anymore.

Robby

 

If your 4TB disks are formatted ExFAT then each sector is 128kb. With NTFS it is (by default) 4kb. See this link:default-cluster-size-for-ntfs-fat-and-exfat

Apart from ExFAT wasting space for small files, what is interesting is the difference in cluster size (32x bigger) is exactly the same as the performance penalty you noticed. Perhaps it is a co-incidence - it would need more testing I guess.

Not sure what (if anything) can be done about it though if you can't reformat.

One question though - I see your example was photos from 2017. Are you backing up everything each time or just changed files? If you are repeatedly backing up the whole directory you could use robocopy instead and only write changed objects to backup disk.

 

The two external HDD are identical with files, so I started the journey to format the first one to NTFS and copy all the files from the other one (15 hours estimated)

Robby

 

You could also use SyncToy for backing up files and folders. Once the initial back up completed, it'll only back up changes. SyncToy can be scheduled to synchronize the folders and files in the background.

Download SyncToy 2.1 from Official Microsoft Download Center

I have mine running in every four hours, without noticing much of a performance hit on the system.

 

Will have a look at it !

Thanks a lot

 

I do have a question about SyncToy if you don't mind.

I have 2 external HDD with both the same information. Can I sync from the computer to two drives at the same time?
Do I get exactly the same file names instead of strange file names I had with another sync program (can not remember which one)

Robby