Windows 10: Windows 10 file copies to external devices excruciatingly slow

Frustrated...a bit of a rant....


Ever since I started using Windows 10 I have been having trouble copying large amounts of data to/from external USB drives. I have experienced the same problems across multiple machines and multiple external drives and multiple iterations of Windows 10. The latest machine to exhibit these problems is a new super high performance gaming rig with the latest fastest hardware available and a fresh install of Windows 10. I'm using USB 3.0 drives plugged into USB 3.0 ports. "Small" file copies of 1 - 2 Gigabytes will work but are slow, with the copies take several minutes to complete and the speeds in the 10/20 MB/sec range or less. Using drive performance test utilities, the same drives on the same ports on the same machine show transfer speeds of nearly 500MB/sec, and so clearly there is something wrong with the Windows Explorer file copy code. Last night I tried to drag 100GB worth of photos off of an SD card and onto an external USB drive. After 45 minutes Windows still said "calculating time for copy" or some such thing. I gave up, cancelled the task, came into work, and performed the same operation on my Mac, and the entire copy was done in under 35 minutes.


I have Googled for solutions and consequently have seen a LOT of posts on the Internet with people complaining about the same thing, and always the troubleshooter suggests a hardware issue. They give answers like "run the troubleshooter", or "repair/optimize the drive", or "disable anti-virus" (a catch-all suggestion for just about every PC issue), as well as tons of unrelated fix suggestions like "change the following TCP/IP network properties". None of these things address what I think is the real problem, and that is some inherent performance issue associated with doing file copies using Windows 10 Explorer. I have NEVER seen a file transfer go faster than 40 MB/sec on a Windows 10 machine, and even that speed is rare, usually dropping back to 10 - 20 MB/sec after the first few seconds.


Is ANYONE out there able to copy large files to/from USB drives at high rates of speed (100 MB/Sec - 500 MB/sec) using Windows 10 Explorer? If so enlighten me, and then I will at least know that it is possible. But until then I will have to assume that W10 Explorer is not simply not capable of efficiently performing one of the most basic OS tasks. It is just astounding to me that a piece of software can so effectively cripple high speed hardware.

:)

 

Slow speeds when copying on external drive

Hi all,

since I installed TeraCopy I started to monitor my copy speeds and they are un-usually slow. Here is a real example. Laptop specs are in my profile, I have 3 USB 3.0 ports + 1 Super charge (the yellow one). Regular 8GB USB 2.0 flash drive. It copies at exactly 6MB/s from my laptop. I put it on another weaker specs laptop- 16MB/s, (same flash drive, same file). I hoked to a 10 years old DELL laptop- same result- 16mb/s. Tried with external HDD, same slow copy speeds from my USB ports. Seriously?

One solution I saw was to go to Device manager->Drives->Policies and switch to "Better performance", but use the icon to unplug the drive. Haven't tested with my drive, but another showed no difference at all.

I have no un-recognized devices on the list:

 

Slow speeds when copying on external drive

Slow Speed

Hiii..... Since you are facing from slow speed problems.. You need to take care of your computer very well otherwise it may stuck some day later.. So, first perform disk cleanup so that all your cookies are clear, update your PC with some antivirus. You can follow the steps and I belive it will be helpful for you.

USB storage devices can be optimized for either quick removal or performance. If optimized for quick removal, data transfer can potentially be reduced to a crawl.

To optimize your USB drive for performance:
1.Right click on the USB drive and select properties
2.Select the Hardware tab
3.Under All Disk Drives, highlight your USB drive and select Properties
4.Select the Policies tab and select Optimize for performance.
5.Press OK twice, and your transfer speeds should increase dramatically
Note that when your drive is optimized for performance you'll need to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the taskbar to eject the drive - otherwise you'll risk corrupting your data by just removing the drive from the port.

 

Regarding copying of files in external drive from pc

Hi,

The message that appeared on your screen may have occurred due to the possible missing files if you'll try to copy it that way. We suggest that you follow these steps on how you can copy the file together with it's properties:

• Right click on the application (Bully) and click Properties.
• On the application properties window, under the Shortcut tab, click
  Open File Location.
• The File Location window will open.
• Select everything. Copy and paste it to the external drive.
• The copying process may take a while depending on the type of files.

Let us know if you need further assistance.