Slow Copying to USB Flash Disk

Question

Level 1

1 points

Slow Copying to USB Flash Disk

Hi,

When I copy something to a USB 2.0 flash disk in Leopard it is very slow. I don't have this issue with the same flash disk on other machines.

I browsed the forums and I found some other users have reported the same issue but I couldn't find any fixes for it. Is there a fix/workaround available for this issue?

FYI, here's what System Profiler displays for the flash disk:

Storage Media:

Capacity: 3.75 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
Version: 1.00
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Sony
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
Product ID: 0x0243
Serial Number: 2A08041828567
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Vendor ID: 0x054c
Volumes:
BEHRANG:
Capacity: 3.75 GB
Available: 3.72 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
BSD Name: disk2s1
Mount Point: /Volumes/BEHRANG

Cheers,
Behrang

Message was edited by: Behi

iMac Core 2 Duo 20", Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on May 30, 2008 11:23 PM

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Answer 1

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

May 30, 2008 11:25 PM in response to Behrang

Are you plugging it into a USB 2.0 port?

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Answer 2

May 31, 2008 5:22 AM in response to Behrang

A lot depends on what other USB devices you have on the hub you are using. Is the flash drive connected via an external hub or directly to your Mac. System profiler tells you the maximum possible speed for the device but that's only if it has unfettered access to all the bandwidth for the particular hub you connected too.

Also bear in mind that not all flash drives are the same and some are very slow.

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Answer 3

Behrang Author

Level 1

1 points

May 31, 2008 8:13 AM in response to Noiseboy2006

I plugged the flash disk into the Aluminum Keyboard's USB slot and also one of the USB slots behind my iMac but the result was the same.

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Answer 4

JRob_MN

Level 1

19 points

Jun 10, 2008 1:42 PM in response to Behrang

This is happening to me as well. I wanted to copy a 1.58GB iphoto library to a 4GB USB flash drive so I could free up some disk space (I'll burn it to a DVD at home). However, OSX is telling me that it'll take 8 hours(!!!) to copy these files to the drive. I've tried another drive, and I've tried plugging them into both of the USB ports on my PowerBook -- no difference.

I thought that maybe it had something to do with moving a large amount of small files, but attempting to ZIP it first and then just move the one zip file over hit another slowdown: the Archive utility is saying that it'll take 3 hours (!!!) to compress the files.

Something seems to have changed. Maybe it has something to do with 10.5.3?

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Answer 5

Jun 14, 2008 8:41 PM in response to Noiseboy2006

I am having the same problem with a SanDisk Cruzer which is blazing fast on my windows box and was, in fact, blazing fast on my old iBook G4. It doesn't matter whether it's plugged straight into the MacBook, the hub, or the second daisy chained hub. It's intolerably slow no matter what, and profiler reports it as USB 2.0.

Actually, it was fine on this exact MacBook when I still had 10.4 now that I think of it.

The disk has always been formatted FAT16, BTW. It is 1GB.

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Answer 6

Jun 15, 2008 12:02 PM in response to Behrang

This issue is occurring with every Macintosh in my store. All brands of flash drives, even when connected to our Mac Pros, continually have transfer rate issues over USB. The problem is alleviated, but not entirely fixed, when using the HFS+ format, but it is still slower than when connected to a PC.

Either this is a USB controller issue, which I find unlikely, or this is an operating system issue, which needs to be taken care of.

I've confirmed this problem on 28 different Macintoshes, Mac Pros, iMacs, Mac minis, and all models of MacBook/Pro.

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Answer 7

Jun 15, 2008 12:09 PM in response to Behrang

What happens if you format the drive to HFS+ (Macintosh Extended) using Disk Utility?

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Answer 8

Jun 16, 2008 10:59 AM in response to Topher Kessler

Whilst HFS is faster than FAT32, there is still a noticeable and yet significant difference in speed between a PC and a Mac with the same flash drive.

Another thing that should be tested is to install Windows on the Mac and see if the performance changes. If that is the case, then there is a bug in the operating system that must be dealt with.

It's hard to know what exactly is going on.

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Answer 9

Wayne T

Level 4

2,255 points

Jul 5, 2008 2:41 AM in response to JRob_MN

If it's saying dumb things like '8 hrs' it's because it's getting errors/no responses
I'd try a full Mac low level format, direct connection etc..[and a look at the sys console logs]

- best

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