USB Flash Drive Speed Test

I have been frustrated with the very slow speed of reading and writing to flash drives, especially when my PC friends seem to transfer files many times faster. You know, a friend gives you some files or photos on a USB drive to load and you are embarrassed with the load time.

I found the problem, or more accurately, the feature that causes the slow transfer times. Your OS is indexing all the files on the memory stick so it can be easily searched. Turn off this feature and files are transfered very fast.

Go to:
System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy
Add the name of the flash drive to this list.

Select the Disk Activity tab in Activity Monitor (Utilities folder) and click the Data button below the window. Copy a large file to and from the USB drive and watch the write and read speeds.

More info.

*How Fast Does A USB 2.0 Drive Go On The Newest Macs? How Does It Compare To FireWire?*
http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html

*USB: Transfer Speed Compared to Other Technologies*
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24531

 Cheers, Tom 😉

HI Anthony,

Not sure about USB flash drive testers... but here's an article that might shed some light on the speed issues: http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=250

Carolyn 🙂

Malcolm's idea should work for you, but Quick Bench & Zone Bench, both part of SpeedToolsX are what I use.

Nope, but there certainly needs to be a way... it's opt out instead of opt in unfortunately! 😟

Complain to Apple, I have many times.