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User profile for user: GibbsV
GibbsV Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

The USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter being extremely slow (with External Hard Drive).

I recently bought USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter for my MacBook Pro (13-inch, M2, 2022) so I could use my External Hard Drive (WD Elements Portable, 2T, USB3) with my previous computer's data.


When I connected the Hard Drive to the USB entry on the adapter and the adaptor to the MacBook, I noticed the data transfer was extremely slow and basically unusable.


To test it out, I went back to my old laptop (MacBook Pro, 2011), which has the USB3 entry of the HD connect directly to it, and it worked just as it should.


I took a 5GB file and tried transferring it to my old laptop, giving me a 7 minute transfer estimate. I did the same for my new laptop with the adaptor giving me a 6 hour transfer estimate.


This is pretty surprising considering the adaptor is advertised to work with 5Gbps speeds, the same speed as my HD and it's cable. The HDMI entry seems to work just fine, too, and the adaptor and MacBook are just days old.


Is there ant fix for this? Is the adaptor just slow or does there have to be some sort of process to get the HD working in the new computer at good speeds? Was there some mistake on my end?


I appreciate any insight or advice.



TL:DR -- Is there a fix for USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter making file transfers extremely slow?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 19, 2022 1:36 AM

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
133,225 points

Posted on Oct 19, 2022 6:43 AM

The USB-C port on that device supports charging ONLY. Its data pathways are suitable for a keyboard or mouse, nothing faster.


The USB-A shaped connector supports USB-3 speeds.


About the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter - Apple Support


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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,380 points

Oct 19, 2022 7:15 PM in response to GibbsV

I've been using the Apple multi-port adapter as well as the Apple USB-C to USB-A Adapters and have had no problems with transfer speeds of a SATA III SSD. I believe I even used an OWC Aura SSD (NVMe based so 3x faster than SATA III at about 1,500MB/s) with it a few years ago without issue.


Keep in mind that Apple Silicon Macs and even macOS Monterey can sometimes have compatibility issues with external drives. Sometimes those compatibility issues only surface when two particular devices are connected at the same time. Plus the file system used on the external drive can play a part as well especially if you are using a proprietary third party NTFS driver to access an NTFS volume on the external drive.


Also, with our organization's Macs, the way they are configured, sometimes I must wait 30 minutes before testing them since macOS and the installed apps may be busy scanning the system, checking for updates, and installing updates, and Spotlight may be indexing the system as well. When this occurs, you can get some performance issues (sometimes severe issues). Check Activity Monitor for CPU utilization, and also Disk I/O transfers. Seeing a lot of Disk I/O when you are not transferring files or working on anything indicates some background process(es) are utilizing resources.

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The USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter being extremely slow (with External Hard Drive).

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