M3 Max chip on MacBook Pro has painfully slow transfer speed when connecting to external usb flash drive rated at 1000/mbs

D.I. Johnson wrote:

Flash drives are not fast.

1000 mb/s = 1.25 MB/s = 75MB/min = 4.5GB/hr = 63GB/14hours

That's not correct. 1000 mb/s = 125 MB/s = 450 GB/hr so this would be 0.15 hours for 67 GB.

Obviously the flash drive is not performing at 1000 mb/s. It seems like it is working at 10 mb/s speeds, which is slower than USB2, maybe even USB1.

I use an M3 Macbook Pro at work and it transfers to/from SSDs at 500-1000 MB/s.

steve626 wrote:

That's not correct. 1000 mb/s = 125 MB/s = 450 GB/hr so this would be 0.15 hours for 67 GB.

1000 mb/s was what the OP posted. It is safe to assume that was incorrect. It's easy to find USB 3.2 Gen 2 flash drives marketed at "1000 MB/s", so I'm sure that's what the OP meant.

But regardless, none of that means anything. Flash drives regularly exaggerate their speed. File systems can make a huge difference. Flash drives are typically some kind of lowest common denominator like FAT. But then, it couldn't be FAT with a 67 GB file, so it is probably something slightly more exotic and less well-supported.

And finally, those initial estimates can be wildly inaccurate, especially in these edge cases. It may sit at 14 hours for 2 minutes and then change to 7 minutes remaining.

Flash drives are not fast.

1000 mb/s = 1.25 MB/s = 75MB/min = 4.5GB/hr = 63GB/14hours