USB 3.0 is super slow on Retina MacBook Pro

It is not uncommon for any usb 3 device to have slow transfer rates when you are copying files to the drive, write spped. Just like all ssd's, flash storage, have slower write speeds then they do read speeds. That is just how it is. If you look at the specs of your thumb drive you might notice the advertised speed is only on the read speed and some manufacturers never really publish the write speeds as they are so slow.

Now if the speeds you aere seeing are on reads from the usb drive then first do a SMC reset on your mac. If the read speeds don't increase then possibly your usb drive is faulty.

does the gaming pc get 103mbs read or write speeds from that same USB stick? or is it from a different USB 3.0 device. The USB 3.0 stick may in actualaty be a USB 2.0 stick aith a USB 3.0 adapter on it. Companies will usually try and do things like that because they believe most consumers are stupid and they feel like they can just put a new cover on old technalogy. You really have to trust a manufature that they put good hardware in to a device, such as good cache in a HDD (not just quataty of cache but also the quality of having low latancy, fast speeds, error correcting (ram or powered memory needs to be discharged when bad write cycles occur which is why we have eror correcting or discharge)-----Ram only hold information when it has energy that is why when a garmin GPS/ ipod touch (after update) stops working correctly you need to drain the battery to delete all data in the catch. My syster took her 1.2 year old ipod touch in for service because after the new update came out it would start (a virus or something on macs ios update) they said it would be cheaper to buy a new one than fix it. The same with the garmin. This is why I say good cache, because I am smart enough to know i had to drain the batteries compeltely on both using backwards USB, the Garmin started up no problem (i wish they still put the analog power on garmins it was alot easier to drain them when the ram malfunctioned) on the ipod touch I had to do a hard reset using wall power only, (if i used computer the computer and ipod touch would try to comunicate incorrectly IE the fact they had a virus/ on ITUNEs ios update). than after it reached the hard boot mode, than you could unplug the USB from the wall power and plug it into the computer. Took me about 10 minutes to figure out what i had to do without any article on it, and without 15 minutes to complete. So that being said the quality of the ram/ cache is not just having low latancy, fast speeds, and larger size its also the ability to not create errors, and to fix any errors it makes. all that makes a good cache which helps to make a good drive. purhaps try to rest the drive, there might be a - and a + jumper sometimes in older drives that is how you could clear the internal cache most newer drives don't, The usb might have an internal batery that you may need to temporaly disconect inorder to clearly the cache.

Also what is the formate of the USB stick? have you tried a different formate? like journal, i asume you are using fat 32, but if you are using NTSF and a program to write to it on mac that program might be the problem. MAC's are capable of reading these but may not be as good their more designed for PC. Whan you conect the drive does it read a USB 2.0 conection or a USB 3.0?

-go to the apple icon in the top left, than about this mac, than more information, than system report, than scrol down and click USB if the device reads conected as 5Gbs (which is 500mbs the capital letter means the actual speed is one decimal place over) than it is conected as USB 3.0. Also i would try to conect a differnt USB 3.0 device like a WD mybook which gets around 135-165mbs transfer speeds (mine is a PC version reformated for journal, i can't see spending the extra 20-80$ to have a drive pre-formated, which only takes a few secounds using disk utility. Just check out the conection status, and the formating type for now, i doubt they put a usb 2.0 chip in a new mac pro.my mac pro from 2011 has a SATA 600mbs controler, they are usually known for being smater like alothough the computer itself was capable of SATA 600mbs the drive was rotational and was only sata 300mbs which mis still more than enough for any rotatioanl drive on the market. They only put the SATA 600mbs so we the consumers could put an after market SSD in the computer later.

James,

You're answering a year old post.