How long should it usually take to copy 307 Gb from internal hard drive to external Thunderbolt hard drive?

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Level 1

61 points

How long should it usually take to copy 307 Gb from internal hard drive to external Thunderbolt hard drive?

I just purchase a new 3 TB LaCie external Thunderbolt disk drive that is capable of operatiing at 10 Gb/sec via the provided Thunderbolt cable. I am copying the contents of my home folder to it, 307 Gb, and it is going incredibly slowly and Mac OS X Mavericks is estimating that it will take one day to copy the files!! What is the point of having Thunderbolt if it is still going to take this long to transfer files to and from an external hard disk? Is it functioning properly?

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 3.4 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 mid-2011

Posted on Nov 24, 2013 4:57 PM

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Answer 1

DonH49

Level 6

16,716 points

Nov 30, 2013 11:39 AM in response to alp1116

Should take about 35 to 45 minutes in normal function. The 10 gig is just theory not reality. TB is much faster than ub2 or firewire 800. your case seems abnormal. I have three La Cie 3 T TB externals and they function normally.

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Answer 2

alp1116 Author

Level 1

61 points

Dec 2, 2013 11:46 PM in response to Csound1

Yes and 2 days is 64 times longer than 45 minutes.

Resetting the SMC controller and the NVRAM and PRAM seemed to improve speeds somewhat - about 50 to 70 MB/sec. Still a far cry from the advertised 170 MB/sec. After doing so, copying took 3-4 hours - still a lot longer than 45 minutes, but much, much better than two days!!

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Nov 24, 2013 5:17 PM in response to alp1116

I am looking at the technical specification of your drive on the LaCie website, here, have a link

And a picture

No HDD gets anywhere near that speed, the fastest SSD manages about 6Gb/s.

Read the manufacturers spec a bit more clearly.

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Answer 4

alp1116 Author

Level 1

61 points

Nov 30, 2013 9:23 PM in response to DonH49

I am trying to copy the contents of my home folder again for the second time, and OS X Mavericks is estimating that it will take 2 days to copy my home folder contents (307 Gb) to the LaCie external hard drive via Thunderbolt. Here is a grab:

As you can see Data Transfer rates are 1.5 to 2.5 Mb/second. Just seconds before I did this grab it was 300 Kb/second. And two days is a far cry from 35 to 45 minutes.

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Answer 5

alp1116 Author

Level 1

61 points

Nov 24, 2013 5:14 PM in response to Csound1

I do not know what you are looking at, but I am looking a the box for the La Cie 4TB (not 3TB sorry correction to above) d2 Thunderbolt USB3 Series, 7200 RPM. Nowhere does it say on the box that I am looking at that the average transfer rate is 170 Mb/sec read and 165 Mb/sec write. On the contrary, it says:

Shocking speeds up to 10 Gb/s

Thunderbolt - 10 Gb/s

USB 3.0 - 5 Gb/s

FW 800 - 800 Mb/s

USB 2.0 - 480 Mb/s

And even the average figures you stated (which are nowhere on the outside of this box unless it is in print that is so tiny that it is unreadable) would be better than the 60Mb/sec read and 59 Mb/sec write that I am currently getting.

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Answer 6

alp1116 Author

Level 1

61 points

Nov 30, 2013 7:18 AM in response to Csound1

And I am telling you that is not what is printed on the box, sand what is on the box is the only specs that you can see when you purchase the drive at an Apple Retail Store. Furthermore, when the data copy speed fell to 300 KB/second, I called Apple Online Support again and even they said that the Thunderbolt port and the LaCie drive should be operating at MUCH FASTER SPEEDS. Based on what you have said, it appears that LaCie is printing misleading information on its retail packaging for its 4TB external Thunderbolt drive and it also appears that there is something wrong with the Thunderbolt port on my Mac.

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Answer 7

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,451 points

Dec 3, 2013 5:11 AM in response to alp1116

I've run all types of external drives. The speed is only as fast as the weakest (slowest) component. If using a TB external drive and expect TB speeds you need to be using an SSD. This also applies to using USB3 assuming the enclosure has the latest USB3 protocal. If you are using any standard mechanical drive even if 7200RPM do not expect any speeds >150 (on a good day) and usually much slower. That being said not sure what your slow transfer speeds are caused from. They should be higher.

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Answer 8

DonH49

Level 6

16,716 points

Dec 3, 2013 1:21 PM in response to alp1116

Last point. I have many bare sata hard drives. Over the years I've encountered a few duds. I currently have a Hitachi 64 bit sata drives that functions slow as heck. I've placed it in all kinds of enclosures and even inside my Mac Pro and always no go. I should be getting around 105 megs/sec and only does around 20. Its a lemon. The TB connection does not mess with that ; its the hard drive which is bad for some reason.

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Answer 9

Dec 4, 2013 1:19 PM in response to alp1116

I recently (first-time) cloned the flash drive of a new MBP having about 2.5 Gb total to a Thunderbold drive. I am hazy on exactly how much time is took, but, as I recall, not much over 30 min. Whatever the time, it was very fast. The same task took over 2 hrs. using a firewire 800 drive. My guess is that you have a faulty drive, although your problem might originate with your Mac.

Without going into it, I have begun questionning the merits of at least some LaCie drives. I really like my Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB Thunderbolt.

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