copy and paste runs very slowly and never did before.

Deaf Dave said:

jimbo45
Thank you for your reply.
My computer (HP Presario P6716F) is about 8 years old and only has USB 2 ports. I'll have to purchase 3.0 hardware to install into my expansion slot. I'll need to research how to do that.

Then I'll have to check and see if my external hard drive is USB 3. If not, I'll have to purchase one that is. My research says that 3.0 is about 10 times faster than 2.0. Once I am 3.0 compatible, that should solve the slowness problem.

Forgot to mention that during the most recent copy & paste the fastest transfer rate was 21 MB/s and the slowest was 10 KB/s.

Hi there
On some of those older computers it's no point getting a USB3 card as the bus speed might not be capable of handling the USB speed throughput.

Also the older HDD's are probably IDE (those connected with the thick 20 pin ribbon cable) which are as slow as molasses anyway -- HDD's should be SATA connected these days.

It seems to me you might be better off looking for a new machine -- often there's quite OK used / refurb'd ones on amazon if you don't want to spend money on a new one.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo,
I have SATA cables. Will have to find out how to check the BUS speed. Do know how to check and what they should be at a minimum?

If need be, I'll buy a new computer even though I'll hate transferring everything from this one to a new one. Other than the cost, very time consuming! Before doing that, I'll just get a card, install it and see how things go. I think the external drive is 3.0

Best regards, Dave

Deaf Dave said:

jimbo,
I have SATA cables. Will have to find out how to check the BUS speed. Do know how to check and what they should be at a minimum?

If need be, I'll buy a new computer even though I'll hate transferring everything from this one to a new one. Other than the cost, very time consuming! Before doing that, I'll just get a card, install it and see how things go. I think the external drive is 3.0

Best regards, Dave

Hi there
actually transferring to a new computer is very easy -- simply backup image with Macrium to HDD, restore to new machine. Use the stand alone boot restore. Backup New machine before starting though. then also if old OS was W7 you can update on the new machine to W10 Free (in pretty well most cases).

Cheers
jimbo

Jimbo,
I have Win 10 64 bit. I'm not too smart when it comes to all this technical stuff so please bear with me as I digest and stumble through all this.

Did some checking on my BUS speed. Speed is 200 MHz. Rated speed is 1999.9 MHz. Stock core speed is 3000 MHz
Stock BUS speed is 200 MHz. Would this work with 3.0 ?

So, I should create an image of my current drive using Macrium (I have this). Then restore (copy) to the new machine.

What is "stand alone boot restore"?
What does back up new machine before starting mean?

Regards, Dave

Jimbo,
I have Win 10 64 bit. I'm not too smart when it comes to all this technical stuff so please bear with me as I digest and stumble through all this.

Did some checking on my BUS speed. Speed is 200 MHz. Rated speed is 1999.9 MHz. Stock core speed is 3000 MHz
Stock BUS speed is 200 MHz. Would this work with 3.0 ?

So, I should create an image of my current drive using Macrium (I have this). Then restore (copy) to the new machine.

What is "stand alone boot restore"?
What does back up new machine before starting mean?

Regards, Dave

- - - Updated - - -

Jacee,

Here's the specs.

Most people buy or install USB 3.x drives to find out that the bottle neck isn't the USB transfer rate but the device connected to it.
USB 2.0 has a transfer rate of 480Mb/s (bits/s) or 60MB/s (Bytes/s)
USB 3.0 has a transfer rate of 4800Mb/s (bits/s) or 600MB/s (Bytes/s)

A typical 5400RPM 2.5" HDD has a transfer rate of 50MB/s (Bytes/s) or less.
So a external disk (5400RPM 2.5" HDD) will be slow even if it has USB3.x transfer rates.

As you have a desktop, instead of a external disk, buy a 2.5" SSD and connect directly to a SATA port. Transfer rates will be determined by your OS drive (150 MB/s if SATA III HDD or 500 MB/s if it's a SATA III SSD)
When not in use, disconnect the power cable.

PS.: You should run a disk check on both your disks (Internal and external). One indication of a failing disk is slow transfer rates)

Megahertz,
Some of this stuff is over my head. What I do know is my internal drive is 7200RPM with a maximum transfer mode: SATA III 6Gb/s and the used transfer mode SATA II 3.0 Gb/s (see attachment)..

If I interpret your reply correctly, you want me to take the side panel off the PC and connect a 5400 RPM 2.5" hard drive to the SATA tab on the motherboard.Will that drive need to also be connected to the power cable? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

.
Also, I use a different external hard drive to clone my internal drive. I do that once a week using Macrium.
I could use the drive you mentioned and connect it to those same cables for my 3rd party email backup.

Last week I had run SFC / SCANNOW and CHKDSK C: /F and no errors or problems were found.
Thank you for your reply, Dave

Deaf Dave said:

Megahertz,
Some of this stuff is over my head. What I do know is my internal drive is 7200RPM with a maximum transfer mode: SATA III 6Gb/s and the used transfer mode SATA II 3.0 Gb/s (see attachment)..
It seems you have a fast communication device on your HDD (SATA III) and a not so fast communication device on your MoBo (SATA II).
It doesn't make any difference as I never had seen a HDD that has a transfer rate higher than 180MB/s

If I interpret your reply correctly, you want me to take the side panel off the PC and connect a 5400 RPM 2.5" hard drive (not a HDD, a SSD) to the SATA tab on the motherboard.Will that drive need to also be connected to the power cable? Yes Please correct me if I'm wrong.


Also, I use a different external hard drive to clone my internal drive. I do that once a week using Macrium.
I could use the drive you mentioned and connect it to those same cables for my 3rd party email backup.
You don't need two drives (one for Macrium and another to email). You can use the same drive to backup both.

Last week I had run SFC / SCANNOW and CHKDSK C: /F and no errors or problems were found.
Thank you for your reply, Dave

Dave, what I said on last post is that a transfer rate is set by the lowest device on the chain. In the case of an external HDD, it doesn't matter if it uses a USB2 or USB3.x as the lowest device is the HDD, not the communication (USB2.0 or USB3.x).

Megahertz,
Thank you for your reply. So, if I understand correctly, it's the drive's speed that impacts the transfer
speeds and not whether its USB 2.0 or 3.0. In that case, my installing a 3.0 USB 4 port card adapter to plug the external 3.0
HDD into would do nothing to increase the transfer speeds.Is that correct?
Would the same be the case with a SSD drive?

The reason I use an external bare HDD to clone my internal drive to is that in case
of internal drive failure, I can just swap out the failed drive with the new one
I just cloned and I'm back in business within about 15 minutes. The cloning of
my drive takes about 4 hours for 422 Gb.. I'm not happy about the time it takes
but I can live with it for the stated reason.

To use a SSD drive for both the cloning (422Gb) and email backup (122Gb)
I'd need at a minimum a 1Tb SSD.

What I'm thinking is to keep using the HDD drive for cloning and the SSD
for backup of the email program. I'd then be able to use the same Power and SATA
cable I've already been using. Your thoughts?