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Tootles

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 15, 2011
76
0
When copying 6.53 GB worth of audio files from my i5 MBA to a new 16GB Sandisk Cruzer USB 2.0 hi-speed flash drive, I was astonished to see it take 26 minutes to complete. If it had been going at the maximum rated speed of 60MB/s, it should've taken approximately one minute and 40 seconds to complete. Is this a typical rate for the MBA's USB connected to such a flash drive? Anyone know why it's not faster?
 

jackyyeow

macrumors 6502
Jul 5, 2011
262
0
If your USB drive is only stated as USB 2.0 it doesn't mean the drive can transfer at full speed, it only means it's USB 2.0 ready. If there's no other speed rating, yours is probably running at around 2MB/s~4MB/s which is very common with USB drive.

6530MB and 1560secs giving a result of 4MB/s.

For comparison, if I use external 2.5" HDD and hook up with USB, I usually get 30MB/s consistently.
 

robby818

macrumors 6502a
May 2, 2007
587
6
What format was the flash drive? If it was FAT, then it is going to take a long time. An HFS+ formatted flash drive is going to be much faster but naturally incompatible with PCs and most other devices. Try formatting that flash drive to HFS and copy the same files, I'll bet you see a massive improvement in write speeds.
 
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