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exFAT support really slow?

EugW

EugW

macrumors P6
Original poster
Jun 18, 2017
15,144
13,109
Not sure if this is a macOS 10.13 issue or a 2017 MacBook USB-C issue or some combination thereof but file transfers to my Lexar S73 128 GB USB drive are extremely slow. This was a drive I formatted to exFAT on my 2017 iMac with 10.13. With the iMac I used it with USB-A, as it is a USB-A drive. With the MacBook, I have it running through a simple Elzo USB-A to USB-C adapter, which seems to work fine with everything else I throw at it.

On the MacBook it seems to take a long time in preparation for the transfer, but then after the preparation finishes it transfers fairly quickly. However, with every single file, it has to prepare for quite a while. This appears to be dependent upon the size of the file. With 50 MB PowerPoint files it's very slow. With 0.2 MB Word files, it's just slow. On the 2017 iMac it was speedier IIRC.

I know the USB drive is fine, since eventually I just reformatted it to FAT32 and it works fine that way (through that Elzo adapter). I can't use HFS+ or APFS though because this is for some PowerPoint presentations I'll need to be giving soon, and I want to be able to interface with Windows PCs if necessary. I plan on using the MacBook to give the talks, but at least one previous time, my MacBook with VGA dongle was incompatible with the VGA projector setup at one location (although it works fine with my VGA monitors).
 
I have several Lexar sticks I bought on sale, and they are pig slow as exFAT. For some odd reason, where it is slowest is copying a folder of folders. If I compress it to a zip, or, create a tar file, speed of copy is not too bad.

My Lexars are relegated to once a year archival storage (eg. Tax returns and associated software).
 
NoBoMac said:
I have several Lexar sticks I bought on sale, and they are pig slow as exFAT. For some odd reason, where it is slowest is copying a folder of folders. If I compress it to a zip, or, create a tar file, speed of copy is not too bad.

My Lexars are relegated to once a year archival storage (eg. Tax returns and associated software).
Click to expand...
Well, when I used them on Windows they worked fine for exFAT (if formatted on a Windows machine at least). I think it has something to do macOS, esp. High Sierra.
 
Not just High Sierra, Mac in general. Seeing Lexars being slow on El Cap as well. Don't see this with other brands and exFAT.

Yes, weird. All my sticks are exFAT, and only the Lexars are pig slow.
 
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