External USB HD write speed?

[rfc13]

Hi,

I have just got a 500GB Seagate HD, yet it seems to take an age and a day to write to. I have had backing up my mac through Time Machine going for the past half hour and it has only done 1.5GB so far. Is this normal?

If not is there anything I should check to speed it up?

I have already formatted it in Mac OS Extended. (it is actually partitioned so that half is for backup, and the other half is for media)

Sorry if this has already been covered, I did try to search it but could not find anything.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

 

[gsahli]

Which Mac model? Do you know if you have USB 1.1 or 2.0? USB 1.1 will go very slowly.

 

[rfc13]

Its a white 24" iMac. I changed the USB port it was plugged into, and it seemed to fix it, however it has just gone back to being slow, I then un-plugged it and plugged it back in and it is ok again. So don't really understand what is going on.

Am I right in thinking that all of the USB's on my mac are USB 2.0?

 

[gsahli]

Pretty sure your ports are 2.0 - but you are getting 1.1 speed. Maybe a bad cable.

 

[IMcD23]

Hey,

Make sure your using the ones on the back, not on the keyboard. Also, can you use firewire with the drive? That might speed things up.

IMcD23