Pathetically slow USB transfer/copy speeds rMBP

[lotorus]

Phil Schiller - "We don't differentiate our USB ports between USB 3.0 and 2.0, by making them a different color like our competitors. Our USB is awesome!"

What a crock of *****e!!

I recently transferred a whole bunch of pics from my old PC to my mac via USB 2.0 flash drive. Took forever on the mac. I decided to run a test...

I transfered 3 700mb files to the flash drive in Mountain Lion. It took 15 minutes!!! Then I was planning on using boot camp to run the same test with the same files on Win7, but no need. Instead, I decided to run the comparison via Parallels using the boot camp partition. Same three files transferred in Win7 via Parallels to the flash drive in under 7 minutes!

I wish i ran this test when I was still on Lion. My Mac Pro at work is over 5yrs old and still running Leopard. I'm going to run the same test tomorrow at work and see what results I get. I don't ever recall USB transfer being slow on it, compared to the snail's pace I'm getting on rMBP/ML combo.

 

[Serelus]

Phil Schiller - "We don't differentiate our USB ports between USB 3.0 and 2.0, by making them a different color like our competitors. Our USB is awesome!"

What a crock of *****e!!

I recently transferred a whole bunch of pics from my old PC to my mac via USB 2.0 flash drive. Took forever on the mac. I decided to run a test...

I transfered 3 700mb files to the flash drive in Mountain Lion. It took 15 minutes!!! Then I was planning on using boot camp to run the same test with the same files on Win7, but no need. Instead, I decided to run the comparison via Parallels using the boot camp partition. Same three files transferred in Win7 via Parallels to the flash drive in under 7 minutes!

I wish i ran this test when I was still on Lion. My Mac Pro at work is over 5yrs old and still running Leopard. I'm going to run the same test tomorrow at work and see what results I get. I don't ever recall USB transfer being slow on it, compared to the snail's pace I'm getting on rMBP/ML combo.

Just take it back, I've used windows XP systems with core to duo's that do 700mb faster than 15 minutes there is obviously something hogging your bandwidth, or slowing your rMBP down, find out what it is... cause clearly you seem to be 1 of very few having this problem. It doesn't suddenly mean Phil is lying simply because you and your macbook are experiencing issues.

 

[Dangerous Theory]

Just take it back, I've used windows XP systems with core to duo's that do 700mb faster than 15 minutes there is obviously something hogging your bandwidth, or slowing your rMBP down, find out what it is... cause clearly you seem to be 1 of very few having this problem. It doesn't suddenly mean Phil is lying simply because you and your macbook are experiencing issues.

No point returning it since the hardware clearly works, as demonstrated by windows in parallels.

 

[Serelus]

No point returning it since the hardware clearly works, as demonstrated by windows in parallels.

Honestly, he/she can just call apple, I am sure they can figure something out.

 

[throttlemeister]

700MB should take about 23s over USB2, so 3 such files should take just a little more than a minute.

Which is pretty much inline with my experiences with my rMBP: 30-35MB/s for USB2 and 180-200MB/s for USB3.

 

[rockyroad55]

700MB should take about 23s over USB2, so 3 such files should take just a little more than a minute.

Which is pretty much inline with my experiences with my rMBP: 30-35MB/s for USB2 and 180-200MB/s for USB3.

Most of the movies I download (~800MB) take about 5 minutes to transfer over USB 2 on Mac and PC. OP, try a USB 3 drive. Just because you're using a port that supports 3.0 doesn't mean your 2.0 will achieve those speeds.

 

[heisenberg123]

something must be wrong with the drive, thats way to slow i can transfer 3(700MB) files to a cheapo USB flash drive i have in like 2 minutes tops

 

[rockyroad55]

something must be wrong with the drive, thats way to slow i can transfer 3(700MB) files to a cheapo USB flash drive i have in like 2 minutes tops

Yeah mine is blazingly slow for some odd reason. I don't have a retina yet but I'm just quoting my other computer.

 

[inlinevolvo]

Using a usb2 external hdd, I transferred 7gigs in 25 min. Contents included home movies, pictures, documents and music. Over usb3 I get about 100/100 r/w. Your numbers don't sound right. Take it in.

 

[lotorus]

I ran a couple of more tests...

USB to rMBP in ML: 2min
rMBP to USB in ML: 15min

Parallels was able to perform this in under 7 min. Using boot camp, I restarted in full Win7x64

USB to rMBP in Win7: 1:50
rMBP to USB in Win7: 1:48

Hardware seems fine, this looks like an OS X issue. I repeated this test on my coworkers iMac.

iMac to USB in Lion: 11:52

on my MacPro running Leopard it took 9:34.

I repeated these tests with another USB2 flash drive, different brand, different size. Exact same results. I'm at a total loss.

 

[geoffreak]

Have you tried a different brand of USB drive besides the other two? It is entirely possible (and pretty common) that both drives' write speeds are lower than the read speeds.

Seeing as how this isn't a widely reported issue, I'd lean more towards your USB drives being faulty rather than an actual OS X issue.

 

[lotorus]

Have you tried a different brand of USB drive besides the other two? It is entirely possible (and pretty common) that both drives' write speeds are lower than the read speeds.

Seeing as how this isn't a widely reported issue, I'd lean more towards your USB drives being faulty rather than an actual OS X issue.

What about the speed I'm getting in native Win7?