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Suddenly... transferring files between hard disks became very, very slow

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prog4ever

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 29, 2021
27
4
Hi, group.

That's really what is happening, don't know why.

Yesterday, transferring files between my OS Catalina HD and a 5TB WD external disk became slower than transferring the same files between a DVD and Mac's HD.

I really don't know why this is happening.. and I work exclusively with Macs since 1983!
There must be something I'm doing wrong and the fix perhaps is very easy, but I really don't know what to do.
Transferring a single 1GB file takes more than 10 minutes!!!

Any help would be much appreciated, of course.

Thanks in advance.
All the best

Art
 
Years ago I had a similar issue with an external WD drive (HDD). After spending several days troubleshooting the issue I came to conclusion that the drive was simply toast. (There were some other indications of this, don't remember exactly which ones by now). Had to buy a new drive.

Doesn't necessarily mean that you have the same problem, of course, but that was my experience.
 
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you can use macOS‘s System Information to check which USB version your Mac uses for the external drive. If the drive is recognised as e.g. USB 1.x device, transfer speeds will obviously slow.
In any case run Disk Utility and check for inconsistencies and errors; check another cable; dismount/remount the drive and unplug/replug the cable; clear out system caches using e.g. Onyx.
 
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zevrix said:
Years ago I had a similar issue with an external WD drive (HDD). After spending several days troubleshooting the issue I came to conclusion that the drive was simply toast. (There were some other indications of this, don't remember exactly which ones by now). Had to buy a new drive.

Doesn't necessarily mean that you have the same problem, of course, but that was my experience.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply. The WD disk must be good, because I bought it this week...
I'm transferring files to it and it's been used for the very first time.
 
Slartibart said:
you can use macOS‘s System Information to check which USB version your Mac uses for the external drive. If the drive is recognised as e.g. USB 1.x device, transfer speeds will obviously slow.
In any case run Disk Utility and check for inconsistencies and errors; check another cable; dismount/remount the drive and unplug/replug the cable; clear out system caches using e.g. Onyx.
Click to expand...
Thanks, my friend.
I have run disk utility and everything was considered good.
Have to try your tip about Onyx, though

All the best
Art
 
prog4ever said:
Thanks for your reply. The WD disk must be good, because I bought it this week...
I'm transferring files to it and it's been used for the very first time.
Click to expand...

I see. I thought it was working as expected before but suddenly became ultra slow. My WD drive I was referring to was several years old.

Do you have another external drive to compare the speed?

I hope that various suggestions for disk software solutions will eventually help.

Otherwise, since you just bought it a few days ago, maybe you can just return it and get another one.
 
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zevrix said:
Do you have another external drive to compare the speed?


Otherwise, since you just bought it a few days ago, maybe you can just return it and get another one.
Click to expand...
Yes, my friend, I compared it with an "old" WD 1TB and the problem is there, too.
And returning the WD 5TB is out of question, at least for now, because I'm not sure if the issue is its "fault". Don't believe it, because the problem persists with the 1TB disk, too.
Thanks for your help!
 
I'm thinking...
- drive hardware problem (only solution is replacement)
or
- drive overheating problem (during extended writes, overheats and "slows down" until temperature drops back into "working range" again)
 
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Is there any improvement after a restart of your Mac?
What format is the new WD drive?
Did you erase the drive before you started to use it?
 
Thanks a lot, my friends, for trying to help me. Really appreciated.

@ Fishrrman - I believe the 5TB disk is not overheating, because it starts going slow at the very beginning, when it is still "cold".

@ BrianBaughn - Formatted in NTFS, like the others (5TB, 4TB and 1TB), which doesn't seem to have this problem.

@ DeltaMac - I formatted it in NTFS before I started using it. There is a slight improvement with a restart, in fact, but very soon slows again...

All the best for you

Art
 
I reckon the NTFS format MAY have something to do with it...

Use a different format.
ANY other format.
 
I have to ask the question....
Why NTFS format, if you are "exclusive with Macs since 1983"?
That is certainly a non-native format, requiring drivers that can leave that drive with read-write speeds significantly slower than using that same NTFS drive on a Windows PC. (Not as slow as what you are experiencing, in my experience, but certainly not approaching Windows native performance, particularly with "free" NTFS drivers)

I also agree with slartibart in Post #3. It can help determine the problem if you check in your System Information to see what USB speed is recognized for your external drive.
Finally, which model Mac are you using? You did say in your opening post that you are trying to transfer files from a Catalina HD. I assume that means you are booted to a Mac running Catalina (MacOS 10.15.7)
Or (I may be confused here) you are transferring files from a hard drive that was originally formatted on a Mac running Catalina, but you are doing the copy on a different Mac ???
If that is correct--what macOS version are you actually running when doing the copy? (and, on which Mac?)
 
Unless you have a 3rd party installed to allow macOS to write to NTFS-formatted drive, macOS will only read the contents of the NTFS-formatted drive...

Are you copying from the drive or to the drive, referring to external storage?

What is the type of connection of the external drive to your Mac? USB 2.0 is up to 480Mbps or 60MB/s

Are you able to check the data transfer speed on Activity Monitor?
 
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winxmac said:
Unless you have a 3rd party installed to allow macOS to write to NTFS-formatted drive, macOS will only read the contents of the NTFS-formatted drive...

Are you copying from the drive or to the drive, referring to external storage?

What is the type of connection of the external drive to your Mac? USB 2.0 is up to 480Mbps or 60MB/s

Are you able to check the data transfer speed on Activity Monitor?
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply.
I format all my external disks in NTFS mode, (I use Paragon), for better compatibility with those dreadful Windows PCs.
All went well, for years, but now I have this annoying very slow "copy-from" and "copy-to" Mac/externals.
But I don't see a "pattern" of behaviour, here, which would allow me to tell in what circumstances this happens...

I'll keep trying, though...
 
BrianBaughn said:
No current backups? I wouldn't have a problem deleting a drive that I don't bother backing up.
Click to expand...
Yes, of course. Occupying some laptop and desktop computer HD's. That's why I need to join all those "old" files and make huge backups...
 
Is this one of the WD Black external 5tb hard disks? I have two, one is over a year old and nearly full after heavy use. Got a second one recently and have copied a couple terabytes to it already. These drives are backups for GIS files (used for making maps) and some are quite large, with sizes between 100 to 200 gb.

No problems with them, the BlackMagic speed test gave results around 150 MB/sec IIRC (when copying from a SSD to the hard disk). HOWEVER, my drives are formatted as MacOS Extended (journaled). Maybe your problem is related to NTFS and the Paragon software? FWIW, I also need Windows compatibility, but I run it in a Parallels VM, which automatically mounts them as shared disks.
 
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Boyd01 said:
Maybe your problem is related to NTFS and the Paragon software? FWIW, I also need Windows compatibility, but I run it in a Parallels VM, which automatically mounts them as shared disks.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply.
I cannot put the blame on NTFS/Paragon, simply because this problem became suddenly and I use NTFS/Paragon for a long time.
And the problem keeps occurring without a pattern of behaviour. Some times ok, some times not.

All the best

Art
 
Or, a failing USB port... I would probably do a reload of the system (assuming an Intel Mac), which may help out with a software driver issue.
 
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