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Transferring 4TB to another HDD taking too long

V

vim147

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 14, 2011
236
1
I use a 2011 Mac mini. I am trying to transfer 4TB media files from my NAS drive to a Western digital 4TB external drive I have bought connected via USB but its estimated time in 2-3 days ?

I think its because of my Mac mini being 2.0 USB ?

Is there a faster way of doing it with what I have ?
 
vim147 said:
I use a 2011 Mac mini. I am trying to transfer 4TB media files from my NAS drive to a Western digital 4TB external drive I have bought connected via USB but its estimated time in 2-3 days ?

I think its because of my Mac mini being 2.0 USB ?

Is there a faster way of doing it with what I have ?
Click to expand...
Transferring consumes resources. Cloning is easy and effective. I suggest cloning the disk if viable.
 
vim147 said:
How do I connect a USB external hard drive to ethernet or thunderbolt ?
Click to expand...
you wrote you have a NAS. Option A.) it might have a USB 3.x connector. B.) A copy from the NAS to a directly connect external drive will at least do not bind your Mac as a resource. C.) if the Mac mini must be involved increment temporarly the MTU size for the ethernet cable connection.
 
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Just checked the NAS, its a Synology DS112J which has a 3.0 USB so I've connected the external HDD to the NAS and using Carbon copy clone to copy the 4TB files over but it hasn't made it any faster.

Seems like thats the only option for me.

Currently its copied 15GB in 22 mins.
 
Slartibart said:
you wrote you have a NAS. Option A.) it might have a USB 3.x connector. B.) A copy from the NAS to a directly connect external drive will at least do not bind your Mac as a resource. C.) if the Mac mini must be involved increment temporarly the MTU size for the ethernet cable connection.
Click to expand...
Just checked the NAS, its a Synology DS112J which has a 3.0 USB so I've connected the external HDD to the NAS and using Carbon copy clone to copy the 4TB files over but it hasn't made it any faster.

Seems like thats the only option for me.

Currently its copied 15GB in 22 mins.
 
vim147 said:
Just checked the NAS, its a Synology DS112J which has a 3.0 USB so I've connected the external HDD to the NAS and using Carbon copy clone to copy the 4TB files over but it hasn't made it any faster.

Seems like thats the only option for me.

Currently its copied 15GB in 22 mins.
Click to expand...
It sounds like you don’t copy using Synology's Disk Station Manager, or do you?
 
Get either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days.

Erase the target drive using disk utility -- we're starting over from scratch.

Use CCC or SD this time -- SD is actually the easier one to use, that's what I'd recommend for this task.

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
The target drive is a platter-based hard drive, right?
Then, DO NOT USE APFS.
Instead, erase to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format".
 
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Fishrrman said:
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
The target drive is a platter-based hard drive, right?
Then, DO NOT USE APFS.
Instead, erase to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format".
Click to expand...
This advice is widely offered and it is a hotly debated (eg here) topic but Apple says:

"While APFS is optimised for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage"

I have tested large data transfers to HDDs using both HFS and APFS and not seen a difference. However I definitely wouldn't consider APFS for an HDD boot drive (does anyone do that anymore?).

EDIT. I do agree that HFS+ is the safe option, but I don't think APFS would be the cause of the OP's slowness, and I do like the benefits of APFS (space sharing volumes).
 
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@Mike Boreham I don't think people have the choice on a boot drive post-Mojave, they're getting APFS whether they like it or not. But it's doubtful in my mind that APFS seriously harms HDDs. It's not the greatest and wasn't built for HDDs, but super-harmful? Probably not.
  • Apple made APFS the default file system for the boot drive with Mojave in 2018 (upgrades & new installations)
  • Mojave supported machines manufactured in 2010+
  • In 2018, Apple was still manufacturing machines with (non-Fusion) HDDs
I don't recall a scandal of destroyed or slowed boot HDDs after Mojave's release
Unless Mojave was some evil (and failed) master plan by Apple to wreck customers' HDDs, forcing them to buy brand new computers.... 🤔
 
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Managed to borrow someones spare windows laptop with USB 3.0 ports.

Don't know how long 4TB will take to transfer. Currently speed is at 25 MB/sec......
 
vim147 said:
Managed to borrow someones spare windows laptop with USB 3.0 ports.

Don't know how long 4TB will take to transfer. Currently speed is at 25 MB/sec......
Click to expand...
That's still lower than even USB 2.0.
Are you connected via Ethernet to the Synology or using WiFi (the latter would explain the low speeds).
btw: The Synology DS112J has only two USB 2.0 ports, not 3.0.
What kind of files are you transferring? If it's mainly really small files, transfer speeds are generally significantly lower.

edit: according to a quick search, the DS112J is just painfully slow and your transfer speeds are already the maximum you can expect with this model. Probably due to the weak CPU/chipset.
 
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arw said:
That's still lower than even USB 2.0.
Are you connected via Ethernet to the Synology or using WiFi (the latter would explain the low speeds).
btw: The Synology DS112J has only two USB 2.0 ports, not 3.0.
What kind of files are you transferring? If it's mainly really small files, transfer speeds are generally significantly lower.

edit: according to a quick search, the DS112J is just painfully slow and your transfer speeds are already the maximum you can expect with this model. Probably due to the weak CPU/chipset.
Click to expand...
Synology NAS is connected to my router via ethernet.
The external hard drive am transferring to is connected to a windows laptop with USB 3.0.
The files are movies (3500)
4TB is estimated to take 48hrs.
 
Then you have done everything you can.
The only way to speed things up would be to put the HDD out of the Synology and into another external exclosure but for a one time transfer, I'd just let it copy the two days.
 
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Just goes to show, modern hardware is very much faster. I was copying some movies off my Samsung T7 SSD external drive via USB 3 and was getting transfer speeds around 1 GB per second.

I was going to say that the estimates aren’t always very accurate, but 25 MB/s does work out to approximately 44 hours to copy 4 TB.
 
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Bodhitree said:
Just goes to show, modern hardware is very much faster. I was copying some movies off my Samsung T7 SSD external drive via USB 3 and was getting transfer speeds around 1 GB per second.

I was going to say that the estimates aren’t always very accurate, but 25 MB/s does work out to approximately 44 hours to copy 4 TB.
Click to expand...

I store movies on a 2 TB Crucial NVMe SSD on my NAS which runs over GB Ethernet and things feel speedy to me. I do really notice the slowdown when I use a Hard Disk Drive. My old iMacs have HDDs and it's painful copying large files to or from them. At some point I will go all SSD except for Time Machine backups.
 
Anyone recommend a 3.5" USB 3.0 enclosure for the drive thats in my cheap old NAS. It'd be handy to have around.
 
Just look for macOS compatibility and the UASP protocol (reduces CPU load while transferring).
As it's best for HDDs to always operate them in the same orientation, I'm only using flat docks.
For quick access I prefer the open variants like this:
www.amazon.com

SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay Flat Docking Station with Built in Cooling Fan for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP and 22TB] (EC-DFFN)

SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay Flat Docking Station with Built in Cooling Fan for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP and 22TB] (EC-DFFN)
www.amazon.com
But I doubt you can't really go wrong nowadays (established brands are a.e. Anker, UGREEN, ORICO, Sabrent, ...)
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
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