Unusually slow speed for USB 2.0 on iMac Core Duo

[brettbolt]

I just purchased a SanDisk Cruzer 1GB USB 2.0 flash drive.

I tried copying a folder and it transferred extremely slow - about 4KB per second. It should a few orders of magnitude faster!

Something is seriously wrong, causing the slow transfer speed on my iMac. The flash drive works fine on my PC.

Has anyone else had this problem? If not, is there a certain brand of USB 2.0 flash drives known to work well on an iMac Core Duo?

 

[gammamonk]

Did you plug it into the keyboard? The keyboard is USB 1.1

Go stright into the machine, it should be ok.

 

[brettbolt]

Did you plug it into the keyboard? The keyboard is USB 1.1

Go stright into the machine, it should be ok.

I plugged it directly into the back of the iMac, not the keyboard. (The wireless keyboard has no USB connection).

Any other ideas?

 

[pdpfilms]

I plugged it directly into the back of the iMac, not the keyboard. (The wireless keyboard has no USB connection).

Any other ideas?

what are the transfer speeds on your PC?

 

[brettbolt]

what are the transfer speeds on your PC?

I did one test where I copied about 300 files to the flash drive, totaling 550 MB. It took about 4 minutes on the PC. So the PC's transfer speed is 2.3MB per second.

The same group of files transferred at about 4KB per second on my iMac, which is about 575 times slower! Since the iMac reported an estimated completion time of several hours, I had to cancel it.

Also, I'm getting similar slow transfer speeds on my iMac when using my ADS Tech USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure with a 200 GB Maxtor HD, but again it works fine on the PC.

Something is seriously wrong here and I can't figure it out. Any help is appreciated.

 

[California]

I did one test where I copied about 300 files to the flash drive, totaling 550 MB. It took about 4 minutes on the PC. So the PC's transfer speed is 2.3MB per second.

The same group of files transferred at about 4KB per second on my iMac, which is about 575 times slower! Since the iMac reported an estimated completion time of several hours, I had to cancel it.

Also, I'm getting similar slow transfer speeds on my iMac when using my ADS Tech USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure with a 200 GB Maxtor HD, but again it works fine on the PC.

Something is seriously wrong here and I can't figure it out. Any help is appreciated.

Ask Sandisk

 

[gammamonk]

This is discouraging-- I was hoping Apple would fix their painful USB problems with the intel machines.

My powerbook is the same way with a lot of devices. And many USB drives just don't work at all on my machine. I had to replace 3 external USB2 harddrives with firewire because they simply didn't work on my powerbook (but do on some other Mac models, G5's etc).

Could you test your thumbdrive on a Mac Book Pro? At a store or something--

 

[iBunny]

I am not sure. I have an External Hard Drive (Lacie 250GB 7200RPM) hooked up Via USB 2.0 and I got extremely good Transfer Rates. As well as a 1GB Flash Drive was extremly quick.

 

[Lancetx]

I have a 512MB Cruzer micro and the transfer speed on my 17" iMac Core Duo is very fast. Same with my 1GB iPod shuffle. Sounds like it's something with the USB ports on your particular iMac perhaps.

 

[MarkCollette]

What are the read speeds on the PC and Mac? And, even if it says it'll take hours, leave it for 5 minutes, because the time estimation code might be the only buggy thing.

 

[CANEHDN]

I've transferred songs from the iPod and my Digital Camera to my Intel iMac and the speeds were really fast. There may be something wrong with yours or that device.

 

[jtown]

Had a 512 meg Sandisk cruiser at my last job. One of the managers saw me using my 256 meg geek squad stick and said I could have his Sandisk if I wanted it. It was clear and kinda rounded with a long strap on the cap. "It's dog-slow, man. It's faster to just copy files to the server then grab them on the other machine."

He was right. It was dog-slow. Seemed to have something to do with accessing files, tho, not transferring data. If I tried to copy a folder with a hundred little files, it'd take forever. If I copied a single 300 meg file, it was almost as quick as my geek squad.

Never did figure out what the problem was. I only used it to move big files. Eventually gave it to a consultant who needed to take some files home. The next time she came in, she said, "Now I know why you weren't worried about me taking off with this thing." "You touched it last! No tagbacks."

So, long story short, it's probably not the comptuer. Try a different memory stick. (Different brand, that is.)

 

[brettbolt]

He was right. It was dog-slow. Seemed to have something to do with accessing files, tho, not transferring data. If I tried to copy a folder with a hundred little files, it'd take forever. If I copied a single 300 meg file, it was almost as quick as my geek squad. ...

Thanks, jtown -- after reading your post I tried copying a single large file. I'm seeing exactly the same thing here! The transfer rate for one 550 MB file was 4.1 MB per second -- which is great! Yet 221 files totaling 11.2 MB transferred at an average rate of only 80KB per second. There is a HUGE overhead associated with each file.

So, long story short, it's probably not the comptuer. Try a different memory stick. (Different brand, that is.)

I have had the SanDisk for only 2 days so I'm returning it. So that I know what to replace it with, which brand of memory stick worked for you?

 

[kugino]

yeah, i haven't heard of any USB2.0 problems with the intel imacs...in fact, USB2.0 on the intel imac is faster than on the G5 powermacs, according to barefeats.com.

 

[jtown]

I have had the SanDisk for only 2 days so I'm returning it. So that I know what to replace it with, which brand of memory stick worked for you?

Sorry, just noticed the reply. The only stick I have now is a "Geek Squad" that I got at Best Buy. I bought it because it was the cheapest $/meg ratio, not because it's particularly fast. I'd call its performance acceptable. Running programs from it is noticably slower than running from a hard drive but its transfer speeds are pretty consistant regardless of the number of files involved.

I just moved 120 megs in 1000 files from the stick to a hard drive in about 1.5 minutes. Copied them back from hard drive to stick in about 2 minutes. Erased them from the stick in about 35 seconds. Copied a 122 meg file from hard drive to stick in 35 seconds, moved it from stick to hard drive in about 20 seconds.

I should note that I only used it on PCs with USB2. My Mac only has USB1. Odd that your Sandisk worked fine on a windows machine while mine didn't. Maybe it has to do with the USB chipset used.

 

[kntgsp]

Did you plug it into the keyboard? The keyboard is USB 1.1

Go stright into the machine, it should be ok.

Oh man, I didn't realize it was USB 1.1 Dang that kinda sucks. Any particular reason they did that?