iPad Pro USB 2.0 External Drive Transfer Speeds

[FarFromSubtle]

So I have worn my fingers to nubs trying to Google-fu this issue, but it seems like I am the only one concerned with this issue.

I have been using a Sandisk Extreme SSD, the little one with 550MB/s transfer speed. Transferring FROM the drive comes quite close to that: 400-500 MB/s, what you would expect from USB 3.1

However, copying files TO the drive results in USB 2.0 speeds. Something close to 30-40 MB/s

I have tested multiple drives with different cables and even a friend’s iPad Pro. I have tried ExFAT and HFS. Same results across the board.

I was holding onto hope that this would be resolved by the end of the beta, but here we are. It blows my mind that this is not a widely discussed issue considering how commonly reviewers are touting this as the killer feature that brings iPad closer to a laptop.

Anyone been able to figure this out or are we stuck with this mind-boggling shortcoming?

 

[sparksd]

So I have worn my fingers to nubs trying to Google-fu this issue, but it seems like I am the only one concerned with this issue.

I have been using a Sandisk Extreme SSD, the little one with 550MB/s transfer speed. Transferring FROM the drive comes quite close to that: 400-500 MB/s, what you would expect from USB 3.1

However, copying files TO the drive results in USB 2.0 speeds. Something close to 30-40 MB/s

I have tested multiple drives with different cables and even a friend’s iPad Pro. I have tried ExFAT and HFS. Same results across the board.

I was holding onto hope that this would be resolved by the end of the beta, but here we are. It blows my mind that this is not a widely discussed issue considering how commonly reviewers are touting this as the killer feature that brings iPad closer to a laptop.

Anyone been able to figure this out or are we stuck with this mind-boggling shortcoming?

My guess is that most people using this feature are not transferring large amounts of data to a drive so the speed has not been an issue. I'm having problems with large videos (> 4.5GB) on external exFAT storage with Files so I'm underwhelmed by it at the moment myself.

 

[FarFromSubtle]

My guess is that most people using this feature are not transferring large amounts of data to a drive so the speed has not been an issue. I'm having problems with large videos (> 4.5GB) on external exFAT storage with Files so I'm underwhelmed by it at the moment myself.

Yeah I am using the iPad for professional video editing and it is unfortunate that moving data off the iPad onto an external SSD is only about the speed of uploading to Google Drive with my home Wifi. Ethernet doubles that speed.

The fact that transfers from the drive to the iPad (something I don’t need) are blazingly fast feels like just a tease.

 

[muzzy996]

If transfer speed out is slow I wonder what the prospects are of editing video projects entirely on external storage. Was looking forward to the possibility so hopefully things improve.

 

[sparksd]

As I mentioned, I am having problems playing large videos on external storage - anything larger than about 4.5GB doesn't work. I just tried using Files to copy a 4.8GB video in nPlayer (accessible via On My iPad in Files) to an exFAT-formatted 500GB Samsung T-5 SSD attached via USB-C and it errored out during the copy ("I/O Error"). 2018 12.9 Pro on 13.1.1.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

I can relate to much of what people have reported here as well. Samsung T3 1TB over USB-C 3 cable Anker brand, not a charging cable so it can support the speed. When formatted exFAT, HFS+ or APFS, I have weird issues when transferring larger video files to and from and speeds aren't great when it does actually decide to transfer. Transferring videos from my NAS also crashes Files to the point that force quitting doesn't help and a reboot is needed.

 

[FarFromSubtle]

I can relate to much of what people have reported here as well. Samsung T3 1TB over USB-C 3 cable Anker brand, not a charging cable so it can support the speed. When formatted exFAT, HFS+ or APFS, I have weird issues when transferring larger video files to and from and speeds aren't great when it does actually decide to transfer. Transferring videos from my NAS also crashes Files to the point that force quitting doesn't help and a reboot is needed.

I sometimes get a hard crash when I unplug the cable too, even when a transfer is not happening.

 

[sparksd]

I can relate to much of what people have reported here as well. Samsung T3 1TB over USB-C 3 cable Anker brand, not a charging cable so it can support the speed. When formatted exFAT, HFS+ or APFS, I have weird issues when transferring larger video files to and from and speeds aren't great when it does actually decide to transfer. Transferring videos from my NAS also crashes Files to the point that force quitting doesn't help and a reboot is needed.

Yep, I’ve had several lockup’s requiring reboot. How large are your files? I made this thread:

Files can't deal with videos > 4.5GB on external storage

Using 2018 iPad Pro with 13.1. I've found that with mp4's greater than around 4.5GB on external storage that the Files app can't play the video itself nor does it share it well with other video apps (nPlayer, Infuse, VLC). If under 4.5GB, Files can play the video and share it correctly. Video...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[AutomaticApple]

Was looking forward to the possibility so hopefully things improve.

Same...

 

[shm]

I have been using a Sandisk Extreme SSD, the little one with 550MB/s transfer speed. Transferring FROM the drive comes quite close to that: 400-500 MB/s, what you would expect from USB 3.1

However, copying files TO the drive results in USB 2.0 speeds. Something close to 30-40 MB/s

First of all, how on earth did you manage to get 500 MB/s speed in an iPad?

The several ipad pros I checked barely exceed 100 MB/s (transfer from: drives, cards, etc - all capable of 160 MB/s transfers and ssd drive via usb3.1 gets to 500MB/s peak with mbp)

Files app transferrs are abysmal in my case (10 MB/s) but connecting to a macbook via image capture yields 60 - 100 MB/s depending on file size, among other things.

 

[FarFromSubtle]

I explained it in the OP. Using this. With he included USB-C cable.

I just did some more tests. It seems that small files around 2Gb with transfer in about 5-6 seconds. But larger ones around 10GB top out around 150MB/s.

 

[Donka]

I've been playing around with external drive support on my Pro 11 and in general, write speeds for me are anywhere from 5-8 times slower then the same file/drive combination on my Mac. A little surprised and disappointed at this to be honest. I raised this as a bug report at the Apple feedback page as this is something that can hopefully be improved upon.