USB 3.0 External HDD is slow.

[Jmvars]

I recently got a new 500GB USB 3.0 drive, which is a nice upgrade from my old 149GB one.

I am currently trying to back up a few things from my HDD before I wipe it. It's basically filled up with useless junk. The external drive, however, is only transferring at 10 MB/s on the back port, and 20 MB/s on the front. They are both USB 3.0 ports, the cable I use came with the external drive and is a USB 3.0 cable that is also compatible with USB 2.0, if that makes any difference. I have installed the USB 3.0 drivers that came with the motherboard and installed the software that came with the external drive. It's still slow. Even my old 149GB USB 2.0 managed 20 MB/s.

EDIT: I unplugged it from the back port and plugged it back in the front port, now it's 3 MB/s.

 

[ArisVer]

If you are transferring a large quantity of very small files you should see a reduction in speed, don't know how much. To make sure that your speed is indeed slow, transfer a few video files that are more than a GB each and report back.

I assume your external enclosure is USB 3 capable.

 

[Jmvars]

Sorry, English is my 3rd language.

What do you mean by external enclosure? Specifically the enclosure part.

 

[Jmvars]

If you are transferring a large quantity of very small files you should see a reduction in speed, don't know how much. To make sure that your speed is indeed slow, transfer a few video files that are more than a GB each and report back.

I assume your external enclosure is USB 3 capable.

You were right. Now it transferred at 80 - 100 MB/s. I didn't realise it reduced it so significantly.

 

[Cerb]

An HDD has a physical arm that must move to the track to be used (seeking). A great deal of the time spent doing that is dealing with getting it positioned just right, not merely large side to side movements. The smaller the chunks of data to be transferred, the more time is going to be spent seeking, instead of actually transferring the data.

http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_spinpoint_m9t_hard_drive_review

There are some speeds under simulated workloads for various data transfer sizes, of a typical 2.5" drive. Notice there is around a 500x (not a typo!) range between best and worst performance, based on average data size.