took Macbook Pro 10 hours to copy a 3TB drive to another 3TB drive, is that normal?
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2015
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took Macbook Pro 10 hours to copy a 3TB drive to another 3TB drive, is that normal?
I have a 3TB external USB 3.0 hard drive connected to my old Macbook Pro(2014 version). The 3TB is almost full, with only about 100GB of free space left.
I bought another 3TB drive(same brand and model number) and hooked it up. I then selected all the files on the source drive and copied them to the new drive. It took a little over 10 hours for the copying to complete.
Is that normal? Or is there something wrong with my Macbook Pro or either of the 3TB drives?
Thanks!
I bought another 3TB drive(same brand and model number) and hooked it up. I then selected all the files on the source drive and copied them to the new drive. It took a little over 10 hours for the copying to complete.
Is that normal? Or is there something wrong with my Macbook Pro or either of the 3TB drives?
Thanks!
#2
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Well, at full theoretical USB 3.0 speed of 5Gbps (625 MB/s) it should take a little over an hour. But I don't think any consumer laptop can pull full theoretical speeds.
Still, it seems you were going at about a tenth of that speed - which just so happens to be the USB 2.0 full speed. Maybe one of your devices was communicating at USB 2.0 speeds.
Still, it seems you were going at about a tenth of that speed - which just so happens to be the USB 2.0 full speed. Maybe one of your devices was communicating at USB 2.0 speeds.
#3
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I did a similar thing a few weeks ago. Upgrading to a 3 TB WD portable HD up from a 2 TB WD. It took about 2 hours total. I was also using the computer during this time so that may have lengthened the process. But your 10 hours seems excessive. MY 15" MBP is the highest configuration 2014 version also.
#4
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top usb drives can do a sustained 100MB/s ...though ive never seen such. usually 60-80MB/s is what im happy to see whether in a usb stick, powered, or standalone 2.5/3.5" drive.
with that in mind, 3 terabytes at 80MB/s equates to a neat 10.5 hours
http://www.everythingusb.com/speed.html
(see the 3.5" section)
#5
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Join Date: Dec 2015
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more the problem of the drive, than the laptop (=usb controller and other)
top usb drives can do a sustained 100MB/s ...though ive never seen such. usually 60-80MB/s is what im happy to see whether in a usb stick, powered, or standalone 2.5/3.5" drive.
with that in mind, 3 terabytes at 80MB/s equates to a neat 10.5 hours
http://www.everythingusb.com/speed.html
(see the 3.5" section)
top usb drives can do a sustained 100MB/s ...though ive never seen such. usually 60-80MB/s is what im happy to see whether in a usb stick, powered, or standalone 2.5/3.5" drive.
with that in mind, 3 terabytes at 80MB/s equates to a neat 10.5 hours
http://www.everythingusb.com/speed.html
(see the 3.5" section)
that at least half of the 3TB contained my family digital photos, ranging
from 2MB(from really old digital cameras from 15 years ago) to 20MB
(current digital camera).
#7
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Q. How much faster is SuperSpeed USB 3.0 over USB 2.0?
A. The theoretical transfer speed of USB 3.0 is 4.8 Gbit/s (600MBps) vs. 480 Mbit/s (60MBps) which is a 10X improvement. Sustained transfer speeds (real life) for external hard drives are about 85MBps for USB 3.0 and about 22MBps for USB 2.0, so about a 5X improvement but still a significant advancement in transfer speed.
yes, marginally slower if youre transferring lots of small files. either way, you're in the ballpark of performance. not OOM off
#10
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If you multiply that by 8-10 seconds per GB, that comes to between 6-8 hours. There's some overhead for USB, and there's some overhead if there are a lot of small files involved. So 10 hours is a bit slow, but not totally unreasonable.
USB 2.0 is limited to 480 Mbps, which in theory is 60MB/sec but in practice is more like 50-55MB/sec usable speed. At those speeds, the drive would have taken about 14 hours to copy, so you were getting at least some advantage out of USB 3.
#11
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: New York City
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I have a 3TB external USB 3.0 hard drive connected to my old Macbook Pro(2014 version). The 3TB is almost full, with only about 100GB of free space left.
I bought another 3TB drive(same brand and model number) and hooked it up. I then selected all the files on the source drive and copied them to the new drive. It took a little over 10 hours for the copying to complete.
Is that normal? Or is there something wrong with my Macbook Pro or either of the 3TB drives?
Thanks!
I bought another 3TB drive(same brand and model number) and hooked it up. I then selected all the files on the source drive and copied them to the new drive. It took a little over 10 hours for the copying to complete.
Is that normal? Or is there something wrong with my Macbook Pro or either of the 3TB drives?
Thanks!
#12
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#13
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It also depends on what the files are on the drive.. with a lot of SMALL files, like 0-5MB a piece (photos, mp3s, documents, etc) it can dramatically increase the normal expected amount of time to copy.