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    1520 slow USB transfer

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by chase840, Sep 11, 2007.

  1. chase840

    chase840 Notebook Guru

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    Hooked up my external HD to my 1520 and the transfer rate over the USB cable is very slow. Took a couple of hours to transfer 600 MB worth of data. In fact music and videos have been freezing up when I play them off the external HD. My previous PC did not have firewire ports so I haven't bought or tried my HD with firewire yet. Don't have this problem with my other PC.

    Any idea what the problem is? Total laptop noob here so I apologize if this question is stupid or if it's been addressed on this forum previously.
     
    chase840, Sep 11, 2007
    #1
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Computer Management > Disk Management, disk properties > policies. Make sure it is set to Optimise for Performance.

    If it is set to quick removal then data will be transferred much more slowly because the computer wants confirmation that each file has been written to the disk before sending the next one.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Sep 11, 2007
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  3. Dragoneye1589

    Dragoneye1589 Notebook Consultant

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    When you plug the drive in does the window pop up that says that it could run faster if you plugged it into a highspeed USB port? If so, go to the Device Manager and uninstall your USB ports and then let windows reinstall them, they should then be working at full speed.
     
    Dragoneye1589, Sep 11, 2007
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  4. chase840

    chase840 Notebook Guru

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    Thanks guys. I tried both but unfortunately still extremely slow. Something with vista I'm assuming. I'll keep trying.
     
    chase840, Sep 12, 2007
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  5. fawlty

    fawlty Newbie

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    Chase840,

    Interesting, I was having the same problems with my 1 week old Dell 1720 (w/Vista Ultimate). Got myself a nice large hard drive and when I tried to use them together, it wanted to take ~4hours to copy 12GB. Anyway, I took John' advice (thanks John) and it all works fine now. The same 12Gb copy of 3xDVD's worth of photos took 13 minutes. That's more like it.

    Basil
     
    fawlty, Oct 18, 2007
    #5