Windows 7 Slow USB Speeds

Hi, I have noticed when transferring files from or to a USB stick/external HDD, or anything, the rate in which the speed this happens is incredibly slow, I read that "theoretically", on USB 2.0 you could attain 60MB/s, however in most cases it is about 30MB/s, I have read of many topics from using google on this issue, some have said to change removal policies because apparently that made it faster (didn't work), and some have said using command prompt commands, I have tried whatever, even if it seemed ridiculous and still no result.

The USB is 2.0 on a laptop, however on my PC I get the same problem, so I can rule that out as being a factor, instead of achieving 40MB/s which would be very nice, I get around about 3MB, tops.

It cannot be a driver issue, I have tried stock drivers that came with the computer, and updated ones, also its happening with BOTH computers on windows 7.

I noticed on an older PC,with windows XP, it would in fact reach these high speeds when transferring data.

Thanks

That happens with USB 2.0 flash drives. They have super slow write speeds, but have fast read speeds. USB 2.0 is supposed to have 480 megaBITS of transfer speed. (Please, forum members, correct me if I'm wrong) When Windows shows it's writing or reading at around 17 MB/sec, that is megaBYTES. Bits and bytes are two different units of measurement where bits make up bytes. Don't know if that helps or not...