Windows 7: USB External Hard drive Taking Ages to Transfer files

Hi There

Transferring 135gbs of files from one External to another, started at 12a.m. on 10/30/2011, it's now 2:55p.m. 10/30/2011 and it's still going, Any tips or ideas on how to make it faster

Western Digital 500gb drive usb 2.0 drive

and Seagate 320gb USB 2.0 drive

Transferring that much data from USB to USB will take a long time. You'll be lucky to get 6Mbits/s since the bandwidth is shared. If you have other interrupt driven devices on USB, like a keyboard and/or mouse, it will drop even more.

If possible, try plugging the two drives into different hubs. Typically, the front panel and rear panel ports are on different hubs but not always. You'll need to check your hardware configuration to verify this. If your copy procedure is reoccurring, it might be worthwhile using eSATA ports or at least for one drive.

Will have to look into esata option, right now i don't have a drive capable of plugging into that, and yes Keyboard and Mouse are on the USB ports as well, and UPS power backup device

Problem has reoccured before, but usually i don't have both drives connected at once, just thought i'd make a full backup copy of the music, but i think next time will copy it to internal drive, disconnect the main external drive, and then connect other one

One drive is Western Digital External Elements Desktop 500gb USB 2.0

and other is an Older Seagate 320gb Freeagent Desktop model

Both plugged into same UPS Device for power as well

Another thing to consider is that USB wont support more than 3-4 devices before the voltage drops.

I'm not advocating this enclosure and it's just a sample but this type could allow you to remove the drive inside one of your external drives and place it in an eSATA capable enclosure.

Newegg.com - Rosewill RX25-AT-SC-BLK Aluminum & plastic 2.5" Black USB2.0 & eSATA External Enclosure

Ops. That's for a 2.5" drive. Here's one for a 3.5".
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817106121

Yes i try to only have 1 external drive connected most of the time, and yes getting an enclosure is not a bad idea, may pick one up when Christmas time approaches.

Thanks all for the valuable info

Did you try going into device manager right clicking on the drive then properties then policies and change setting to performance?

Ohhh that is another thing i can check on, thank you pragnesh89

What speed are you getting? Usually I get about 30 MBPS on my 2 tb Western Digital Elements. I used to only get about 14 but then I changed the setting to performance and now i easily get at least 25 MBPS.

Speed Right now is 4.14mb/second, Speed now 27.4mb/second!! Thank you all for the replies, really appreciate it