Windows 7 slow FireWire transfer speeds

wmshaxpere said:

RE: device manager > ur firewire device(1394)>click it, and the driver name appear > properties > driver,update driver>browse.. >let me pick... >there the legacy driver appear , if not uncheck (show compatible hardware) then manual search on 1394

I just wanted to clarify what sugiik posted for us since I noticed that it looked a bit different as I went through the process on my own machine... and i know that I have some friends who would not know what to do if it weren't in the simplest of terms:

1. Click on Start and Type device manager into the search window
2. When it shows up - click it open
3. Click the arrow on IEEE 3194 Bus host controllers and see the driver name that you are currently using "1394 OHCI ...something"
4. Right Click on that icon and drag to Properties
5. Click on the Driver tab at the top of that window
6. Click on UpDate Driver
7. Then click Browse my computer for driver software
8. Pick the one that has the word (legacy) added to its name
9. Relax - The computer will do the rest
10. I had to restart twice for some reason - but it worked exactly as advertised

sugiik rocks!

sorry for my bad guide >_<

Thanks sugiik, you rock! I had 2Mb/s transfer rate before with the regular 1394 driver... switched to legacy and now it varies from 16 to 40mb.... better than before! :)

Ben

In my case, a client had 2 external RAIDs, 2 different brands, 1 Firewire 800 the other firewire 400, Windows 7 Ultimate X64. The speed was terribly slow. I first installed the {Legacy} drivers for the IEEE devices and it did improve a little but barely. With a little digging I found a solution in the External Drives Properties.

The default Windows settings for FireWire-connected drives can reduce your External drive performance by as much as 90%. This problem is easily corrected, just follow these instructions:

1. Open "My Computer" or "Computer" from your (Start) Menu or Button.
2. Right-click the external Hard disk drive from the list and select "properties"
7. Click the "Hardware" tab.
8. Highlight the drive your having problems with from the drive list and click on "Properties".
9. Click on the “Policies” tab.
10. You will see two radio buttons - "Optimize for quick removal" and "optimize for performance".
11. If not selected, select "Optimize for performance" and click on "OK". If running Vista or Windows 7 also check "enable write caching on the disk".
12. Click on "OK" and exit.

Lighting speeds should now be reached.

This problem can affect XP, Vista or Windows 7. It may improve performance for any drive connected via FireWire.

Good Luck!

Thank you for the solution, I too was having painfully slow firewire transfers from a direct to edit hard drive, I think it was using the RICOH/Dell driver for the firewire, I rolled it back to the legacy driver and it is working well.

Seldok said:

In my case, a client had 2 external RAIDs, 2 different brands, 1 Firewire 800 the other firewire 400, Windows 7 Ultimate X64. The speed was terribly slow. I first installed the {Legacy} drivers for the IEEE devices and it did improve a little but barely. With a little digging I found a solution in the External Drives Properties.

The default Windows settings for FireWire-connected drives can reduce your External drive performance by as much as 90%. This problem is easily corrected, just follow these instructions:

1. Open "My Computer" or "Computer" from your (Start) Menu or Button.
2. Right-click the external Hard disk drive from the list and select "properties"
7. Click the "Hardware" tab.
8. Highlight the drive your having problems with from the drive list and click on "Properties".
9. Click on the “Policies” tab.
10. You will see two radio buttons - "Optimize for quick removal" and "optimize for performance".
11. If not selected, select "Optimize for performance" and click on "OK". If running Vista or Windows 7 also check "enable write caching on the disk".
12. Click on "OK" and exit.

Lighting speeds should now be reached.

This problem can affect XP, Vista or Windows 7. It may improve performance for any drive connected via FireWire.

Good Luck!

Hi there,
Are you still using the legacy drivers with this solution?
I'm testing some transfers right now and I'm getting ~20mb/sec
thxs
-MD

These two fixes combined worked perfectly for me, thanks!

I was trying to migrate about 200GBs of files from my old system, and it was looking like it was gonna take 3 straight days to do it.

Seldok said:

In my case, a client had 2 external RAIDs, 2 different brands, 1 Firewire 800 the other firewire 400, Windows 7 Ultimate X64. The speed was terribly slow. I first installed the {Legacy} drivers for the IEEE devices and it did improve a little but barely. With a little digging I found a solution in the External Drives Properties.

The default Windows settings for FireWire-connected drives can reduce your External drive performance by as much as 90%. This problem is easily corrected, just follow these instructions:

1. Open "My Computer" or "Computer" from your (Start) Menu or Button.
2. Right-click the external Hard disk drive from the list and select "properties"
7. Click the "Hardware" tab.
8. Highlight the drive your having problems with from the drive list and click on "Properties".
9. Click on the “Policies” tab.
10. You will see two radio buttons - "Optimize for quick removal" and "optimize for performance".
11. If not selected, select "Optimize for performance" and click on "OK". If running Vista or Windows 7 also check "enable write caching on the disk".
12. Click on "OK" and exit.

Lighting speeds should now be reached.

This problem can affect XP, Vista or Windows 7. It may improve performance for any drive connected via FireWire.

Good Luck!

wmshaxpere said:

1. Click on Start and Type device manager into the search window
2. When it shows up - click it open
3. Click the arrow on IEEE 3194 Bus host controllers and see the driver name that you are currently using "1394 OHCI ...something"
4. Right Click on that icon and drag to Properties
5. Click on the Driver tab at the top of that window
6. Click on UpDate Driver
7. Then click Browse my computer for driver software
8. Pick the one that has the word (legacy) added to its name
9. Relax - The computer will do the rest
10. I had to restart twice for some reason - but it worked exactly as advertised

sugiik rocks!

Tried the legacy drivers but still wasn't getting satisfactory results so after a lot of research tried this ubCore Firewire (Firewire 800 - IEEE 1394b) driver suite
New drivers written specifically for TI and Win 7 64. Seem to work a dream FW400 read write speeds of around 25 - 30Mbs, FW800 speeds of around 55Mbs

Excellent!

Thx for the link Paddywack0! It solved my problem. File transfers would freeze after 30 seconds.

Seldok said:

In my case, a client had 2 external RAIDs, 2 different brands, 1 Firewire 800 the other firewire 400, Windows 7 Ultimate X64. The speed was terribly slow. I first installed the {Legacy} drivers for the IEEE devices and it did improve a little but barely. With a little digging I found a solution in the External Drives Properties.

The default Windows settings for FireWire-connected drives can reduce your External drive performance by as much as 90%. This problem is easily corrected, just follow these instructions:

1. Open "My Computer" or "Computer" from your (Start) Menu or Button.
2. Right-click the external Hard disk drive from the list and select "properties"
7. Click the "Hardware" tab.
8. Highlight the drive your having problems with from the drive list and click on "Properties".
9. Click on the “Policies” tab.
10. You will see two radio buttons - "Optimize for quick removal" and "optimize for performance".
11. If not selected, select "Optimize for performance" and click on "OK". If running Vista or Windows 7 also check "enable write caching on the disk".
12. Click on "OK" and exit.

Lighting speeds should now be reached.

This problem can affect XP, Vista or Windows 7. It may improve performance for any drive connected via FireWire.

Good Luck!

Hi,

I'm sorry to jump on this old thread (and I'm also sorry for my english, by the way...) ; but I have a very similar problem except it is not with a firewire harddrive but with firewire soundcard... everything seems fine, the setup went fine, the drivers are updated, my computer recognized the card, I can access to all its features... but no sound at all... and when I try to read sound, all is slowed down... I think it is the same problem as with the hard drive devices and I also think your solution (or something close to that) would work for me, except I don't know how to do it with a sound card instead of a harddrive... I don't have access to the same settings... And all signs point to a firewire port working way too slowly...

If you (or anybody) have any idea about how I could handle this, then I have to say you would save my life...

Paul.