Slow Transfer Speed

[Shoogar]

Read latest post by me:

Hey guys! I have a quick question, any answers that don't involve reformatting my drive are appreciated;

My Portable hard-drive has suddenly slowed down heaps. Its transfer rate from hard-drive to computer is fine, but when I go to put a file from my computer on to my hard-drive.. it is unbearably slow. Like.. Uploading the file to a cloud would be faster.

Has anyone got any ideas on why this is happening? I have a 640GB LaCiE portable. It has no power source, it just goes right in to the computer. (Im pretty sure it gets power via the USB slot).

The drive was fine for ages then it crashed and I lost about 350GB of stuff on it while re-formatting. Since then it was fine until recently when I got the slow transfer speed. (Wow.. It's just sped up right as I was typing this).

Still.. Anyone know why it is/was so slow?

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

Your drive is probably dieing. Happen to mines when they were on the verge of breaking. You should get a software that monitor your HD life and check how it is. Try HDD Health.

 

[cjmpe]

Could also be as simple as a USB cable that is going bad. I thought that I was losing a WD external drive, then used a different cable because my usual cable was in use for something else - haven't looked back.

 

[Shoogar]

Unfortunately the USB cable it built in to the drive. Im still unsure as to why the problem occurred, but as long as it's gone then I shall return to being a happy person.

Cheers for the feedback guys.

 

[Infinital-NG]

Sounds like it's going bad. How many years have you had it? You can try downloading Acronis Drive Monitor and it should give you a basic health status of the drive and if any errors are occurring.

 

[Shoogar]

I've had it for.. It's either a year this year or two years this year. It seemed to fix itself though.

 

[Shoogar]

Ahhh, i'd hate to bump this old thread again but the problem is still here. Only it's slightly better than before.

Quick recap:
I have a 640GB LaCie portable drive, it was working perfectly fine when I first got it, it's transfer speeds were great. I believe I may have pulled the cable out of my computer (Mac) without safely ejecting the drive and it pretty much crashed. The transfer speed to and from the drive were sub 100kbp/s. Since restoring and reformatting the device to fat-32 (For use on my Ps3) it has had very poor transfer speeds. Even when it was at default factory setting it would still only transfer at around 300-400kbp/s. Considering I can now download files from the internet at faster speeds than this it definitely doesn't seem right. Would anyone have any ideas for ways to check the device's health that are Mac friendly?

Thanks.