Question Very slow data loading to external 4tb SSD

[yotilak]

Right now I am copying the contents of an external 2tb SSD to an external 4tb SSD (both USB-C) -- about 1.81tb of data.

I am now doing the long, long, long copy from the 2tb to 4tb. I use the verify option with the free Syncback software so, I think, the verify really slows things down. After every file is copied it then reads the same file from the destination and does a byte-for-byte comparison with the data from the source file. That takes time, but, I think, it also prevents the normal buffering that allows big writes to be much faster. I noticed the same thing last year when I copied from another 2tb SSD to the current 2tb SSD. With this 2tb -> 4tb copy it has been going for 16 hours and it has only copied 9.48gb so far. It needs to copy in total about 1.81tb (1810gb).

Before starting the big copy I set my Windows PC to not go to sleep so it would not stop in the middle and I also disabled internet on it so it wouldn't be doing any big Windows update, etc. while doing the copy.

I had a bad experience with file corruption one time so that is why I started using verify. About 15 years ago I bought a new 1tb external HDD so I setup my Windows laptop to copy all the data from a 500gb external HDD. I did not know there was a verify option at that time. About 6 months later I discovered about 10 of my camera raw files were corrupted on the 1tb drive. They were not consecutive photos, they were taken at various times and in various folders. The Syncback verify option I started using since then is also not a guarantee because there are still ways for it to be fooled. Such as the read from the destination device not being a real read because the OS may have cached the data in memory and just returns that for the comparison, but it is better than nothing. Since I started using it the verify option has never found anything during a copy so I could probably leave it off and the copy would happen much, much faster. Syncback currently has an estimate of 461 days to complete the copy! In my experience the Syncback estimate is usually wildly wrong, but at the rate it is going it is clear that it is going to take a very long time.

I do not need a very fast SSD for normal use since it mostly just has all my out of camera photo files that Lightroom Classic then points to. The external SSD is never used for scratch files, cache, or working files.

Do you use verify? How do you normally copy the full contents of a drive to a new SSD?

 

[BFG10K]

Is there a question in that wall of text somewhere? Did you even mention what 4TB "SSD" you actually have?

If it's QLC, write speeds will take a dump very quickly. Like single digit MB/sec in some cases, especially if it's DRAM-less. It could also be throttling due to the enclosure.

Why don't you try a simple speed test by copying some of the files manually through Windows Explorer?

 

[Tech Junky]

Do you use verify? How do you normally copy the full contents of a drive to a new SSD?

No, just drag and drop. Verify is running a hash and if you have an old CPU it's going to take a lot longer.

If you want to speed it up then just clone it and then resize the 4tb when done.

 

[In2Photos]

No, just drag and drop. Verify is running a hash and if you have an old CPU it's going to take a lot longer.

If you want to speed it up then just clone it and then resize the 4tb when done.

I agree. I think a clone in this case is the better option.

 

[mxnerd]

I'll just do Windows software mirror and you still have 2TB remaining space left on 4TB drive where you can create another partition to store other stuff,

no syncing required. You can verify that if the mirror is working after the mirroring is done by unplugging the drives individually, check if the contents are the same. This is assuming you want to keep doing the backup from now on. But mirroring (raid 1) is not really considered as a backup in IT's view.

Anyway, if you only want to di it once, disk cloning mentioned above is faster.

 

[yotilak]

I solved the slow speed. All is well. Did not do any of the things in this thread though. Thank you to everyone.

 

[Shmee]

I solved the slow speed. All is well. Did not do any of the things in this thread though. Thank you to everyone.

Curious, what was the issue? Was one of the drives using a USB 2.0 port instead of a faster one?

 

[yotilak]

Device Manager properties policies for the new SSD by default was set to safe so I changed it to speed for the copy. I guess it increased the speed about 500-1000 times faster. After copy finished I set it back to safe. I am glad I can teach people here something they did not know. I like to give, not just take.

I write this to the people who can read this much text. It might be too long for some people though.