How-To Geek

Computer Specs:
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Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
ASUS P6T Motherboard
Intel Core i7 940 2.93Ghz
Q-FX1700 512MB Quadro
12GB Ram (2 x Corsair TR3X6G 1333C9 GB RAM)

External Hard Drive:
LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ 1TB
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Problem:

I'm not sure if it's windows 7's fault, or my external hard drives fault.

But I've installed windows 7 for 2 weeks now, and everything has been running great,
I haven't touched my external hard drive since I upgraded windows (i think...) so i'm
not sure what the problem is. But for the last 3 days I've been trying to backup my
work onto my external HD.. and the transfer rate is EXTREMELY slow.. the little status
pop up with the loading bar.. says that the transfer rate is 695KB/Second.. which is
painfully slow for a FireWire 400 anyone have any idea what wrong?

The HD is at 88.3% capacity, its taking about 2 hours to copy 3.91GB.. and its still only about
40% done. During this transferring period, the HD keeps making a wrrrring noise..
(wrrrrrr...wrrrrr... wrrrr... which i assume is the fan inside the HD starting up and slowing down)

P.S.
The HD is full of movies/tv shows, and when I watch videos or movies off of it, it works perfectly
normal. Also when I copy things off of the HD it's just as slow...

sorry about the long post...

I don't know the answer, but I'm beginning to think it is Win7's problem?

I have a similar system,

Windows 7 Home Prem. 64 bit
Dell Proprietary Motherboard
Intel Core i7 920 2.67Ghz
ATI 4870 1GB Video
8GB Ram (4 x Dell 1033 Simms)

External Hard Drive:
WD 1TB USB 2.0

Just the other day I went to move Vista Norton Ghost backups from an Internal drive (over 300GB's) to the external drive. Plugged it in and used Explorer to move the files... initial time estimate, 4 HOURS!!! It took slightly longer.

I know this isn't comparing apples to apples, but I felt it was very slow. I have a GB network hard wired connection and I routinely transfer from another computer that is Wireless N with varying connect speeds, and it seem faster than the external drive?

I've not made any true measurements, but it is just my feeling.

I know this probably doesn't help you...

Irv S.

wow it finally finished copying that 3 gb's over.. still have no idea what the problem is...

I'm now going to cut and paste 4.78gb's into the HD, this time I'll time it to get an accurate reading...
Another thing i just noticed is that for the first 3-4 seconds (20-25% of the 4.78gb) it copies perfectly,
clocks in around 80-114mb/s then once it hits that 4th second..it slows down to 635kb/s... if the file is small
and fits in that 4 sec time frame.. then it gets transferred through with no problems..

i.e. i copied a 1mb word document into the HD in less then 4 secs.. and there were no problems...

I know for a fact that even USB is faster then this... I just moved 4.78GB to my 2nd external TB HD... that uses USB(should be using my esata port..but thats another problem on another thread... ) and it completed the task in approx 10-15 mins... the FireWire HD is still only 50% done...and its been an 81 mins...

When this task finishes i'm going to switch the cables between the two HD.. and see if its my FireWire port/Computer thats messed up or my HD... I do suspect that it is my HD that's the problem though... as I mentioned above.. the wrrr wrrr wrrr noise from the fan... sounds like the HD starts.. stops.. starts.. stops.. which is confusing because if the HD is at fault... then why am I able to watch videos that are saved on the HD... this is very confusing...

Both my external HD are by LaCie, 1 was bought 1/2 a year before the other(FireWire plugged, w/ current problem)... so the newer one is a newer model (USB plugged..w/ eSATA problems)... Both HD were working perfectly fine up until Windows 7 was installed... i just discovered HD 1(current problem) problem 3 days ago, so either something happened to my HD during this 2 week span of using Windows 7, or Windows 7 caused the problem. HD 2 has been working fine since I updated windows, HD 2 is my main backup HD which I use on a weekly basis... HD1 contains all my movies and tv shows..

I think I would be more devastated if I lost HD 1 lol... 4 years of downloaded movies and tv shows...lol
anyways update on the 4.78gb transfer.. just finished took 2h:49m:14s... 2h:34m longer then the USB...

1st thing would be to try a new cable.

sorry - i didnt look through the other posts.
simple so give it a quick shot - check the status of driver and update if possible.

Hi Trevor. Could you please start a New Topic with your problem.

Found a solution!

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!

Hello, Regarding gazzler74's post. I followed the directions and found that my computer was already set to those settings so I did the opposite, I turned the Background intelligent transfer service to ON and then I changed the start value to automatic. It helped! Though my transfers are still very slow! I'll give my stats.

Running Windows XP professional service pack 3
HP Pentium 4, 4ghz processer, 3gb of RAM 40gb internal hd, usb 2.0
external hds: 350gb Western Digital My book; 1tb Western Digital Essential se.

My 350gb my book transfers at a pretty normal rate but the Essential takes for ever, to transfer 1 gb of data will take approximately 3-4 hours!! After changing the settings on the background intelligent transfer service as stated above I transferred 1gb of data in approximately 25 mins. So even though that is still slow from what I hear other people saying, it's 6 times faster then before and I'll take it. I'll continue to play with settings, usb ports, and wires to maximize this. If ya'll have any other ideas, I'd love to hear it.