Many computers have numerous programs running in the background that are occupying system resources.Old data removed from the drive leaves behind a footprint on the drive, which can negatively affect performance. Empty the recycle bin/trash can, especially if the drive has been used for a while.
Running the defrag utility in Windows can often improve the performance of a slow drive by consolidating scattered files and data, making it easier to access more quickly. The drive's partition can become fragmented in the course of normal usage.
Many hard drive users mistake the "burst transfer rate" in the table above for what they can expect to see in real-world performance. The Thunderbolt interface is faster than SATA 3.0, so the SATA 3.0 drive and interface are the "bottleneck".īurst transfer rate vs.
It may be that the destination disk and the interface can move and write data faster than the source disk can send it.Įxample: Backing up the data contained on a Serial ATA 3.0 drive to an external drive equipped with a Thunderbolt interface. The Serial ATA drive and interface are faster than USB 2.0, so the USB 2.0 drive and interface are the "bottleneck".
It may be that the source disk is newer and can push data faster than the destination disk can write it.Įxample: Backing up the data contained on a Serial ATA 6.0 drive to an external drive equipped with a USB 2.0 interface. the interface over which the data is moving.The computer will move data during a given transfer as quickly as it can, taking into account the abilities of all the devices involved in the transfer: Advertised transfer rates are based on the fastest speed at which the drive can send data back and forth across the cable (or bus) from the drive buffer.ĭata transfer will go as fast as the slowest device or busĪs technology progresses and newer, faster interfaces are developed, a user can have a collection of devices of varying interfaces, whose top speeds can vary widely. This table shows how much maximum total bandwidth is available per bus for each technology. Please note carefully not only the numbers, but also the units of measurement. Please see the below table to compare the maximum performance of each interface. Some advice for correctly setting expectations for USB device performance.