External Hard Drive Transfer Speed - 6 Ways to Improve It

Scenario

Transferring data between a personal computer and an external hard drive is a common computer user measure to protect data, and there are multiple factors that affects the transfer speed. However, slow file transfer speed from external hard drives can be very frustrating, and no one wants to wait a long time for file transfers. Fortunately, here you will be provided with 6 effective ways to easily improve the external SSD transfer speed.

What affects external hard drive transfer speed?

Here I’ve listed some of the most common factors that may affects the external hard drive transfer speed. Scroll down to learn more about them.

• External hard drive connection port. Different USB ports have different transfer speeds.
• Whether there is too much fragmentation on the external hard drive.
• Whether the external hard drive is infected with a virus or malware.
• Whether there are many bad sectors on the external hard drive.
• Whether the external hard drive is corrupted or damaged.

How to increase external hard drive transfer speed (6 ways)

If you are having issue with external hard drive transfer speed, you can continue reading the next part to learn 6 corresponding ways to improve the file transfer speed of the external hard drive.

• #1. Change the USB Port
• #2. Set the best performance mode of your drive
• #3. Update the external hard drive
• #4. Scan the external hard drive for bad sectors
• #5. Defragment the hard drive
• #6. Use the fastest file transfer tool

#1. Change the USB Port

While the improved USB standard, USB 3.0 has been around for a while, many people are still using their 2.0 devices, which may slow down your drive. The 3.0 devices may be a bit more expensive, but it's worth to upgrade your device.

Mostly, the transfer speed of an external or internal hard drive highly depends on the USB device performance. Here is a list of the maximum performance of different interface on an external hard drive:

• USB 3.0 - Up to 5 GB/sec
• USB 2.0 - Up to 480 MB/sec
• USB 1.1 - Up to 12 MB/sec

As long as your computer supports USB 3.0, you shouldn’t have any problem speeding up the external hard drive data transfer on Windows.

#2. Set the best performance mode of your drive

1. Right-click the drive’s icon and select Properties.

2. In the Policies tab, select the Better performance option. If your device supports it, check the Enable write caching on the device feature.

3. Click OK to save the new settings.

After this, you can get a faster external hard drive, and you can use it to transfer and save files at a high transfer rate again.

#3. Update the external hard drive

Updating the driver of the external hard drive is also helpful. When the external hard drive is outdated, it may not function normally. To speed up its transfer rate, you can follow the steps below to update the disk driver.

1. Press Win+R to open the Run window, then type devmgmt.msc and click the OK button.

2. The Device Manager window will pop up. Expand Disk drives, right-click the external hard drive, and then choose Update driver.

3. Choose Search automatically for updated driver software and follow the on-screen instructions to finish the process.

#4. Scan the external hard drive for bad sectors

If the external hard drive slow transfer speed is caused by bad sectors, you can run the CHKDSK utility to check and repair the it by following the steps below.

When the external disk contains corrupted file system or bad sectors, you may not be able to access nor transfer files via the drive. Here are the steps that you can follow to fix the corrupted file system and bad sectors.

1. Fix file system and bad sector errors by executing chkdsk e: /f /r /x command. Replace e with the drive letter of your external hard drive. And then this tool will fix the bad sectors automatically.

2. Try to move files to the external hard drive again and see if the transfer speed is improved.

#5. Defragment the hard drive

The longer you use your hard drive, the more likely you are to create more disk fragmentation. The best way out is to defragment existing fragments on the external hard drive. Follow the given steps to perform disk defragmentation.

1. Search Defrag in the search box, and then select Defragment and Optimize Drives.

2. Select the drive you want to defrag, then click the Optimize button.

#6. Use the fastest file transfer tool

If none of the above troubleshooting about the external hard drive works, then you should consider whether the file transfer tool you are using affects the external hard drive transfer speed. You can optimize the transfer speed by relying on the fastest data transfer freeware – AOMEI Backupper Standard, which supports Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11, XP, Vista, etc. and offers 4 sync modes to meet your multiple file transfer needs. It also has the following advantages.

★It allows you to sync folders or files to wherever you want, like local disk, external hard drive, network share or NAS, USB flash drive, CD/DVD, even clouds, etc.
★It offers you an easy-to-use interface, simple operation steps, and fast file transfer speed to sync files to local folders, to external hard drives, move files in Windows 11, or to sync files between two computers.
★You can set up a schedule to run the file sync task daily, weekly, or monthly.
★It offers various sync options, including email notification, image compression, and sync priority, etc.

To get started, please download AOMEI Backupper Standard, and install it on your computer.

Step 1. Open AOMEI Backupper Standard, click Sync > Basic Sync.

Tips: To use other 3 sync modes, you can upgrade to the Professional version.
Mirror Sync: always keep the files in the destination directory exactly the same as the source directory.
Real-Time Sync: sync changed files from the source directory to the destination directory in real-time. 
Two-Way Sync: any changes in the source or the destination directory will be synced to the other side mutually.

Step 2. Click Add Folder to select the folder you want to sync. You are able to select multiple folders as source folders in one sync task.

Step 3. Then you can select the external hard drive as the destination location to transfer the files.

Step 4. Click Schedule Sync to run automatic sync if necessary. Review your settings and click Start Sync.

✍ Notes: The entire operation can be done in just four steps, you can also set more advanced features.
Options: You could enable email or SMS notification to get an alert after the synchronization is finished, comment on the sync task, run a specified program or script before or after the sync, etc.
Schedule Sync: You can set an automatic synchronization with daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers or USB plug in. The last two are available in the AOMEI Backupper Professional.

Summary

That’s all you can learn about external hard drive transfer speed. There are a lot of factors that affect it. If you are facing a slow transfer speed, you can read the above contents carefully to learn the causes and how to fix this issue. Also you can try the fastest file transfer freeware AOMEI Backupper Standard to improve the speed, or to fix Dell Migrate not working issue.

In addition, if you don’t want to use this hard drive anymore, you can completely wipe a hard drive including OS using the Disk Wipe feature. AOMEI Backupper is worth your try!