How to speed up the process of copying data to a flash drive. A program to speed up writing data to a flash drive. Files are copied to a flash drive slowly: what to do

Tell me why I feel like this slowly tofiles are copied from one hard drive partition to another, not to mention copying files to a flash drive. It seems to me that the speed is no higher than in the Vista operating system. I have to work a lot with photographs and I can’t move one large folder anywhere, the copying stops in the middle of the process and hangs indefinitely, the most important thing is that reinstalling the seven did not solve the issue, on a clean system without programs the files were copied a little faster. On the forums, someone says something, and most importantly, they can’t offer anything other than Total Commander. Downloading files over the network suits me. Tell. How can I improve the situation in my case?

Files are copied slowly

Yes, there is such a problem, a long time ago, when we were just testing the released beta version, many people talked about it, but then they stopped. And in fact, Windows 7 is quite files are copied slowly from one hard drive partition to another, and to portable media a little faster than in Vista. File managers do not completely solve the issue, and this is primarily due to increased security in Windows 7.

  • Firstly, it’s no secret that the built-in security features of Windows 7, namely User Account Control, greatly influence the copying of files, because it checks almost everything that happens in the operating system.
  • Suddenly the file you are copying does not belong to you at all or you do not have the rights to change it or work with it. Secondly, the explorer directly involved in copying files has a very difficult task, because the seven has an Aero interface. Personally, I myself tried to disable it partially and completely in the Performance Options and was convinced that when you disable some effects, the performance generally increases, you can read here.

The opinion has been expressed more than once on the Internet that slow minetransferring files may be affected by the enabled effect in Performance Options - Show thumbnails instead of icons, since your operating system needs to display its thumbnail instead of a simple file icon, I agree with this opinion, but in general I consider this effect convenient and I have it enabled.
As for your inability to copy a folder with photos or movies, think about whether these files are currently being used by another program, for example a torrent client, close it and try copying again.
One of my friends kept all his junk in one large folder, these were files of various formats: AVI, XML, docx, iso, jpg. The folder was very large and everything in it was mixed up, there were films that were not fully downloaded, and so on. He even himself sometimes changed the extensions of video files as an experiment when he couldn’t open them, for example, in the program he needed. Naturally, Windows 7 Explorer couldn’t stand all this chaos, and copying this entire folder to a portable hard drive always froze in the middle and never We didn't end up having any luck. Only when we did a thorough cleaning of it and simply deleted all the damaged files, we managed to copy it. So friends, you should always have order on your computer.
Well, in conclusion, I will say that using a file manager, for example Total Commander, when copying files in Windows 7 will undoubtedly help a little.

To do this, it was necessary to move, copy and delete files on different sections of two hard drives.

I installed Windows 7 about 2 years ago, the second OS after XP, but I didn’t use it much. I started using it actively for about six months and now I noticed this glitch.

In short, files are copied and deleted for an incredibly long time. I deleted 2 GB of photos and it took about 2 hours. It’s simply unrealistically long. What is this connected with?

It turned out that this is a common occurrence on Windows 7. The copying speed is actually 3-5 times less than in XP. It turns out that this is specifically done in the default settings of Win 7. Why was this done? Unclear. As always, only in words the developers are doing well, but in reality...

I had to Google it. It turned out that a lot of time is spent on copying and deleting due to calculations that occur as a result of the built-in function, the task of which is to continuously compare the minimum amount of information of a particular file with the same file, but already transferred.

They claim that this is done to speed up copying. Hmmm, good “acceleration”, you can’t say anything.

Look, the optimizers suck. Take this Gates and hit his face on the asphalt. Instead of moving forward and improving the system, they complicate everything and Windows 7 works worse than XP in some cases.

Fortunately, all this crap can be treated. And it’s quite easy to treat if you know what to configure and where. You need to click on the "Start" button at the bottom left, and then click on "Control Panel". There will be no problems here. Next, we do it as in the screenshots.

Uncheck the box

Click "Programs", then "Programs and Features", then "Turn Windows features on or off". The screenshots indicate where to click. Afterwards, a window will appear in which you need to scroll down and uncheck the “Remote differential compression” checkbox. Click OK. And we wait for changes to happen.

After that everything became much faster. It feels the same as on XP.

I didn’t notice such nonsense on Win XP: everything is copied and deleted quickly. I’ve never installed Vista, so I don’t know, but most likely, if there is the same problem there, it will be treated like on 7.

By the way, in the window where you unchecked the “Remote differential compression” item, you can experiment and try to uncheck some other services, it will suddenly help.

The problem with slow file copying we solved it, but Windows 7 is full of mysteries. For example, I am still not able to configure the headphones from the front panel of the system unit, which is done once or twice on XP. On XP, I put the PC to sleep at night. On 7, no matter what I do, it doesn’t work. All manipulations with hibernation mode, etc. do not bring success. Recently I had to solve a problem with .

By creating a hemorrhoidal, unintuitive settings system in Win 7, Microsoft screwed themselves, because besides Windows there are other solutions and people have a choice. And people, by a strange coincidence, love things that are understandable and easy to manage. There is something to think about for the guys from Microsoft.

Three operating systems on a computer, possible or not? .

Flash drives are fast devices when compared to optical disks or floppy disks in general. In theory, flash memory is even faster than magnetic memory used in hard drives (which is why SSD drives have been gaining popularity recently). However, due to differences in interfaces, flash drives in practice work much slower than hard drives. And sometimes this speed drops even more during operation.

There are several reasons for slow copying of files to or from a flash drive:

Format mismatch

On older computers, the USB 1.0 port standard was used, if you are trying to connect a flash drive with a USB 2.0 interface, then the flash drive is guaranteed to work slowly!

The same thing will happen if you connect a USB 3.0 flash drive to a USB 2.0 port, the work will be performed at USB 2.0 speed. So, before blaming the flash drive for its slow operation, you should check that the formats on the flash drive and the computer or device to which you are trying to connect the USB flash drive match.

Checking USB ports

If the flash drive is noticed to have slow data transfer, try connecting it to a different USB port. Perhaps the reason lies in a malfunction of the port.

A more complete picture of the status of USB ports and hubs can be obtained in the “Device Manager”

“Start” button -> “Control Panel” -> “System” -> “Device Manager”

A yellow exclamation mark will be displayed next to a non-functioning device. Perhaps the whole problem lies in a failed driver.

Another reason for the slow operation of a flash drive can be the use of a USB extension cable. Firstly, it may be made of low-quality materials and thereby slow down data transfer. Secondly, the length of the extension cord should not be too long.

Wear and tear of flash drive memory chips

The first and most likely is banal wear and tear of the flash drive’s memory chips. It occurs if the flash drive is regularly used for several years (for cheap media, the time count goes to months). To avoid this, it is better not to use flash drives for work files that have to be rewritten every day - for example, for documents and projects.

Flash drive infection by viruses

The second option is viruses. Moreover, both viruses located on it and viruses on the computer itself can slow down the operation of a flash drive. If the problem is the malware that is on the drive, it is best to format it immediately (remembering to save the necessary files in a safe place). If the problem is a virus infection of the computer, then further actions are varied and lengthy: this includes an anti-virus scan, contacting specialists, and formatting the hard drives if the situation is already irreparable.

Inappropriate file system

Also, the operation of a flash drive may slow down after formatting if it was formatted in an “inappropriate” file system. A file system is a “markup” according to which fragments of files are written to a flash drive (read more about file systems). There is no exact recipe for which file system to choose to speed up work.

Modern USB drives are one of the most popular external storage media. The speed of writing and reading data also plays an important role in this. However, capacious but slow-running flash drives are not very convenient, so today we will tell you by what methods you can increase the speed of a flash drive.

The first thing to note is the reasons why the speed of a flash drive may decrease. These include:

  • NAND wear;
  • mismatch of USB input and output connector standards;
  • file system problems;
  • incorrectly configured BIOS;
  • viral infection.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to correct the situation with worn-out chips - the best way is to copy the data from such a flash drive, purchase a new one and transfer the information to it. It is also worth considering the origin of such a drive - flash drives from little-known manufacturers from China may turn out to be of low quality with a very short service life. You can try to eliminate the remaining reasons described on your own.

Method 1: Checking for viral infection and eliminating it

Viruses are the most common reason for a flash drive to slow down. Most types of malware create a bunch of small hidden files on the flash drive, which causes the speed of access to normal data to be significantly reduced. To deal with the problem once and for all, it is worth cleaning the flash drive from existing viruses and protecting it from subsequent infections.

Method 2: Connecting a flash drive to a faster port

Nowadays, the USB 1.1 standard, adopted almost 20 years ago, is still widespread. It provides very low data transfer speeds, making the flash drive appear to be running slowly. As a rule, Windows reports that the drive is connected to a slow connector.

A message about slow operation can also be received by connecting a USB 3.0 flash drive to the most common USB 2.0 now. In this case, the recommendations are the same. If all the connectors on your PC or laptop are 2.0 standard, then the only solution to the problem is to update the hardware. However, some motherboards (both desktop and laptop) do not support USB 3.0 at the hardware level.

Method 3: Changing the file system

Method 4: Changing settings for working with a flash drive

In modern versions of Windows, a USB drive operates in quick erase mode, which provides certain advantages for data safety, but also slows down the speed of access to it. The mode can be switched.


The only drawback of this method is the dependence of the flash drive on "Safe removal". However, for most users, using this shutdown option is rather the norm, so this drawback can be neglected.

Method 5: Changing the BIOS Configuration

Flash drives have been around for a long time, and modern PCs and laptops are not always compatible with older flash drives. The BIOS has a corresponding setting, which is useless for modern drives and only slows down access to them. You can disable this setting like this:


We have looked at the most common reasons for a drop in the speed of flash drives and solutions to this problem. However, if you have any other options, we'd love to hear them in the comments.

Portable flash drives are the most popular compact storage media today. Optical disks have almost gone out of mass use, and external hard drives and SSD drives are still not able to compete with flash drives in size and reliability. Flash drives are small, convenient and hold quite a lot of information, but there is one point - the write speed to a flash drive is significantly lower than the write speed to the same SSD or HDD. In addition, after a long time of use, the flash drive becomes a little slower. Is it possible to somehow speed up the flash drive so that it writes at least a little faster? Yes, there are several ways you can increase the write speed to a flash drive.

Speed ​​up by improving performance

Open the properties window of the flash drive, and in the tab Equipment Select the name of your flash drive from the list of devices. Then click on the button Properties.


After that, in the drive properties window that opens, go to the tab Policy and set the switch to the item Optimal performance.


Please note that after applying this parameter, caching of entries for the flash drive will be activated. Therefore, when disconnecting the drive, you must use “safe removal”, otherwise you risk losing files on the flash drive.

Speed ​​up with formatting

Another simple way to speed up a flash drive a little is to format it in a different file system. To do this, in the context menu of the flash drive, select Format, and in the formatting settings window, specify NTFS as the file system.


Before you start formatting, there are two more important points to consider. Firstly, formatting must be done completely, that is, you need to uncheck the box Quick (clear table of contents). And secondly, to achieve better results, you can also choose the cluster size. If you plan to write mainly large files to the flash drive, then select the maximum cluster size; if you write a lot of small files, then set the cluster size to small accordingly.

Controller speed setting

The third method is more complex, as it involves working with BIOS settings. To implement it, you need to go to the BIOS interface and find the section responsible for USB settings. As a rule, this section is called USB Configuration. After this, you need to find in this section an item called USB Controller Mode and set the value in it FullSpeed or HiSpeed.


Due to the fact that these methods involve making some changes to the file system of the drive or to the BIOS and flash drive settings, they may not be suitable for everyone. If your first priority is the stable and reliable performance of the flash drive, as well as the safety of the data on it, it is better to leave all the settings as they are. But when you are faced with the task of speeding up a flash drive by any means, the above tips will come in handy.

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