Use a better tool for copying.
Also check out file pilot to replace explorer. It’s super fast.
I turned off the AI Crap.
Background chit chat. I disabled IPv6 everywhere I could.
If you don’t pay the premium price, Windows allows third-party software companies to load up Windows with bloatware.
In the past, I’ve owned at least 30 computers, what you describe is a defective hard drive.
All the data has to go all the way to China and back.
I think each iteration gets slower. Windows 10 isn’t any faster than previous versions.
How are you connecting the HDDs? Not all USB ports may be USB 3.X
Plus the HDDs themsleves my be slower, which ones did you actually buy?
I used Win 11 and I do a TON of video encoding and transfer. I get the max transfer rates on my 2.5 GB ethernet from Win 11 to my NAS and NAS to Win 11.
On my local back up USB drives I also get the max data transfer rates from PC to HDD and the other way.
Did you only do a fast format?
If so, then most of the disk is not formatted and is formatted on the fly as you transfer files.
What is your interface to the external drives? If it is USB2, you are pretty stuck with relatively slow speeds. eSATA or USB3/3.1 would be better.
I used Windows for years and it always slo o o w e d down over time regardless of what I did. I switched to Linux and it’s as fast today as the day I installed it. I’m never going back.
might be the file history junk they have now- which allows a person to recover files if anything happens to the drive-
Had the exact problem. Took me a few to realize that caching was turned off on some of my external drives. Pop into Disk Managment and see if that’s the problem. If that looks good, then make sure the ports are what they need to be (3.x). If that’s all good, then go into safe mode and see what happens.
If all else fails, ask Copilot. ;)
Good luck!
I thought I was the only one still using a computer. All the cell phone users look at me like I’m an alien or something.
You probably “saturated” the USB bus...it is probably much quicker to copy the old external drive to the new laptop internal hard disk, then copy from the new laptop internal HD to the new external hard drive.
“USB 4” & “Thunderbolt 5”(newest Macs) are the newest/fastest external interfaces (much faster than USB 3.2).
Every version of Windows has larger overhead/more bloat...so your new i9/Win11 machine will probably be about as fast as your old i7/Win7 machine. (unless you “debloat” it):
https://christitus.com/windows-tool/
Scroll down to: Resize the master file table:
https://www.techtarget.com/searchwindowsserver/tip/Optimizing-NTFS-file-system-performance
You probably need to turn the computer on
Maybe a USB problem? If you are connecting via USB.