Slow hard drive transfer speed?

Hi,

I'm having a problem with transfer speeds from my desktop computer's hard drive. When I transfer files to a USB flash drive from my desktop the transfer rate is fairly slow, however when I put the USB drive into my laptop the files transfer significantly faster. I tried doing a quick search via google but a lot of the answers looked pretty involved so I thought I'd ask for help here and see if anyone had any ideas. Both hard drives are 7200 rpm and the laptop and desktop have similar configurations, thanks a bunch for any help.

Thanks again,
J

Specs-
Desktop- Dell Vostro 230 Mini Tower w/ Pentium Dual-Core E5700, 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache, 4GB DDR3 RAM

Laptop- HP 17.3" Pavilion dv7-3069wm, 2.1GHz AMD Athlon II dual-core processor M320, 250GB SATA hard drive @7200 rpm, 4 GB DDR2 RAM

 

Hi,

Download and run Speccy on both PCs then post the logs back. Remember to delete your Windows Serial before posting. My first thoughts are either USB version (ie your laptop is running USB3) or bus speeds.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the help. I don't think my laptop has USB 3.0, if that's what you were referring to, but there is such a big difference in times that it seems like there has to be something going on. For instance I put a roughly 2.7 GB file on a USB drive last night and it said it was going to take like 12 minutes or so to transfer from my desktop but it only said it was going to take 4 minutes or so to transfer to my laptop. Thanks again for the help.

 

I cant see any obvious reason why one would be slower. I wouldnt believe the microsoft timers though. Expand the more informaiton bit of the copying screen and look at the transfer rate. That will give you a better idea. Disk usage ang fraagmentaion may make a difference

 

Oh boy, I looked at the transfer rate like you suggested and I think it's rotton tomatos time. I was confusing read and write speeds, ie most of the time I was writing to USB from my desktop and then reading from USB to my laptop. When I compared read/write speeds between the two they were both right in the same ballpark, with the desktop even being a hair faster! Sorry for the confusion and thanks a lot again for your help! :-o

 

Glad you got it sorted.