data transfer is really slow

[registereduser]

I contact Western Digital about this, they seem to not think it is their device's problem
i've gone through 3 returns due to each device seeming to behave this way, and I'm tired of returning them.

If I transfer a large file, 8GB+ in size, it starts out transfering fast, but as time goes on the speed decreases
then decreases some more, then even more. RIght now I have two transfer jobs

one is 4.3GB
one is 8.1GB

both of them started out fast (By fast I mean USB 2.0 fast, which isn't all that fast to start with ;P 23MB/s about)
now the speed is 112.7 kB/sec and 125.8 kB/sec, 4 hours left for the first transfer, 11 for the second...

this is for a 500Gb western digital passport drive going through USB 2.0

I can't wait this long, how can I determine why it becomes so slow?

[remoulder]

Known bug, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/500069

[registereduser]

Known bug, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/500069

Thanks for the reply, are you sure it's the same bug? That's from a couple years ago. Some said to upgrade to kernel 3.2 to fix, but uname -r shows that
mint is already 3.2.

[remoulder]

Have you read the recent comments?

[registereduser]

Have you read the recent comments?

yeah, and I'm actually wondering if this could be because the source drive is Ext4 and the destination is NTFS.

If I copy from Ext4 drive to it's own self then it runs fast, but copying to the NTFS is sluggish (The NTFS is a SATA drive, the Ext4 is USB 2.0)

I wouldn't think drive format would have such an impact though, is NTFS really this slow? I never noticed on Windows.

=====
Edit
=====
I've managed to splice my large file into 726 small files, then transferred them as 3 jobs of 242 files
from the Ext4 to the NTFS. I'm not sure why, but having 3 threads of the same file spliced up made it go
much faster.

so, then I tried doing a transfer of the NTFS drive files to the NTFS drive it's self, it was incredibly slow:
Conclusion (for me) is that it is an NTFS filesystem problem, but not for long as I plan to move to Mint 100%

[registereduser]

on mint, I started transfer of the mint-cinnamon ISO to a USB drive and it said 1hour remaining, it was going 20 MB/s then down, 19,18,17... until hitting 3 MB/s and lower...
so I reboot into the dual boot of Windows 7, re-started the transfer to the USB device, speed started at 2MB/s and climbed upwards 3,4,5,6,7 and kept climbing in speed. The transfer was done in about a minute.

what's the dealio?

[Oscar799]

Threads merged - same OP,same problem

[registereduser]

This is actually a different problem, the first problem was on a USB 3.0 device connected to a USB 2.0 port, this time it is a USB 2.0 device connected to a USB 2.0 port, and the issue seems to go away when in windows.

the bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/500069 was reported in 2009, by now that bug would be fixed. It's 2012.
so it must be a new bug, wouldn't you think? :S

[HBW]

I don't know if this will be of much use to any one but through trial and error I started multiple transfers and noted that one or 2 of the transfers will slowly increase in speed. closing the others and then repeat the process untill you have sucessfully transfered your larger files.
unfortunate I am only new to linux so I can't give you any technical answer.