File transfer excruciatingly slow?

p13m4n · #1 (**permalink**) 15th Feb 2008, 3:46 pm

Compared to thumb drives and what not, my fake third-gen iPod Nano has super-slow transfer speeds. It's 4GB, been memory-hack tested, and it's FAT32. Any idea why?

admin · #2 (**permalink**) 18th Feb 2008, 11:28 pm

Hi p13m4n,

Is it slow on another computer? Try a different computer (maybe two if you can) and see if the transfer rate is slow.

The other thing you can try is a different USB cable. Sometimes a faulty USB cable where the pins are faulty might cause slow transfers.

Failing that, it might just be that your player has USB 1.1 (aka USB 2.0 Full Speed) and not actually USB 2.0 Hi Speed? Have a look here: http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm. I have seen some manufacturers put on the "USB 2.0" sticker, where in fact it's only USB Full Speed (USB 1.1 just relabelled) and not actually the HI SPEED at all, so hence the slow transfer.

p13m4n · #3 (**permalink**) 19th Feb 2008, 4:51 pm

Yeah, I know what USB 1.1 and 2.0 is. Thing is, I've transferred data onto a thumb drive on a laptop with USB 1.1. It was slow, but it was still faster than the speeds I'm getting now. It's not the cable and I'm pretty sure it's not the computer. To give you a gist of what the speeds are... I've put approximately 2.5GB on it in the space of approximately an hour. With USB 1.1 going full speed (12Mbps), it would've taken about half an hour.

admin · #4 (**permalink**) 19th Feb 2008, 7:22 pm

When you say "it's not the cable", does that mean you've tried another cable already?

The other possible reason is that the USB port on your player could quite well be faulty.

The only time I've experience slow transfer is with USB 1.1 but that's understandable when compared with USB 2.0 HI Speed. But if it's SLOWER than USB 1.1, then that's a real issue.

Th3_uN1Qu3 · #5 (**permalink**) 22nd Feb 2008, 4:34 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by p13m4n";p=&quot

Yeah, I know what USB 1.1 and 2.0 is. Thing is, I've transferred data onto a thumb drive on a laptop with USB 1.1. It was slow, but it was still faster than the speeds I'm getting now. It's not the cable and I'm pretty sure it's not the computer. To give you a gist of what the speeds are... I've put approximately 2.5GB on it in the space of approximately an hour. With USB 1.1 going full speed (12Mbps), it would've taken about half an hour.

That sounds like the right transfer rate for an USB 1.1 player. Keep in mind that they use low quality USB interfaces, so it's very likely that it won't even hit the 12mbps limit. My old 2GB Sigmatel player took about 40 minutes to fill up (write) and 20-25 minutes to read the files back when making a backup.