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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Why is copying to USB stick on Linux so damn slow? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by WereCat@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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For context:

I'm copying the same files to the same USB drive for comparison from Windows and from my Fedora 41 Workstation.

Around 10k photos.

Windows PC: Dual Core AMD Athlon from 2009, 4GB RAM, old HDD, takes around 40min to copy the files to USB

Linux PC: 5800X3D, 64GB RAM, NVMe SSD, takes around 3h to copy the same files to the same USB stick

I've tried chagning from NTFS to exFAT but the same result. What can I do to improve this? It's really annoying.

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[–] HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you have the same speeds when coping say a single 1gb file? A lot of small files introduces a bit more overhead. Rsync can help somewhat

[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I'm copying 6 video files that are 40GB total and it's been over 3h now and still not finished so it's not just a lot of small files. It's just slow as hell in general. Yes, the USB is 3.0 connected to 3.0 port verified it's actually running at 3.0 bus. No, it's not fault of the USB drive as this takes around 30min from USB 2.0 on Windows 10. Yes, I've tried Fat32, exFAT and NTFS... I couldn't care less about ext4 for this particular use case so it's not relevant and I haven't tried it yet because I'm still stuck copying. Not sure what rsync does different, I just use standard CTRL+C/CTRL+V copy/paste that I expect to work flawlessly in 2025. No idea why I would want to use command line for copying files to USB drive. This seems like an ongoing problem for over 10 years from what I've been looking at trying to find solution, I found none that worked yet, just the same comments I'm getting here mostly.

[–] HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago

Very strange... So it sounds like you're using whatever the default file manager is for your desktop, there really isn't any reason the filesystem type would make things that much slower. Something must be very different about your system to be slowing transfers down that much.

I would use iotop to see how much data is being written, where, and what speeds it's getting but if you prefer a graphical version of that maybe "system monitor" is available to you in gnome or whatever desktop you use. You've probably already tested other drives I guess, maybe try just booting a fresh live USB of something and see if the problem persists there too.