Fixed: USB 3.0 Transfer Speed Slow – 7 Ways Included

User Case: USB 3.0 Transfer Speed Slow

Brief Introduction of USB 3.0

USB 3.0 is also known as the new transfer rate of SuperSpeed USB. Its theoretical transfer speed is up to 5 Gbit/s, which is about 10 times faster than the traditional USB 2.0, and its minimum write speed should not be less than 20 MB/s. If you are using a USB 3.0 protocol USB flash drive and its transfer speed is lower than the above standard, it means that you are experiencing the same problem as in the above case.

At this point, you should check if your computer supports USB 3.0. The easiest way to identify this is by the blue and SS logo, if you can find the above logo on your computer, it means that this computer supports USB 3.0.

If you can't see any blue slots or SS logos on your computer, you can also check through the Device Manager. Open the Device Manager and then expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. If you can see an item with USB 3.0, it means that your computer supports USB 3.0 protocol for the USB flash drive. Next, you can start investigating the cause of slow USB 3.0 transfer speeds.

Why Is There A Problem with Slow USB 3.0 Transfer Speeds

The following are the common causes of the above problem. If you want to fix the slow USB 3.0 transfer speed in Windows 10, it is most effective to start with the cause.

⚙️ USB flash drive has a hardware fault.
🤖 USB flash drive driver is outdated or incorrect.
🖥️ Incorrect USB flash drive settings
💿 USB flash drive conflicts with third-party software
🔌 USB flash drive not properly connected

7 Ways to Fix Slow USB 3.0 Transfer Speeds

If you still don't know how to solve the problem of slow USB 3.0 flash drive transfer speed after understanding the cause, please refer to the following 7 methods and follow the detailed steps to do it.

Method 1. Reconnect the USB Flash Drive

Since the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interfaces are universal and backward compatible, there is a big gap in the transmission speed between the two. So when you encounter the problem of slow USB 3.0 transfer speed, the first thing to try is to reconnect the USB flash drive to the computer and make sure that the connected slot can support the USB 3.0 protocol.

Also, if you're using a desktop computer, you can also try plugging USB 3.0 into the rear slot. Because the rear slot is often soldered on the motherboard, it can provide a more stable connection experience.

Method 2. Update or Reinstall the USB Flash Drive Driver

If the drivers of the USB flash drive are incorrect or outdated, then it may also cause the problem that the USB 3.0 transfer speed is slow. Therefore, you can try updating or reinstalling the drivers to fix the problem.

🧱 Update USB flash drive driver

1. Right-click the Start button and select Device Manager.
2. Find and expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click on Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0 (Microsoft), and select Update Driver.

3. Select Search automatically for drivers and wait for the process to complete. If you find any available updates, please update them promptly.

🧱 Reinstall USB flash drive driver

It is recommended that you create a System Restore point or do a System Backup before reinstalling the USB flash drive driver for a quick recovery in case Windows 10 is unable to reinstall the driver.

1. Use Windows + X to open the menu and select Device Manager.
2. Locate and expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, right-click Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0 (Microsoft), select Uninstall device, and confirm thisoperation.

3. Right-click the top computer name and tap Scan for hardware changes, and Windows 10 will automatically install the USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller.

Method 3. Turn off Windows Security Protection

Windows Defender Firewall can provide security to your computer. However, in some cases, it may also affect file transfers and cause problems with slow USB 3.0 transfer speeds. In this case, you need to turn off Windows Security Protection.

1. Use Windows + S to open the search bar, type Windows Security and press Enter.
2. In the Windows Security window, tap the Virus & threat protection tab in the left panel.
3. In the right panel, find the Virus & threat protection settings section and tap the Manage settings button.

4. Turn off Real-time protection and Cloud-delivered protection, respectively.

Method 4. Change Settings to Optimize USB Flash Drive Performance

USB flash drive drives are often preset to have the Quick removal policy turned on, which disables the write cache on the device and slows down file transfers, causing problems with slow USB 3.0 transfers. At this point, you can check and change the policy of the USB flash drive to improve its transfer speed.

1. Use Windows + X to open the menu and select Device Manager.
2. Find and expand the Disk drives, right-click on the USB flash drive and select Properties.
3. Switch to the Policies tab at the top, and in the Removal policy section, select the Better performance option, and tap the OK button.

Method 5. Perform a Clean Startup

In some cases, USB flash drive can conflict with third-party software and cause problems with slow USB 3.0 transfer speeds. At this point, you can try a clean boot. This will minimize the compatibility issues caused by third-party applications and services and help you resolve the above issues.

1. Use Windows + R to open the Run window, type msconfig and press Enter.
2. Go to System Configuration, in the General tab, tap Selective startup, and uncheck the Load system services checkbox.
3. Switch to the Servics tab and check the Hide all Microsoft services checkbox.

4. After confirming that the rest of the third-party services have been checked, tap the Disable all button, and tap the OK button.
5. Switch to the Startup tab again and tap on the Open Task Manager option.
6. Jump to the Task Manager window and under the Startup tab, disable each item and finally restart your computer again.

Method 6. Convert USB Flash Drive File System

The file system will directly affect the performance of the external drive. If the file system of your USB flash drive is FAT32, then converting it to NTFS can effectively improve the transfer speed to solve the problem of slow USB 3.0 transfer speed.

Note📝: Since converting a USB Flash drive erases all the files in it, it is recommended that you perform File Backup before doing so.

1. Use Windows + S to open the search bar, type cmd and select Run as administrator.
2. In the Command Prompt window, type convert E: /fs:ntfs and press Enter.

💥 Tip: You can replace the E with the actual USB drive letter.

Method 7. Hardware and Devices Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting is a useful feature in Windows 10 that can help you solve many problems. So, when you are having problems with slow USB 3.0 transfer speeds, try performing Hardware & Devices Troubleshooting which will help you to solve the problem.

1. Right-click on the Start button and select Windows PowerShell (Admin).
2. In a Windows PowerShell window, type msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic and press Enter.
3. In the Hardware and Devices window, tap Next and wait for it to automatically detect the problem.

4. If you find any problems, you will be prompted to fix them accordingly. Then restart your computer to ensure the changes take effect.

Stable and Fast File Transfer Method

If you are in urgent need of transferring a large amount or large volume of files, the slow transfer speed of USB 3.0 will bring you a lot of trouble. In severe cases, it may also lead to work stagnation.

For this reason, you need to go through this article to understand the cause of the problem and try the 7 methods provided in the article as soon as possible to get the USB 3.0 protocol USB flash drive transfer speed back to normal as soon as possible.

If you are worried about encountering similar problems again or are looking for a more stable and faster method of file transfer, then AOMEI Backupper Standard's Basic Sync feature will meet your requirements. It can also help you save a lot of time and effort.

AOMEI Backupper Standard, a free and professional file synchronization software, has the following advantages.

😬 Great compatibility. You can use this software to synchronize the needed files or folders on Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP etc.
😬 Allows you to sync your files to any location you want. You can choose to sync your files to an external hard drive, a USB flash drive, or cloud storage. If you have a work team and want to share a file with other team members, you can also choose to sync the file to a network location, using the shared folder as the destination location.

Next, we will take Windows 10 as an example to introduce the operation steps of Basic Sync in detail.

1. Run AOMEI Backupper Standard, tap the Sync tab in the left panel, and select Basic Sync in the right panel.

2. Tap the Add Folders button and select the folders you want to sync.

Tip: If you upgrade to the Pro version, you can also tap on the funnel icon next to it to open the filtering settings.
🔥 File Inclusion Mask. Files with the same extension can be specified to be synchronized to a destination path, e.g. .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc. If you would like to include more extensions, please separate the formats with semi-colons.
🔥 File Exclusion Mask. You can specify that files with the same extension will not be synchronized to the destination path, and you can also add more extensions using the semicolon-separated format.
🔥 Folder Exclusion Mask. You can specify that folders with the same name will not be synced to the destination path, and you can likewise add more folder names using the semicolon-separated format.

3. Set the sync destination to USB Flash drive and tap the Start Sync button.

Tips: Before you start syncing, you can tap the Options and Schedule Sync button in the bottom left corner.
📛 Options: You can enable email notifications that will promptly notify you when a synchronization job is completed. In addition, you can check the box to synchronize delete jobs from the source directory to the target directory and to verify the integrity of the target directory archive when synchronizing.
📛 Schedule Sync: You can enable scheduled sync and set up daily, weekly, and monthly auto-sync for free, and when upgrading to the Pro version, you can also choose to auto-sync on event triggers and USB plug in

In addition to basic synchronization, AOMEI Backupper has other features that may be of interest to you.

• If you upgrade to the Pro version, you can also use the Real-time Sync, Mirror Sync and Two-way Sync features to make the file synchronization process easier and save you further time.
• In addition to the Sync feature, you can also use File Backup or Cloud Backup (with 1TB free cloud storage in 15 days) to help you transfer files with higher safety.  
• To completely clone all the files from the entire disk to other hard drives (including USB removable drives) for replacement, try the Disk Clone function. In advanced edition, you still can easily transfer your current computer's Windows system to an SSD with the System Clone feature and ensure a secure boot.

Summary

If your work requires frequent use of USB flash drive, then the problem that the USB 3.0 transfer speed is slow will cause you a lot of trouble, and it is recommended to solve the problem by the 7 methods provided in the article as soon as possible.

If you are worried about the recurrence of similar problems, then it is recommended to use more stable third-party software for file synchronization to transfer files to USB Flash drive instead, which will effectively save time and effort.