Fix WD External Hard Drive Slow Transfer Rate (8 Ways)

User Case: USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Extremely Slow Transfer

“I've got a 5TB WD easystore, perfectly healthy, but the speeds are unbearably slow in my Windows 10. I get, at the most, 9MB/s read and write. It's connected to a USB 3 bus, and it's a USB 3 drive. None of my other drives act this way. Any ideas? Thanks.”

If you're also suffering from the "WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem, you can read on to learn about the risks, causes and 8 solutions of this problem. You can also learn how to effectively prevent the risks caused by this problem.

The Risk of Disk Transfer Rate Slow in Windows 10

If the transfer speed of your WD external hard drive suddenly becomes very slow, then you need to pay attention to it. With the occurrence of this phenomenon, it is probably to bring some risks. This article summarizes some common situations.

• File copying gets stuck.
• The hard drive starts making clicking sounds or other noises.
• Files cannot be opened and finally resulting in file loss.
• Drive crashes, lags, hangs.
• The computer freezes.

Why WD External Hard Drive Slow Transfer Rate?

The "WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem can be caused by several reasons, some of the common ones are as follows.

• The cable or USB port has issues.
• Too many fragments on external hard drive.
• The external hard drive is so full.
• The external hard drive is infected with a virus or malware.
• Many bad sectors on the external hard drive.
• The external hard drive is outdated or damaged.

How to Increase Transfer Speed of External Hard Drive

Next, this article will introduce 8 methods to solve the "WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem in turn. You can choose the corresponding solutions according to different reasons. In addition, you can also learn how to effectively prevent this problem from happening again. You can read on for more details.

Method 1. Change the USB Port

Nowadays, most computers are equipped with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 to meet the different needs of users.

If you plug your USB 3.0 external drive via a USB 2.0 port, it will become very slow when opening the drive or transferring files. You can distinguish between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports by the color of the USB port.

Or you can distinguish them by the icon.

Then you can follow the steps below to change the USB port.

Step 1. Connect your WD external hard drive with its original USB 3.0 cable.

Step 2. Locate the USB 3.0 ports on your PC.

Step 3. Plug the external hard disk to PC via the USB 3.0 cable and USB 3.0 port.

If the transfer speed is now normal for WD external hard drive, then your problem has been solved by changing the USB port. If the transfer speed is still slow, you can try the other methods below.

Method 2. Check Cables for the WD External Hard Drive

In addition to the USB port, you should also check whether the cable for the WD external hard drive is in good condition.

If there is an obvious problem with the cable, you can try connecting the external hard drive to your computer with another cable and then try copying files from your computer to see if the transfer speed improves.

If the problem is still not resolved, you can continue reading to learn other solutions.

Method 3. Defrag the WD External Hard Drive

If you are not defragmenting your WD external hard drive regularly, then it may have too many fragments which can also cause the "WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem. You can follow the steps below to defragment your WD external hard drive with Windows built-in tool.

Step 1: Press Win+E to open File Explorer and right-click the WD external hard drive to choose the Properties option.

Step 2: Navigate to the Tools tab and then hit the Optimize button.

Step 3: Select the WD external hard drive to defrag, click the Optimize button, and wait for the process to complete.    

Method 4. Run Antivirus Tool

If WD external hard drive is infected with a virus or malware, you may also encounter the"WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem. You can run an antivirus tool to solve this problem, Windows Defender is a good choice. You can follow the steps below.  

Step 1: Right-click the Windows icon on the toolbar and then choose the Settings option.

Step 2: Under Settings, click Update & security.

Step 3: Move to the Windows Defender option on the left side and then click the Turn on Windows Defender Antivirus button on the right side.

Step 4: On the new window, click the Virus & threat protection option.

Step 5: Click Advanced Scan > Custom scan > Scan now.

Step 6: A pop-up window will show the drives available for scanning. Check the box next to the external hard drive.

Method 5. Check and Fix Corrupted Files and Bad Sectors on WD External Hard Drive

If the"WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem is caused by bad sectors, you can run the Check Disk utility to check and repair the WD external hard drive by following the steps below.

Step 1. Press Win+E to open Windows Explorer, locate the drive that you want to fix, right-click it can choose Properties.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, click Check under the Tools tab.

Step 3. Tick Automatically fix file system errors & Scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

Method 6. Update the WD External Hard Drive

When the WD external hard drive driver is outdated, it may not function normally. To speed up its transfer rate, you can follow the steps below to update the disk driver.

Step 1. Press Win+R to open the Run window, then type devmgmt.msc and click the OK button.

Step 2. You will see the Device Manager window, expand Disk drivers, right-click the external hard drive, and then choose Update driver.

Method 7. Delete Needless Files and Uninstall Unnecessary Applications

If your WD external hard drive is almost fully occupied, the transfer rate of it can slow down. Here you can reclaim disk space by removing superfluous files and applications from this disk. You can follow the steps below to uninstall applications:

Step 1. Press Win+R to open the Run window and input control panel to open Control Panel.

Step 2. Click Programs > Programs and Features.

Step 3. In the listed programs, right-click the one that you don’t need anymore and choose Uninstall.

Method 8. Format the WD External Hard Drive

The format is an effective way to fix the external hard drive issues, like the external hard drive not showing up. So, when you encountered the"WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem, you can try formatting it.

There are many drive formatters and each of them can help you complete disk formatting quickly. Since the format process will remove all data on your WD external hard drive, you need to backup the files in advance.

If you are looking for a more thorough approach, you can choose to wipe the disk. It cleans up much more completely than formatting. 

The Best Solution to Prevent the Risk of Disk Transfer Rate Slow

To prevent the risks of the"WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem, such as file loss, we recommend you to backup the files on your WD external hard drive regularly to protect your data. You can backup the files on your WD external disk to another disk. In this way, even if the files are accidentally lost, you can still access your data by restoring the backup image.

The free file backup software AOMEI Backupper Standard can help you achieve the goal easily. It supports Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11, XP, Vista, etc and 4 backup solutions (system/disk/partition/file backup) to meet your multiple backup needs. It also has the following advantages.

Backup files automatically with its Schedule backup: In the Standard edition, you can backup your files on the WD external hard drive with fixed intervals including Daily, Weekly and Monthly.

Backup only the changed parts to save disk space. By default, this software uses incremental backup as default backup method and it only back up changes since last backup. 

Improve data security by backing up files to different locations: It allows you to backup your files on the WD external hard drive to multiple paths, such as local disk, external disk, USB flash drive, NAS, cloud, etc. If you have an AOMEI account, you can also backup files to AOMEI Cloud.

Compatible with various disk brands: In addition to WD external hard drive, this software also supports many popular disk brands, such as different Intel, Samsung, Crucial, etc.

Then you can follow the graphic tutorial below to backup files on the WD external hard drive regularly. To get started, please AOMEI Backupper Standard, and install it on your computer.  For server users, try AOMEI Backupper Server. 

Step 1. Open AOMEI Backupper Standard, then select Backup > File Backup. 

Step 2. Click Add File or Add Folder, then select the files on the WD external hard drive to backup.

Step 3. Click the inverted triangle at the right edge of the second bar and choose a destination path to store the backup files.

Step 4. Click Schedule Backup at the bottom and then enable it. In the drop-down menu, you can select the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) you want. 

Step 5. Confirm all your operations and click Start Backup. 

Then it will backup files on the WD external hard drive automatically with the selected frequency. But for the long term, the backups keep growing, but the disk space is fixed and the backup disk will eventually fill up unless you delete it.

To prevent this at the beginning, it's suggested to enable automatic backup cleanup in the backup scheme. It helps to delete old backup images automatically with the selected methods. 

At the same time, you can write a comment to distinguish the backup tasks and set the email notifications.

Summary

This article shows the possible risks, causes, and solutions of the"WD external hard drive slow transfer rate" problem. Besides, it's necessary to backup files on WD external hard drive with free backup software to prevent serious risks such as data loss from this problem. 

You can run it as a scheduled task in daily, weekly, monthly or use premium features - event trigger or USB plug in, and free up disk space with backup and cleanup methods as well. Then, you can restore files from backup in a disaster, if you don't have a file backup, restore files from other backups are supported.