Solved Very slow file copying with FreeFileSync, plus system freezes

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sisom

PCHF Member
Sep 27, 2023
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Hi, I have the following spec. of PC:

Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 35 °C
Matisse 7nm Technology
RAM
128GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1064MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG CROSSHAIR VIII HERO (AM4) 30 °C
Graphics
XXX (3840x2160@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 39 °C
Storage
7452GB Seagate ST8000DM004-2U9188 (SATA ) 28 °C
7452GB Seagate ST8000DM004-2ZD188 (SATA ) 26 °C
14902GB TOSHIBA MG08ACA16TE (SATA ) 24 °C
14902GB TOSHIBA MG08ACA16TE (SATA ) 23 °C
7452GB Seagate ST8000DM004-2CX188 (SATA ) 28 °C
7452GB Seagate ST8000DM004-2U9188 (SATA ) 31 °C
232GB Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 250GB (Unknown (SSD))
1788GB Force MP510 (Unknown (SSD))
1788GB Force MP510 (Unknown (SSD))
Optical Drives
ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U USB Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio



I am trying to copy one of my 8TB Seagate drives to a new 8TB Seagate drive, with FreeFileSync.
At the beginning, the drive was copying at a speed of between 70MB/s to 130MB/s, varying up and down, presumably depending on what size of files it was copying, and other reasons, but after I left the computer copying the files overnight, the next day I noticed that the copying wasn't as far through as it should have been (I think it predicted something like 16 hours initially, but now it said there were several days left to complete the copying, and only maybe a third of the files had been copied, after about 16 hours.)
Then I noticed that the copying process was going down to 0B/sec, for maybe half a minute, then speeding back up to maybe 30MB/s to 50MB/s, for maybe ten seconds, then it would slow down to zero, in another ten seconds.

I also had freezing problems with my PC, where I couldn't get a browser window in Firefox to refresh, then I found it wouldn't refresh any browser windows. Then I opened Microsoft Edge, and found that wouldn't load any websites. Then I tried to open Task Manager by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL, and the screen went blank, except for a Youtube video that I had been watching in a pop out window - that carried on working. If I pressed Alt-Tab, I could see the window thumbnails and cycle through them, but none of them would appear when I stopped Alt-Tabbing on them, and still the Youtube video window was working. Then that froze, and then after maybe five minutes, suddenly all the windows came back. But FreeFileSync was now at 0B/s all the time, I waited several minutes and nothing happened, so I thought I would turn off the PC and turn it back on, but when I used the Start button Power command, and chose 'Shut Down', nothing happened, and I eventually had to use the power button on the front of the PC to turn it off.

Now I've turned it back on, and I'm using FreeFileSync again, to try to complete the last ten percent of the 8TB drive copying, and it worked fine for about five minutes (when I started this post), copying at between 70MB/s and 130MB/s, but now it's going from 50MB/s down to 0B/s, but at the moment it only stays at 0B/s for about two seconds, then goes back up to about 5MB/s, and it's copying at about 40-90 files a second when it's doing 5MB/s. (I realise it takes longer to copy lots of smaller files, than fewer, large files).

I know that the PC came with a load of 'Armoury Crate' software, which I can see in Task Manager, and is something to do with it being a gaming PC - but I didn't buy it for gaming, so if I can turn all of that ASUS stuff of, I will be happy to, if it will help..

I'll try copying the files using Windows Explorer, just to see if I have the same slowdown problem. I've been using FreeFileSync for about ten years, and I've always used it on this PC, which I've had for just over a year now, and I haven't had this bad a problem before. I have had times when the whole PC froze when I tried to save a webpage as a PDF from Firefox - nothing would work for maybe a minute, maybe two minutes, as if it was looking for hard drives and couldn't find them or something - that's been going on maybe once a month since I got the PC last year.
 
You could also try another transfer program like Cobian (in my signature), but I suspect it's a buffering/cache issue on the I/O bus lanes.
Also try doing it from Safe Mode to rule out any background processes/services/tasks.

So, you have 7 drives in the rig?
 
Thank you so much for your very fast reply! I have four 8TB hard drives, two 16TB hard drives, two 2TB NVME SSDS which are spanned together as D: drive (if 'spanned' is the correct terminology), they are on a PCI-E card which came with the PC., and one 250GB NVME SSD on the motherboard, which is C: drive.
All drives are duplicated, so I have two 8TB drives and one 16TB drive, duplicated to the other two 8TB drives, and the other 16TB drive, and I use FreeFileSync every week to make sure everything is backed up. (I learnt the hard way, about ten years ago, that having a duplicate of all my data is absolutely vital.)
I hadn't heard of Cobian, thank you very much, I will try it now. I will try Safe Mode as well. Thank you so much for your help, I do appreciate it!
 
I've just tried copying some of the remaining folders with UltraFastCopy, as I thought this was a quick option to try (rather than going into Safe Mode), but while I'm no longer seeing the copy speed going to zero, it's only at 3MB/s on sample library files - these are hundreds of MB in size, so should presumably be copying at 100MB/s or more. I will try Cobian Reflector and then try Safe Mode if I get no joy with Cobian, thanks for your time.
 
In my previous post but one, when I said "All drives are duplicated", I meant the hard drives, not the SSDs. The 2 x 4TB SSDs I have copies of sample libraries from one of the 8TB drives, so they're already copies of files which are already backed up. Sorry!
 
"I learnt the hard way" - if you have had computers long enough, you know how you live or die by those words! (y)
You can never have enough backups.

If I may say, you do have one flaw in your logic, but you don't mention it so maybe you have thought of it - what happens when the PC is to blame.

You cover yourself if a drive fails, but what if the PC gets stolen, goes up in a ball of flames, or the house is destroyed by a natural disaster?
I also have backup copies of stuff on other drives in a Network Attached Storage box, plus a drive at work, plus a drive in the car.
That way I am covering myself against more extreme (yes, less likely) situations.
But that is the very nature of backups, they are an insurance policy for your data, a policy you hope to never use, but glad you have when it all goes south.
 
I forgot to say that I also have backup hard drives separate from my computer, stored in a fire proof safe! I back things up to them every three months or so.

I went into Safe Mode and the files copied much more quickly, and no more slow downs to zero. So I think there must be a program that is running that is somehow taking up space on the IO bus, or something like that.

One other thing I noticed today - in the Properties of the old 8TB drive, which I was copying onto a new 8TB drive, the 'Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties' box was ticked. I use 'Everything' to search my PC, so I don't need Windows' own search to work at all, so I unticked this box, and it is now 'Processing' every single file on the old 8TB hard drive. It has been doing this for a few hours now. There are millions of files on there.
I presume this can't have had anything to do with it, or is the Windows Search turned off in Safe Mode, and might it not be trying to copy all this extra data to the new hard drive?
I'm not sure what to do now, to find out what program or process might be causing the slow down in normal Windows mode - I have been checking Task Manager, and nothing has high CPU. (I have a Ryzen 9 3950X, so very few programs cause much CPU use period!) Nothing was showing high disk use either.
 
Good to hear about the fire safe (y)

Also good news regarding Safe Mode.

Windows Search service I actually disable on my PC's.
Never needed it, and the rare occasion I do search for something in File Explorer or Outlook, I simply put up with the lag time as apposed to always having a small background service chewing up a small amount of processing grunt providing something I rarely need.

With Windows Search disabled, I believe the content indexing on drives is also stopped, despite the box being ticked to do so - but I/'m not 100% sure on that one.
 
I hadn't realised that the new Seagate 8TB external drives I bought (from Argos, UK, for £120, Nov 2024, so the cheapest by far at this point in time, everywhere else I can find is charging at least £140) were formatted in ExFAT. So after copying over my first 8TB drive to a new one, I noticed it had 600GB less free speech than the old drive, and I couldn't work out for the life of me why. Then while using TreeSize Free on both drives, I suddenly noticed the drive format at the bottom of the windows. The cluster size of my NTFS drive was 4,096 bytes, the cluster size of the new ExFAT drive was around 252,000 bytes! And as my old drive had millions of small files (presets for VSTs, sample files) I think loads of them were under 252,000 bytes in size, but because that was the size of the cluster, each little file took up the whole cluster, because it can only hold one file, or part of one file.
So I had to reformat the new 8TB drive last night and begin copying all over again. I have installed UltraFastCopy and I am using that to copy the 8TB drive contents again. The copy speeds are varying form 80MB/s down to 2MB/s. It goes up to about 75MB/s and goes down to 2MB/s, and then goes back up again, maybe taking two seconds to go down, then it slowly rises up in about five seconds.

So it's as if some sort of buffer is being filled up and then the copy speed slows down, and then the buffer empties because there is much less data going through, and it speeds up again. The files it is copying are generally from 1MB to 100MB in size, they are samples from a music VST - at the moment.
When I first started the copy, it was running at 180MB/s, but I didn't sit watching it for very long. The next time I looked, several hours later, it was doing this up to 80MB/s and down to 2MB/s thing, and it's been doing it ever since.

Maybe I can go into Task Manager and start shutting down running processes one by one, until the copying speed stays high?

I've just noticed that it's gone down to zero B/s for a few seconds - it's not as bad as it was the previous time, as it was doing it all the time then, for long periods - maybe 30 seconds or more at a time - this is the first time I've seen it do this with this copying attempt.
 
I've just noticed that sometimes when I'm downloading files (I'm downloading the Rigid Audio Everything Bundle from PluginBoutique, which is something like 70GB of different VST synths) that one of them went to 0B/s downloading, and when I looked across to my UltraFastCopy window, that was also at 0B/s, then they both started after a few seconds. So both the internet and disk operations are going down to zero for a short period of time.
 
I've just tried to copy a folder of 3,100 files from the old 8TB internal hard drive, to my 2 x 2TB internal SSDs - the files are 947 bytes each - they are presets for a synthesizer. Initially it starts copying at 300KB/s, it copies about 2,500 files, then it suddenly slows down to 2KB/s. In other words, about two tiny files per second. It now says there are several minutes left to copy 600 tiny files. Crazy.
So something really bizarre is happening.
I am using FreeFileSync again, to copy the remaining 3TB of the 8TB drive, and it's now running steadily at about 40MB/s, it doesn't go below 40, and doesn't go down to zero at all. (It's copying video files at the moment, they are at least 100GB each.)
 
You're dead right what you said earlier regarding many small files have a slower transfer rate than a few large ones, it's all about the overheads, with clusters, fragments, FAT tables etc.

Would be a good test to also try some copying in Safe Mode again to prove whether it is any better.

I just take a deep breathe and wait, as most times when copying many files, my File Explorer graph has always done - go up to high, then slide back down, then back up, then back down, with some stalls at 0 along the way. :)
 
I have given up using the PC to copy the disks, instead I used a USB hard drive dock, made by Fideco, bought from Ebay a while ago, just to plug 3.5" hard drives into and read videos off them. It has a 'Clone' button on the front, I thought I would try it - it took less than 17 hours to copy the 8TB drive to a new 8TB drive, and I then checked the new drive on my PC, using the same hard drive dock, and all the files were copied perfectly. I don't know exactly how long it took, because I started it some time in the evening, left it to clone the disk overnight, and when I had got up and finally got round to checking the hard drive dock, it had finished cloning, and that was 17 hours later. I think it took about three hours to do a quarter of the drive (it has three lights on the front, the first flashes while it's copying the first 25% and stays on when it's completed 25% - and that took three hours to stay on solid.)
So basically I will clone the other three drives I need to do, using the external hard drive dock. All you have to do is disconnect the USB cable from the dock, before you clone, and it works on its own without my PC having anything to do with it.
I have been copying about 1TB of stuff from the original drive in my PC, which I started this post about, and that was no faster in Safe Mode than in normal mode, a maximum of 60MB/s. I'm not experiencing the slowdowns to zero most of the time now, I've been copying files from other drives, and a few days ago, 10,000 tiny files were taking ages, running at 3KB/s and thereabouts, but today the same files copied at 3MB/s! Copying from the same drive to the same (different) drive as before, just a different folder on it. So I have no idea!
 
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