Windows 11, copying files between hard drives painfully slow

The speeds should be much, much higher regardless of what software you're using. Don't waste your time trying different programs. There's something going on that's killing the transfer speed. Encryption and virus checking are two big factors in slowing down copying. Both of those could still be in play in Safe Mode. Are the drives internal? If one or more drives are connected via USB, then there's a chance of a USB issue. More details are needed. You may want to open a discussion at elevenforum.com. It's a good place for troubleshooting issues like this.

Update: I had exactly the same problem today when I attempted to copy files to and from an external SSD drive on a new computer that only has USB-C ports. I used a USB-A to USB-C adapter to plug in the drive. Transfer rates were ridiculously slow (like 3MB/s). I replaced the cable with a direct USB-C cable (a very short cable made for that drive) and then I got 1.5GB/s read and 680MB/s write. Maybe something similar is happening to you. The cable has to be correct to support high speed date transfers.

This an issue that is not going away. I too am having challenges with copying and moving files and folders. What used to take me an hour now takes half my day. I have explained this issue to my supervisor and she has let me know that other techs and departments are having the same issue. MS refuses to aknowledge the issue when we bring it to thier attention saying this an equipment issue. All our gear met the quality reqirements and several devices were brand new. Our company is looking at removing win11 from all our systems and going back to Win10. This situation is not teneble.

Hi, I'm Elise, a fellow user like yourself and I'd be happy to help with your issue.

Do you have any antivirus or security software running, as this can often be the cause of slow file transfers.

Window is also sometimes quite inefficient when copying large volumes of small files, rather than a small volume of large files.

It is also often quicker to use the robocopy app, you run this from the command line.

An example of copying from the C: to D: drive using this would be:

robocopy C:\ D:\ /E /COPYALL

Please let me know if you need any further assistance.

Kind Regards,

Elise

I have the same problem. Bought a new hi-spec Asus Windows 11 machine and copying files from external HD to SSD. Windows 10 on the old machi does it in a blink of the eye. new machine is slower than molasses in January. The difference is gargantuan. FastCopy no better Sync Back estimates 2 days g hours! How can Microsoft continue to ignore this problem???

I had to reinstall Windows, but Windows 10.

All Windows 11 problems are gone. FIXED.