One of the common tasks in a computer performed by the users is transferring data from & to the USB drive. No one would want to wait for 10 to 15 minutes for transferring a few gigabytes of data. The slow USB data transfer rate of your USB device becomes more troublesome when you’re in a hurry to attend an important meeting and you need the data.
Fortunately, there are some easy ways to speed up USB data transfer rate without using any software or tool.
Set Your Computer to Increase the USB Data Transfer Speed
Master Tutorial to Make Windows 7 Super Fast. This is the 3rd tutorial of our 'Master Tutorial' series. We have already posted 2 other tutorials for Windows XP and Windows Vista in past and now its turn of Windows 7. Guide to speed up Windows 7 boot process. This tip applies to the users who are running multicore processor with Windows 7 or Vista as the operating system. So, follow the below procedure to make it happen. Step 1: Type “msconfig” (without quotes) in Vista or Windows 7 start menu search box and hit enter.
Right-click on Computer either in the Start menu or on the desktop, choose Manage. Then double-click Services and Applications, then Services. Find Windows Search, and double click on that. From this properties dialog, you can choose a Startup type of Manual or Disabled to have the process silent by default. The best way to speed it up is to add more. Windows 7 can run on a PC with 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM, but it runs better with 2 GB. For optimal performance, boost that to 3 GB or more. Another option is to boost the amount of memory by using Windows ReadyBoost.
If you’re using Windows operating system, you can optimize the USB transfer rate in a few clicks. By default, the Windows is set to a “Quick Removal” policy. This option lets you remove the USB drive from your computer without using the “Safely Remove Hardware” option but makes the USB transfer rate slow as it disables the “Write caching-policy” option.
There is another option – “Better performance” which can speed up USB data transfer rate to a significant level. You can enable this option either from the “Device Manager” section or the “My Computer” section in Windows 7. In both cases, you need to insert the USB stick before switching between the options. We’ll prefer the second one as it is simpler way to optimize the data transfer rate for USB devices.
Once you insert the USB device into your computer, open “My Computer” and right-click on the USB drive then select “Properties” from the context menu.
Tip: Reset Windows 7 Password Without Disk.
The “Disk Properties” window appears. Now head to the “Hardware” tab and select your removable drive from the list and then click the “Properties” button from the bottom-right part of the same tab.
Now, the “USB Device Properties” window appears. Head to the “Policy” tab, select the “Better Performance” radio button and click OK. After doing this, simply enable the “Enable write caching on the device” checkbox (this feature is not available for some device though).
That’s it. Now you can notice a significant improvement in the performance of your USB drive while transferring data. Should you remember that enabling this feature for your USB devices will need you to remove it from your system internally before unplugging the USB drive from your computer. Otherwise, it may result in a data loss
To unplug the device easily, you could follow this tip.
Create a shortcut at your desktop (Right-click menu > New > Shortcut) and put the following as the shortcut path:
%windir%System32control.exe hotplug.dll
This is the shortcut for “Safely Remove Hardware” menu. Now, whenever you want to unplug your USB device, click the shortcut before doing that.
Disable Legacy USB Support in BIOS
Very poor performance is some time caused by the Legacy mode for USB in BIOS. This feature is actually for providing compatibility with the old USB devices. Though the compatibility support does not work all time for the old devices it of course restrict the data transfer rate of your USB device.
The Legacy USB Support is a BIOS setup and you need to boot your computer with BIOS mode to change this option. The method of entering into the BIOS mode depends on your computer’s motherboard. However, you need to press the “Del” or “F2” key at the boot time. Once you enter into the BIOS section, find out the option and disable it.
Note: Disabling the Legacy mode may result in a non-functionality for your old keyboard or mouse.
Change the File System to Speed Up USB 2.0 Data Transfer Rate
The file system can have a great impact on the performance of a USB device. Many devices come from the manufacturer store with the maximum data storage capacity. They actually keep the file system in a conservative format to allocate data in very small chunks. Though the storage capacity increases by this method, the performance drops to a significant level.
In Windows operating system, NTFS is the quickest file system. So, if you want to speed up your USB transfer rate, format the USB drive in NTFS file system with 64 KB allocation size.
Formatting the USB drive in Windows 7 is so simple to do. Just open the “My Computer”, right-click on the USB drive and choose “Format”. You might get a warning message; simply ignore it and choose the preferred file system from the drop-down menu. Finally, click the “Start” button and allow some time to complete the procedure.
Replace Your Old USB device with a New One
As long as you use, the SSDs (Solid State Drive) become slower to slowest because of repeatedly performing the read/write task. The available memory cells gets damaged due to repeated read/write cycles. The device even stops working after a long usage.
Though it is not any issue of the SSD hardware but the flash drives are made for low price and often the manufacturers do not take care about the longevity of the memory cells.
Therefore, if the data transfer rate of your USB drive goes significantly down and the typical solutions do not seem to be working, you should opt for replacing the device with a new one.
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Bottom line
These may help you speed up USB data transfer rate dramatically in your Windows computer. If not, switching from an old USB 2.0 device to a new optimized USB 3.0 device could save a lot of your valuable times. You can learn more on whether you should upgrade your USB flash drive to USB 3.0 or not from here.
Now playing:Watch this: 10 quick ways to speed up Windows 10
If your formerly shiny, new Windows 10 PC has begun to lose some of its luster, there are ways to put a little pep back in its step. Here are some quick, easy ways to improve its performance without swapping out any hardware.
1. Go opaque
Windows 10's new Start menu is sexy and see-through, but that transparency will cost you some (slight) resources. To reclaim those resources, you can disable transparency in the Start menu, taskbar, and action center: Open the Settings menu and go to Personalization > Colors and toggle off Make Start, taskbar, and action center transparent.
2. No special effects
Making the Start menu, taskbar, and action center transparent is one thing, but Windows 10 still has a lot of other snazzy, built-in special effects. To really go bare-bones on the special effects, right-click the Start button and click System.
Click Advanced system settings to open the System Properties menu. On the Advanced tab under Performance, click Settings..
This will open the Performance Options menu. In the Visual Effects tab, either choose Adjust for best performance to turn off all unnecessary animations and special effects, or choose Custom: and deselect the visual effects you think can live without. When you're finished, click OK to apply your changes.
3. Disable Startup programs
If your PC is taking a long time to boot up -- and you've enabled Fast Startup and everything -- you may have too many programs starting up when you turn your computer on. To fix this, right-click on the Start button and click Task Manager. Click the Startup tab (click More details if you don't see the Startup tab) and peruse the list of programs that start up with your computer. If you see a program that doesn't need to be there, right-click it and click Disable. You can also arrange the list of programs by Startup impact, if you'd like to see the programs that are taking up the most resources (and time).
![Windows 7 speed up Windows 7 speed up](/uploads/1/2/5/0/125071898/812859272.jpg)
4. Find (and fix) the problem
Windows 10 has a built-in performance troubleshooter that can help you find and fix any problems that might be affecting your PC's speed. To open the troubleshooter, right-click on the Start button and click Control Panel. Under Security and Maintenance at the top, click Troubleshoot common computer problems. Next, under System and Security, click Run maintenance tasks.
Windows 7 Speed Up Internet
5. Reduce the Boot Menu Time-out
When your computer starts up, the boot menu is displayed for a certain amount of time before the operating system loads. This gives you time to do things like start Windows in Safe Mode. You can shave a few seconds off your startup time by changing the boot menu time-out, which is set to 30 seconds by default.
To do this, right-click on the Start button and click Control Panel. Go to System > Advanced system settings, and, under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.
Computer Speed Test Windows 10
Next to Time to display list of operating systems:, change the value from 30 seconds to 10 seconds and click OK.
6. No tipping
In an effort to be helpful, Windows 10 will sometimes give you tips on how to get the most out of the OS. It scans your computer in order to do this, a process that can have a slight impact on performance. To turn off these tips, go to Start > Settings > System > Notifications & actions and toggle off Get tips, tricks and suggestions as you use Windows.
7. Run Disk Cleanup
This one's a win-win. It'll improve performance and free up space on your hard drive. Disk Cleanup has been around forever, but this trusted Windows utility can still help clean out the temporary files, installers and other junk littering your hard drive. To run it, just search for Disk Cleanup, run it and click the button labeled Clean up system files.
8. Eradicate bloatware
If your PC came with preinstalled apps you don't want or need, get rid of them. Same goes for any apps you installed that you later found to be of little or no use. Right-click the Start menu, choose Control Panel and under the Programs header, click Uninstall a program. Peruse the list from time to time and select the programs you no longer need and click Uninstall at the top of the list.
9. Power plan
Make sure you aren't using a Power saver plan if you don't need to. Even desktops will sometimes feature a power-saver option, which doesn't do you any good unless you are trying to conserve battery life. Open the Control Panel and go to Hardware and Sound > Power Options to see which power plan you are currently using. For better performance, make sure you are using a High Performance or Balanced plan (or a plan from the PC manufacturer that says it's balanced).
10. Restart your PC
Is speeding up your computer as simple as..restarting it? Maybe. Restarting your PC clears out its memory and stops any processes that might be taking up resources. Also, shutting down your computer is not the same as restarting it -- shutdown is affected by Windows 10's Fast Startup, which saves a snapshot of your PC and its processes in a hiberfile for faster boot-up. Restart is not affected by Fast Startup, so if you have Fast Startup enabled, restarting your PC is the only way to fully clear the memory and shutdown processes.
Editors' note: This story was originally published on April 12, 2016, and has since been updated with more tips.
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