USB HDD slow copying

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I have just installed (attached) a Maxtor 250Gb USB HD to my son's Imac G4 (OSX) for back-ups etc. We tried to copy a large music file (11.5Gb) and it says it needs around 5 hours to copy. This seems extraordinarily long.

Can anyone suggest why this might be please?
 
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Is the HDD USB 2 and is the USB port on the iMac USB 2?

IIRC, the USB ports on the G4 iMacs are all USB 1.1. That is your problem, USB 1 is SLOW, should have gone with FireWire...
 
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baggss said:
Is the HDD USB 2 and is the USB port on the iMac USB 2?

IIRC, the USB ports on the G4 iMacs are all USB 1.1. That is your problem, USB 1 is SLOW, should have gone with FireWire...

The Firewire connections on the iMac are 4 pin, whereas the USB disc/cable is 6 pin.
 
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Yes G4 iMacs are USB 1.1 which will be very slow. A firewire drive would be a much better option (and in general is a better option regardless for an external drive).
 
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i am going to hop on the bandwagon here saying that usb1.1 can be quite slow, sometimes even 2 can be slow and firewire will always be the fastest. for a little comparison, a 512MB usb jumpdrive may seem pretty fast to most people no matter what usb 1 or 2 because you are mainly transfering word documents and small files

see if you can return the drive and pick up a firewire one.

-chris
 

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What Schweb and Coach said is very true. USB 1.1 is DOG slow and you are trying to copy an almost 12GB file. I checked and Maxtor also makes your drive with both a USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 interface. If you can, take back that USB only drive and get the Dual interface model. It will fly.
 
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Griffo said:
The Firewire connections on the iMac are 4 pin, whereas the USB disc/cable is 6 pin.

Uh, no. ALL recent Macs still have the 6 pin FW ports on them for FW 400, and I can guarantee your iMac has one if not two. No Mac has been made with the 4 Pin connector, that was a PC only thing. It's a different connector than USB and the two are not compatible.
 

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