Backing up External HD

[Armchair Expert]

Have an external hard drive I want to copy as it is old and got lots of photos on it, both are connected by USB, there is about 1TB of data and has been copying for about 40 hours and has copied just under 29% with 3 days to go, Any suggestions to speed it up

[markiii]

USB3?

[dapprman]

As to the slog - might be worth copying across in chunks, while it will take longer it will mean you do not need to keep your PC on for 3-4 days.

[otherman]

Do you have a desktop pc you can use? Take the HDD out of its enclosure and mount it as an internal drive. That will be massively quicker.

[anonymoususer]

markiii said:

USB3?

I'm wondering if its usb 1 with those times

[dapprman]

anonymoususer said:

markiii said:

USB3?

I'm wondering if its usb 1 with those times

Actually having done large transfers before it seems fine for a slower drive on USB2.

No real solution as the drive almost certainly can not be safely taken apart so you can't convert it to a USB3 device with an enclosure, and plugging it in to a USB3 port will not affect performance as the speed will be limited on the hard drive side, plus USB3 ports are intelligent enough to recognised USB3 connections and downgrade comms speed accordingly.

[Armchair Expert]

Thanks for advice, ended up copying in chunks onto hard drive of the computer then onto the USB device, lot quicker