# WHY THE HECK IS THIS TAKING SO LONG?!



## azillian (Sep 20, 2013)

Why is it taking more then 20 minutes to drop less then 2 gig's worth of CR2 files onto my computer? I have the brand new iMac with the i7, 16 gigs of ram, 2 TB internal HD. 

Yesterday it took more then an hour to drop 5 or 6 gigs!!!

This is UNREAL!!!!

Does anyone have any idea what the heck I'm doing wrong?

I use CF cards, my card reader is a Kodak 5-IN-1, it's plugged into a USB hub because all my USB ports on the computer are taken up.

Thank you in advance!


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## Derrel (Sep 20, 2013)

Yeah...I know what you mean...my iMac's USB transfer speeds seem pretty poor. What I call pi$$-poor speeds, actually, using my Lexar USB 2.0 CF card reader. On my "big Mac" with a Firewire CF card reader, the transfers SMOKE!!!!

I've been meaning to look for a Thunderbolt port card reader for my iMac, 'cause the iMac's USB speeds seem pretty lame. Dropping Firewire in favor of Thunderbolt has to rank as one of the stupider Apple moves of the past 20 years. The last time I looked for a Thunderbolt CF card reader, I could not find any on-line, but that's been over a year.


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## azillian (Sep 20, 2013)

And one more thing... Usually when I import into Lightroom, I just plug in my card into the reader, go into Lightroom, make a new folder in my catalog, and then import straight from my card and also drop a back up in my back up folder. 

Lately when I try, it just pulls up a menu with all the photos listed telling me the following photos can't be uploaded.... So then I need to go and drop them manually into a folder, and that's when it takes 20 minutes per gig. There has to be something I'm doing wrong, I just don't know what.


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## azillian (Sep 20, 2013)

Derrel said:


> Yeah...I know what you mean..



It wasn't always like this!!!! That's why I'm so confused!


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## KenC (Sep 20, 2013)

I would suspect the card reader - never liked the things myself.  I have a 3-year old i3 iMac with 4 gig RAM and it only takes me about 30 sec to do about 0.5-1 gig of CR2 files going direct from the camera into a USB port.  This is with an SD card in the camera, so I don't know if that could also be a factor.


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## Gavjenks (Sep 20, 2013)

My cheapo, non-"xtreme" cards will dump 8 gigs or so of photos in about 1-2 minutes tops.

It's almost certainly your computer or the reader.


Make sure that you have enough free RAM available. If you haven't restarted in days, and your RAM is all leaky and clogged up, that could easily increase file transfer times by several times.


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## timor (Sep 20, 2013)

Might be some conflict between the reader protocol and some other, recently installed soft. Maybe even some update of the system.


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2013)

You might be running another program in the background as well, and it's hogging all your system's resources.  Anti-virus and back-up software can do that.


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## christop (Sep 20, 2013)

Have you plugged in any other USB devices lately? Your USB hub might fall back to USB 1.1 speeds if there are any USB 1.1 devices plugged into it (I don't know how likely that really is, but it may be possible). USB 1.1 is limited to 1.5 MBps, which is fast enough for "slow" devices like keyboards and mice, but it really could take about 20 minutes to transfer a gigabyte of data at that rate. I'd suggest unplugging all other USB devices that are not necessary to rule out any "interference" from those devices.


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## timor (Sep 21, 2013)

azillian said:


> I use CF cards, my card reader is a Kodak 5-IN-1,* it's plugged into a USB hub because all my USB ports on the computer are taken up.*


O,o,o ! Maybe you just overloaded your computer, in particular USB bus. External hub might be assign lower priority and maybe it's dropping to 1.1 protocol. There might be lots of reasons why even last generation computer may be bogged down. Especially if the boss is Microsoft.


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## will_camp (Sep 24, 2013)

Same question


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## runnah (Sep 24, 2013)

Have you thought about upgrading to a thicker gauge internet cable?


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## timor (Sep 24, 2013)

runnah said:


> Have you thought about upgrading to a thicker gauge internet cable?


:thumbup: Try to keep it still flexible. The cable.


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## nycphotography (Sep 24, 2013)

Fragmented drives can also cause this as the drive spends all it's time seeking (which is slow) instead of writing (which is fast).

Defragging is free, so I'd at least check it off the list before spending money.

Then unplug all USB devices except the reader and give that a try.

THEN try a new reader.


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## JacaRanda (Sep 24, 2013)

nycphotography said:


> Fragmented drives can also cause this as the drive spends all it's time seeking (which is slow) instead of writing (which is fast).
> 
> Defragging is free, so I'd at least check it off the list before spending money.
> 
> ...



I had a similar issue.  I moved all files to a different drive, defragged (maybe reformatted) and that solved the problem.


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## Fox_Racing_Guy (Sep 24, 2013)

I'm not a MAC dude but I assume your new computer has USB3 ports? If so try a USB3 reader. Plug it directly into one of the computer ports and not through a hub. I use USB3 internal card readers and they make a Hell of a difference on the PC platform. I have used this Kingston reader with my laptop and it works great. 

Kingston FCR-HS3 Card Reader - Newegg.com 

Here is a SanDisk model that appears to match the fruity machines. 
SanDisk ImageMate All-in-One USB 3.0 Reader / Writer


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## azillian (Sep 25, 2013)

I think it's my hub!! I've been going straight into the computer these last couple imports, and they are lightning fast again! Probably should have tried that a while ago.


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## table1349 (Sep 26, 2013)

azillian said:


> I think it's my hub!! I've been going straight into the computer these last couple imports, and they are lightning fast again! Probably should have tried that a while ago.


Just curious, is your hub a powered hub or does it get power from the USB connection.  If it is not a powered hub then you definately need to switch hubs.


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## nycphotography (Sep 26, 2013)

I only use hubs for low speed devices.

Disks and card readers always get plugged in directly ;-)


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## play18now (Oct 6, 2013)

Yeah I always plug the USB reader directly into the computer.  Mine gets really slow plugged into my hub so I hardly ever use  it.  It really just has my keyboard and printer and whatnot plugged into it, and it's plenty fast for that.


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## gaz87 (Oct 7, 2013)

A 2 gig transfer at 20 minutes is certainly less than 2mbps which is pretty slow. Long cables can cause problems between the hub and PC - but seems like avoiding the hub works for you


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