If your external hard drive is slowing down your PC, there could be several reasons for this issue:
1. USB Port or Cable Issues
A faulty or slow USB port can bottleneck data transfer or reading speeds, leading to overall system slowdown. Ensure the drive is connected to the fastest port of your PC, or try using a different cable or port to see if the issue persists.
2. Background Processes
Your operating system might run many other background tasks, such as indexing the external drive or running antivirus/malware scans, which can consume system resources and slow down the PC. Check your Task Manager (Windows) or Activity Monitor (macOS) to see if any processes heavily use the CPU or disk, and pause or disable tasks that are not needed.
3. File System Issues
Sometimes, if the file system on the external drive is corrupted or incompatible with your operating system, it can lead to slow read/write operations, dragging down your system’s performance. Reformatting the drive might help, but this will erase all data. Ensure you back up any important files before doing this.
4. Drive is Full or Fragmented
A nearly full or heavily fragmented drive can affect the performance of your PC. Free up space on the drive or defragment it if it uses a file system that benefits from defragmentation (like NTFS on Windows).
5. Malware or Viruses
Malware or viruses on the external drive can cause the system to slow down significantly. Run a full scan on the external drive and your PC to ensure they are clean.
6. Drive Health Problems
If the external hard drive has bad sectors or is nearing the end of its lifespan, it can significantly slow down when accessing data or read errors. This will affect the PC’s performance. Check out How To Check My Hard Disk’s Health In Windows and Mac. If the drive is degrading and you plan to copy the data, DO NOT select all simultaneously. Try it bit by bit to avoid stressing your degraded storage drive.
Conclusion
If these steps don’t resolve the issue and the data is unimportant, get a new external drive. Otherwise, consult a professional data recovery centre to diagnose the problem further. Feel free to contact us for advice.
