I am having a very weird problem with my WD My Passport 1 TB external harddrive.
The problem occurs when I am transferring video files (>1GB per file) from my Windows Desktop PC to my external drive. Essentially, the transfer rate starts out at an expectedly high rate around 45 MB/sec, but after a few seconds the transfer rate begins to degrade until it gets down to 3 or 4 MB/sec after about 2 minutes. Eventually, if I do not cancel the transfer, the whole system hangs.
I have tried multiple USB ports on the same PC as well as multiple cables between the drive and the PC. The problem persists.
I have also tried the drive on a different PC and it has no trouble on the other PC. I have also tried additional USB external drives (not WD) on this PC, and they all work fine.
So this makes me think it is not the drive, the port, or the cable, but some software issue between the WD drive and my PC.
Finally, I’ve had this drive for about a year and never had any problem like this. Note that I can see all the files on the drive and can navigate through directories fine. The drive itself is about 75% full.
I have tried upgrading my drivers using both the WD website (WD SES) and the My passport->Properties->Hardware->Properties->Driver option. I have also tried both “Optimize for quick removal” and “Optimize for performance” options in My passport->Properties->Hardware->Properties->Policies.
The drive is USB 3, compatible with USB 2. I’m using an HP Media Center running Windows Vista 2007 Service pack 2. The PC has 4GB RAM.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am at my wits end, and I need to execute backups soon.