Copy from network drive to external USB slow under XP

[Pluto]

I have XP/Vista x64 dual booting on a Asus P5M-VK system. For some reason when I try copying files from a mapped network drive (connected via Gigabit LAN) to my Maxtor OneTouch external drive, it is unbelievably slow under XP, but if I boot up under Vista x64 it is very fast (25-35MB/sec)

If I copy the file(s) to the local hard disk first, and then to the USB drive from there it is fast as well....

Is this a known issue in XP? I google'd but didn't find anything....

 

[techmanc]

First thing I would check is the network driver. Try uninstalling the driver and reboot and let driver reinstall if it the right driver.

 

[Pluto]

But if the network driver is to blame, why is it copying fast when the destination is a local (non-external) drive?

 

[techmanc]

I am having problems understanding the conditions you have slow copies as they pertain to network or just normal file coping under which OS.

 

[Pluto]

Allow me to clarify....

Under XP:

Copy from Network Drive to internal drive = Fast
Copy from internal drive to USB drive = Fast
Copy from Network Drive to USB Drive directly = Very slow, more than the combined time of what it takes to copy files from the network to the internal drive first, followed by copying to the USB drive.

Under Vista x64:

Copy from Network Drive to either internal or USB drive = Fast

 

[Tarrant64]

I'm not sure what would cause that. Maybe from the mapped drive it tries to copy the files locally (cache) it before it moves it to the USB drive. What is the mapped drive pointing to?

 

[Pluto]

Mapped drive is a shared folder on my Windows 2003 server

Is it normal for XP to cache locally in that manner? I've never encountered it before...

 

[techmanc]

What happens if you try to copy the shared folder directly through network without using the mapped drive?

 

[Pluto]

You mean via the UNC path? I have not tried that.... I will but I don't expect a much different result.

 

[Tarrant64]

I'm not sure whether it's normal. I never really did finish the research on it but here is how I think about it. Dragging from my local XP system a file from Server A to Server B would be slower than just doing it directly from Server A. I don't know what Vista does differently though that it would make it faster.

 

[techmanc]

I know Vista is supposed to have a better performing network stack but I dont know if that whats making the difference.

 

[Tarrant64]

Yeah, exactly. Vista had problems at first though copying files however updates have fixed those problems so it's performing pretty much as promised. I hope what I posted makes sense to you because that's the only thing I can think of.

Did you try the UNC path yet?

 

[techmanc]

I just meant goto shared folder right click for copy then goto usb drive and try to paste it there. I use that method but I have a dual pane file manager I just drag and drop from those 2 locations.

 

[Pluto]

I seem to have corrected it, I did a couple things though and I'm not sure which did it... updated Realtek GBLan drivers and also ran the Intel Chipset driver update *shrug*

 

[degibson]

For thread completeness, I can confirm this is not XP-intrinsic: Copies between network drives and USB externals behave exactly as they should on my machine.

 

[JesseKnows]

If the network is on a PCI card, try moving it to a different slot. It could be that interrupt sharing between the NIC and the USB controller is better in Vista.