Painfully Slow USB transfer rates

[og5]

I'm noticing my data transfer rate to my external hard drive is around 1 MB per second. my external hard drive and computer are both USB 2.0 compatible, so I'm wondering what the problem is. the USB cable shouldn't be the problem either because I'm using the one that shipped with my external hard drive.

any ideas?

 

[Lexluethar]

Are you 100% sure that the port you are using is USB 2.0? USB 1.0 runs at 1.5mb so it sounds like you are using a 1.0 port. A lot of older laptops have a mixture of 1.0 and 2.0 ports so you would need to make sure you are using a 2.0 slot.

 

[og5]

I guess that could be an issue. In my device manager I noticed one enhanced Universal serial bus controller, and 4 regular ones, which is peculiar because I only have three USB ports. I brought my laptop new in 2010 so it is definitely not an old machine

 

[Lexluethar]

But your device manager says it all, not all ports are USB 2.0.