Steam Deck: Slow Data transfer

[Sleepy_Wizard]

My steam deck has shockingly slow data transfer speeds. I'm using an Anker USB C hub. It supports USB 3.0 I'm trying to move my SD card files to a USB stick but the data transfer seems really slow like it's saying 4-5 hours to transfer about 100Gb

[darrenphillips666]

Some USB Sticks are very slow, so are some SD cards.
You may have just purchased slow one's
I use Standard HDD, its pretty quick.

[Prezidentas]

had a data transfer that was clearly extremely slow once. Haven't tried it since, but something definitely went wrong

[Mahjik]

There is something weird with the Deck and data transfers. No information if it's a hardware limitation (which would seem odd) or just a SteamOS bug. Even the fastest SD cards have this issue.

[inspiredvoltfreak]

I also have shockingly slow transfer speeds where there should not be any. We really need an answer from Valve on this. I have a USB3 to NVME adapter with a 1TB Samsung drive in it which I am using with my steam deck and my linux laptop. On the laptop, I can transfer from the USB-NVME drive to the internal Sata drive and back at 500ish mb per second, and this is a 11 year old laptop. But transferring the same file on my deck from USB-NVME to MicroSD class U3 A1 goes at average 60mb/s and transferring the other way is only marginally better at 80mb/s average. (This is good right now, but i see it drop down very low occasionally, like in the kb/s range sometimes. I cant test the internal drive currently as its only the 64gb version and its nearly full. Getting a 256gb NVME drive in a few days and will test then.

[Duffvader]

I'm trying to trasnfer my files from my desktop to steam deck.

Warpinator (Steam Deck) + Winpinator (PC):
tried to download a folder and it failed 3 x time at around 50 %.
Upload was about 2,5 MB - 3,0 MB/s
Maybe slow because of my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ WLAN setup.

Then I installed Syncthing (Steam Deck) + SyncTrayzor (PC):
worked fine withour problems. You have to upload your data.
Once uploaded the data on the sync folder, just copy it on your steam deck (instant).
Upload of 1,7 GB file took me about 10-15 min.

So Syncthing is my way to go, still looking for faster file transfers.

Google Drive maybe an option?

[Brigadoon]

Originally posted by author:

Once uploaded the data on the sync folder, just copy it on your steam deck (instant).

Here is my problem. Copying files from my Warpinator folder to my Common folder takes forever. Like almost an hour for 17gb.

EDIT: Move the files, don't copy them.

[jbuggyps2]

I notice this too. I'm trying to copy or move contents from a USB stick to the micro SD card. It's painfully slow using the steam deck. Using a cheap laptop with Windows os transfer speeds are way better.

[EdisLeado]

I'd really like to know if there's a solution for this issue. Copying from a portable USB 3.0 HDD transfers at 2 MiB/s and the estimate states it will take HOURS to complete the transfer. Copying WITHIN the HDD is fine, and so is copying between the Deck's internal SSD and inserted SD card - they copy at the normal speed of 100's of MiB/s.

[Brigadoon]

Originally posted by EdisLeado:

I'd really like to know if there's a solution for this issue. Copying from a portable USB 3.0 HDD transfers at 2 MiB/s and the estimate states it will take HOURS to complete the transfer. Copying WITHIN the HDD is fine, and so is copying between the Deck's internal SSD and inserted SD card - they copy at the normal speed of 100's of MiB/s.

I was able to transfer data quickly by MOVING the files instead of COPYING them. Obviously not the proper solution but hopefully this helps someone.

[walterswu]

I used sudo dd in desktop mode to copy from the internal MicroSD slot to a USB-C card reader containing a 1TB Sandisk Extreme Pro advertised at 200MB/s read and 140MB/s write. From everything I can tell, my new card is legit and not a fake.

I’m getting a sustained transfer rate of 86MB/s transfer rate to the new card. Obviously no where near the advertised write rate, but much faster than what others are reporting here. I presume if ‘I were copying to an SSF instead of a memory card, it would be faster.

[Zero Trace]

In case anyone is still facing this issue.

The issue is actually the steam os clipboard, if you right click and copy the file and then try to paste it, the steam os clipboard copies the file to clipboard history and that takes ages on big files.

You can solve the issue in two different ways:

1. Drag and drop the file to the location you want to copy/move it.
2. Disable clipboard history

[That Fish Guy]

Originally posted by Zero Trace:

In case anyone is still facing this issue.

The issue is actually the steam os clipboard, if you right click and copy the file and then try to paste it, the steam os clipboard copies the file to clipboard history and that takes ages on big files.

You can solve the issue in two different ways:

1. Drag and drop the file to the location you want to copy/move it.
2. Disable clipboard history

Went from 80MB/s to 300MB/s using this. Still 700MB/s short of where I want/where everything is rated to be, but it's a great improvement! Thanks for this info.

[Hellcules]

So slow! Copying a 80GB file from a USB C and it’s been 30 min so far and only copied 4GB. :( I see years of people complaining about it but no fix.

[Prezidentas]

Originally posted by Hellcules:

So slow! Copying a 80GB file from a USB C and it’s been 30 min so far and only copied 4GB. :( I see years of people complaining about it but no fix.

are you using some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ USB stick or adapter?

[Brigadoon]

Originally posted by Hellcules:

So slow! Copying a 80GB file from a USB C and it’s been 30 min so far and only copied 4GB. :( I see years of people complaining about it but no fix.

Trying to "move" the files instead of copying them