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[QuickSilverD]

So I've been loving my PS4 these past few months, especially coming from PS3, everything is so fast, loading times are usually low (except for Bloodborne) and what's more wonderful of all "Multitasking", I shouldn't be impressed by this, but I got so used to not being able to do more than one thing at once on the PS3 that this seems like a blessing to me, like I can open the web browser and watch a video while my game is still running in the background.

But then I found something the PS4 is apparently incapable of multitasking: "Copying content to an USB drive".

I decided to copy some of my Bloodborne SHARE videos to keep them on my PC, so I plug in my USB drive and select all the videos I had (about 5GBs worth of content) and what do I get when I hit copy? a simple scream with a progress bar filling up and an estimated time of completion of about 80 minutes to copy it all, wait what? one fucking hour to copy 5 gigs? that's like a 1 MB/s, that's awful and I can't do anything else while it is being copied? really? I can't do anything else? I have to left this finish, can't play a game, can't even open the web browser, damn.

so I left it alone while it did that thinking maybe it would go faster, that the estimated time was wrong, I didn't time it, but it certainly too over an hour, what a disgrace, and I know it is the PS4 fault because later I copied the same content from the same drive to my PC and it took only a few minutes, seriously I thought this shit was over with this console, but this is like how it was with PS3, shameful really.

Ok Rant over. maybe you guys want to discuss other unexpected shortcomings of the new consoles, or if this is not a typical experience, so I at least have some warning that my PS4 is dying

 

[Pankratous]

What USB type does the PS4 even use actually? I'll agree it's kind of slow. USB 2.0?

 

[Wereroku]

Reformat your thumbdrive. The PS4 is apparently super picky about how you have it formatted. I can't remember which one it liked best though sorry.

Edit: Found it Exfat speeds it up quite a lot. PS4 doesn't like fat32.

What USB type does the PS4 even use actually? I'll agree it's kind of slow. USB 2.0?

Nope 3.0

 

[Oppo]

your rant is misplaced

USB is slow, sometimes very slow depending on the flash drive

Multitasking is not multiple copy operations

your PC may have better USB controllers

not letting PS4 off the hook here but I'm really not surprised moving 5GB of video to a stick was a bit slow

 

[mclem]

That's what overnight is for.

 

[King_Moc]

I'm assuming because it was copying it from the hdd, and it can't multitask with applications that would also need it without just slowing everything down.

 

[AbandonedTrolley]

That seems slow, will check when I get home, but don't think I would have waited that long for some of my videos to copy over.

 

[Chri_stoph]

Reformat your thumbdrive. The PS4 is apparently super picky about how you have it formatted. I can't remember which one it liked best though sorry.



Nope 3.0

You have to format it to exFAT, which at least for me made a huge difference in speed.

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

your rant is misplaced
not letting PS4 off the hook here but I'm really not surprised moving 5GB of video to a stick was a bit slow

His point was why should have have to sit and watch a screen that says copying to USB on a system that is capable of multitasking, it should have no problems doing it in the background while you do other stuff.

 

[xtradi]

It could be the usb drive itself that have slow write speed.

 

[Wereroku]

His point was why should have have to sit and watch a screen that says copying to USB on a system that is capable of multitasking, it should have no problems doing it in the background while you do other stuff.

Multitasking is not the problem even pc's slow to a crawl if 2 programs are accessing the same HDD at the same time. Also it increases the chances of corruption. They assure a certain amount of HDD bandwidth to any program running on the ps4 messing with that would cause a lot of problems. However in this case I think it's the USB drive that isn't getting along causing the excessive transfer times.

 

[Oppo]

His point was why should have have to sit and watch a screen that says copying to USB on a system that is capable of multitasking, it should have no problems doing it in the background while you do other stuff.

Sure, and that would be nice. But it's not a general purpose computer. And it may well have problems in the background, remember a console realtime OS is not exactly the same as a desktop OS. More of a fancy embedded system.

 

[Sinfamy]

His point was why should have have to sit and watch a screen that says copying to USB on a system that is capable of multitasking, it should have no problems doing it in the background while you do other stuff.

Because copying large files takes up SATA bandwidth and would reduce throughput for other applications and games.

Try running an HDD benchmark while copying a 5GB file.

 

[QuickSilverD]

not letting PS4 off the hook here but I'm really not surprised moving 5GB of video to a stick was a bit slow

Of course it may take a while, but when the difference between my PS4 and my PC is 80 vs. maybe 8 minutes, I think we can find fault with the PS4

You have to format it to exFAT, which at least for me made a huge difference in speed.

thanks for the tip, I'm going to have to try this and see what difference does it makes

His point was why should have have to sit and watch a screen that says copying to USB on a system that is capable of multitasking, it should have no problems doing it in the background while you do other stuff.

This man gets it!

 

[Lalalandia]

Yeah this a YMMV thing in that different USB keys have different write rates, the video files themselves may be fragmented on the PS4, flash writes large single files faster than lots of small ones, disk format (exFAT > FAT32) and the shittiness of estimations by O/S on how long it will take vs the actual length. Best bet is a mechanical drive for this stuff or an external SSD, the former because they perform more consistently and the latter because the controller in front of the flash array spreads the writes across multiple flash chips.
Edit: As an example extracting a Windows ISO to a USB key takes 15+ minutes but copying the file takes ~3 minutes and extracting to a mechanical drive takes 4-5.

 

[jaxpunk]

When backing up my saves to upgrade the HD, my usb 2.0 drive was SUPER slow but the 3.0 drive was fine.

OP should check what type of usb drive he was using.

 

[Respawn]

Of course it may take a while, but when the difference between my PS4 and my PC is 80 vs. maybe 8 minutes, I think we can find fault with the PS4

thanks for the tip, I'm going to have to try this and see what difference does it makes


This man gets it!

You need to read some more up above.

 

[Vanguard]

You have to format it to exFAT, which at least for me made a huge difference in speed.

Was kinda curious about this as I just recently copied a file over last night and that took about 8 minutes for a 32MB file (with FAT32, stick is 2.0 though), so just reformatted it and copied the same file. Going to take 3 minutes so that's definitely better than it was, nice, thank you

Although would still be nice if it was same as copying from PC at about ~2 seconds though, but ah well.

 

[Oppo]

Of course it may take a while, but when the difference between my PS4 and my PC is 80 vs. maybe 8 minutes, I think we can find fault with the PS4

fair enough.

perhaps the estimate is not accurate, did you let it finish? and please let us know re: exFAT result!

 

[paperspace]

Multitasking is not the problem even pc's slow to a crawl if 2 programs are accessing the same HDD at the same time. Also it increases the chances of corruption. They assure a certain amount of HDD bandwidth to any program running on the ps4 messing with that would cause a lot of problems. However in this case I think it's the USB drive that isn't getting along causing the excessive transfer times.

This is all wrong. Why are people posting made-up crap?

 

[InsaneTiger]

So I've been loving my PS4 these past few months, especially coming from PS3, everything is so fast, loading times are usually low (except for Bloodborne) and what's more wonderful of all "Multitasking", I shouldn't be impressed by this, but I got so used to not being able to do more than one thing at once on the PS3 that this seems like a blessing to me, like I can open the web browser and watch a video while my game is still running in the background.

But then I found something the PS4 is apparently incapable of multitasking: "Copying content to an USB drive".

I decided to copy some of my Bloodborne SHARE videos to keep them on my PC, so I plug in my USB drive and select all the videos I had (about 5GBs worth of content) and what do I get when I hit copy? a simple scream with a progress bar filling up and an estimated time of completion of about 80 minutes to copy it all, wait what? one fucking hour to copy 5 gigs? that's like a 1 MB/s, that's awful and I can't do anything else while it is being copied? really? I can't do anything else? I have to left this finish, can't play a game, can't even open the web browser, damn.

so I left it alone while it did that thinking maybe it would go faster, that the estimated time was wrong, I didn't time it, but it certainly too over an hour, what a disgrace, and I know it is the PS4 fault because later I copied the same content from the same drive to my PC and it took only a few minutes, seriously I thought this shit was over with this console, but this is like how it was with PS3, shameful really.

Ok Rant over. maybe you guys want to discuss other unexpected shortcomings of the new consoles, or if this is not a typical experience, so I at least have some warning that my PS4 is dying

It's the thumbdrive. I tried a similar task with an old thimbdrive, believe it was 2.0, and it said over 3 hours. I plugged in my portable HDD, which I believe is in NTFS format and it took a few minutes. I believe a 3.0 USB drive woukd be faster than whatever you were using.

It is NOT the PS4.

 

[Lalalandia]

This is all wrong. Why are people posting made-up crap?

Eh not so much wrong as massively out of date, prior to SATA, NCQ and a bunch of other improvements the need to ensure nothing was accessing the drive while you gamed on PC was paramount. These days it's less of an issue but even with my SSD set up if backup kicks in while I'm gaming I will see performance drop.

PS4 O/S keeps being referred to as multi-tasking when it's more akin to a tablet O/S that runs one program while offering services to the suspended background tasks. This is not the same thing as the services are limited in nature to just chat, music playback and friend announcements. They are not timesharing on a shared hardware resource like on PC instead they have firm hardware splits (except on the XB1 with the Kinect reserve stuff). This is essential for console software as they never have to worry about AIM robbing a core to see if there are new emotes or some such BS like PC does.

 

[QuickSilverD]

You need to read some more up above.

I read it, they posted after I began typing my reply

fair enough.

perhaps the estimate is not accurate, did you let it finish? and please let us know re: exFAT result!

I'll try it and post results when I get back home from work

It's the thumbdrive. I tried a similar task with an old thimbdrive, believe it was 2.0, and it said over 3 hours. I plugged in my portable HDD, which I believe is in NTFS format and it took a few minutes. I believe a 3.0 USB drive woukd be faster than whatever you were using.

It is NOT the PS4.

I'll give the system the benefit of the doubt and assume the problem is the drive format (I think it is FAT32, but I'm not sure) still wouldn't excuse that it doesn't let you do anything else and that PCs deal with the same thing much more efficiently (at least 10 times more efficiently for what I could see)

 

[Wereroku]

This is all wrong. Why are people posting made-up crap?

How is this made up. If multiple programs on my PC are trying to r/w to the same drive at the same time they will be slowed down compared to normal. When it comes to the PS4 it is not even completely multitasking. They allow you to have some things still running in the background. In the case of transferring from the HDD it would probably use more bandwidth than the system gives programs that are allowed to run in the background. Also games are assured a certain amount of r/w speeds if those are disrupted it causes problems.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

i used to hate my PS4 copy to USB speeds and i thought it was the PS4 fault (it copied 15min videos in 30 or so minutes and i had my PS4 with a SSD), however, i went to amazon and maybe i thought to myself that my 1 year old drive wasnt that good as i thought so i bought THIS BABY.

holy crap the difference was crazy, my 15min videos took me seconds to transfer, literary, just freaking seconds

 

[Kowalski]

They should have used USB3.0 in the first place, but oh well.

 

[Lalalandia]

THIS BABY

Arrgghhhh retractable USB plugs, why, why?!?

As someone who burns through keys I hate these things as the notch that catches the plug always wears out after a few hundred insertions. They've always seemed like a solution in search of a problem to me as I have never managed to snap off or damage a USB connector in my lifetime.

 

[realcZk]

The PS4 remuxes video from the source format as it copies (same as PS3), and a slow flash drive will make the copying process even more painful. A lot of flash drives slow down during large writes so the PS4 has to wait forever for their buffer to clear up. If you use something like a external HDD you won't have this issue. Yes, its USB 3.0, but the PS4's stock 500GB HDD is only 5400rpm on a SATA II controller, so you'll never be getting remotely near usb 3.0 speeds.

You could try formatting the USB drive as exFAT. The PS4 only supports FAT32 and exFAT for removable devices. exFAT has better performance than FAT32 and supports bigger files >4GB. I won't expect it to make a huge difference but it may help. Alternatively try some different flash memory if you have any.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

They should have used USB3.0 in the first place, but oh well.

it is USB 3 though

Arrgghhhh retractable USB plugs, why, why?!?

As someone who burns through keys I hate these things as the notch that catches the plug always wears out after a few hundred insertions. They've always seemed like a solution in search of a problem to me as I have never managed to snap off or damage a USB connector in my lifetime.

yeah, i know what you mean i dont like retractable myself but the low profile ones were slower and at that moment just wanted the best

Spoiler

to copy all my GTA5 videos lol

 

[HiredN00bs]

Comparing the write speed to your stick from your PS4 to the read speed of your stick from a PC is dumb. It's going to always read faster than it writes, period.

 

[QuickSilverD]

So tried reformatting my Thumb drive to exFAT, it does makes a difference cutting the estimated time to copy the same amount of data down to 30 minutes instead of 80, which is not great, but certainly better than before, it is still silly that you cannot do anything else until the process completes

 

[jwk94]

your rant is misplaced

USB is slow, sometimes very slow depending on the flash drive

Multitasking is not multiple copy operations

your PC may have better USB controllers

not letting PS4 off the hook here but I'm really not surprised moving 5GB of video to a stick was a bit slow

An update from last year made it slower.

 

[flipswitch]

Some how many MB/s roughly is it now on exfat?

 

[gruenel]

How is this made up. If multiple programs on my PC are trying to r/w to the same drive at the same time they will be slowed down compared to normal. When it comes to the PS4 it is not even completely multitasking. They allow you to have some things still running in the background. In the case of transferring from the HDD it would probably use more bandwidth than the system gives programs that are allowed to run in the background. Also games are assured a certain amount of r/w speeds if those are disrupted it causes problems.

He's probably referring to the "increases chance of corruption" comment, which is nonsense.

On topic: Yeah, PS4 file transfers are slow as shit. If my Mac can transfer files to a USB stick at 10MB/s, and the PS4 maxes out at 1MB/s with the exact same stick, then there's something wrong.

 

[Shia_Labeouf]

This is all wrong. Why are people posting made-up crap?

Yeah. I don't think I've read a post on Gaf that was more made up than the one you're talking about here, and that's saying something.

 

[Caayn]

Some how many MB/s roughly is it now on exfat?

Roughly 2.7MB/s (5GB/30min).

 

[Wereroku]

He's probably referring to the "increases chance of corruption" comment, which is nonsense.

On topic: Yeah, PS4 file transfers are slow as shit. If my Mac can transfer files to a USB stick at 10MB/s, and the PS4 maxes out at 1MB/s with the exact same stick, then there's something wrong.

my bad then I have had files corrupt before doing multiple r/w but it was a long time ago so maybe it was something else.

Yeah. I don't think I've read a post on Gaf that was more made up than the one you're talking about here, and that's saying something.

Please enlighten me then what is wrong about what I said?

 

[jroc74]

This thread came right on time for me...

I will be upgrading to a 2TB hard drive Fri, and I have to back up my saves. Thanks for ranting OP, some much needed knowledge was dropped in the comments.

Reformat your thumbdrive. The PS4 is apparently super picky about how you have it formatted. I can't remember which one it liked best though sorry.

Edit: Found it Exfat speeds it up quite a lot. PS4 doesn't like fat32.

 

[King Gilga]

Roughly 2.7MB/s (5GB/30min).

That's unacceptably bad.

 

[cakely]

The PS4 uses USB 3.0.

Last weekend, using an external drive formatted with exfat, It took me seven hours to back up 400GB of game files, and strangely, three hours to restore them.

That's about 15.87MB/s to backup, and about 37MB/s per minute to restore. That's not terribly fast, but it's much faster than the 1MB/s that you're experiencing. I think something might be wrong with your setup.

 

[erawsd]

Yeah, I bet its the same reason an SSD barely has any impact on load times. There is some bottleneck or overhead that really cripples read/write operations.

 

[QuickSilverD]

This thread came right on time for me...

I will be upgrading to a 2TB hard drive Fri, and I have to back up my saves. Thanks for ranting OP, some much needed knowledge was dropped in the comments.

Glad this could be useful

That's about 15.87MB/s to backup, and about 37MB/s per minute to restore. That's not terribly fast, but it's much faster than the 1MB/s that you're experiencing. I think something might be wrong with your setup.

Apparently the PS4 doesn't play well with FAT32

Yeah, I bet its the same reason an SSD barely has any impact on load times. There is some bottleneck or overhead that really cripples read/write operations.

isn't that because the PS4 is using SATA II instead of SATA III ?