6 Tips to Speed Up SD Card Transfer Speed and Fix Slow Micro SD Card

"Hi Guys, I have just bought a Toshiba UHS3 128GB Micro SD Card. At the moment, I am getting poor speeds using the SD card on my PC, with a read of 35.74MB and a write of 10.72MB. This is a card that is supposed to have read speeds up to 90MB/s. I hope that I would get a lot faster than the speeds I am getting on the PC. Am I unrealistic, or could there be an issue with my tablet? Would a factory reset help anything?"

How to Fix Slow Micro SD Card with 6 Solutions

Have you ever met this problem that the SD card, USB, or even external hard drive gets slower and slower after using it for a long time? When external storage gets full, it may also slow down the data or file transferring speed on Windows PC. If you are having such a problem or need a speed up your SD card transfer speed, follow the tips below to resolve this issue:

Fix 1. Change Card Reader to Speed Up SD Card

A memory card reader is a device for accessing the data on a memory card such as a CompactFlash (CF), Secure Digital (SD), or MultiMediaCard (MMC). Most card readers also offer to write capability, and together with the card, this can function as a pen drive. If you have the right SD card reader, you can gain:

• Full speed read/write for high performance
• High-speed backup of high-resolution images and 4K videos
• Built-in USB-A port for cable-free PC connection

Fix 2. Convert SD Card/USB from FAT32 to NTFS

Another way to fix a slow SD card is by converting FAT32 to NTFS without losing data. A FAT file system is often used in removable storage devices, such as digital cameras, Smart TVs, and other portable devices. But it has many limitations:

• FAT32 only supports files of up to 4GB in size and volumes of up to 2TB in size
• FAT32 isn't a journaling file system, which means corruption can happen more easily
• FAT32 doesn't support file permissions

While NTFS supports very large files, restores consistency by using a log file and checkpoint information, supports file compression when running out of disk space. You can convert FAT 32 to NTFS with the help of EaseUS Partition Master. This tool allows you to convert the drive from FAT32 to NTFS without formatting directly.

Fix 3. Format SD Card/USB from FAT32 to NTFS

If your SD card is still slow, you can format it to NTFS in Disk Management. 

Step 1. Right-click This PC or My Computer, and select "Manage".

Step 2. Enter Device Manager and click "Disk Management"

Step 3. Open Disk Management and right-click the SD card, select "Format".

Step 4. Set "NTFS" for the selected device, tick "Quick Format" and click "OK" to confirm.

 

Fix 4. Update SD Card Drivers If SD/USB Is Slow

To speed up SD card transfer or write speed, you can update SD card drivers. Here are the steps to make it.

Step 1. Connect the SD card to the PC

Step 2. Navigate Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager -> Disk drivers.

Step 3. Find and right-click the SD card. Choose "Uninstall" and then choose "Scan for hardware changes" to refresh the drivers.

You can update your SD card drivers in this way.

Fix 5. Optimize USB/SD Performance to Fix Slow Micro SD Card

After updating the SD card or USB driver, you can follow this method here to optimize USB or SD card performance by changing settings so to increase the data transferring speed with the following tips:

Step 1. Right-click on SD or USB drive and select Properties.

Step 2. Go to the Hardware tab and select your SD or USB drive, then click Properties.

Step 3. Click Change settings on Generic-Multi-Card USB Device Properties.

Step 4. Go to the Policies tab on the settings interface and select Better Performance under Removal policy.

Step 5. Then click OK to confirm the operation and click OK to keep all changes.

Step 6. Finally, restart your computer to save all changes.

Besides all the above steps, you can also try to wipe data on the SD card or USB drive for a faster data transferring speed with the help of EaseUS Partition Master.

Fix 6. Clean Up SD Card Junk Files to Make It Faster

If you still want to make your SD card or USB flash drive faster, you can clean up junk files with easy steps. All you need is EaseUS Tools M. 

Step 1.  DOWNLOAD EaseUS Tools M for free and install it on your computer.

Step 2. Launch EaseUS Tools M in Windows PC. Select "Large File Cleanup" on the main screen.

Step 3. Select the drive and click "Scan" to let the program locate, find all large files on your disk.

Step 4. Identify and select useless large files and click "Delete" to remove those files from your PC or laptop. A message pops up and tells you this process will permanently delete the files. Click "Yes" to start the process.

Bonus Tip - Back Up Files/Data Before Formatting

It's highly recommended that all of your extract and back up all essential data saved on your USB, SD card, or external hard drive to a safe location on your PC or another storage device to avoid unnecessary data loss.

You may use professional backup software for help or copy and save files to the target storage device step by step on your Windows PC. 

Step 1: Launch EaseUS Todo Backup software and then choose "File Backup", "Disk/partition Backup" or "System Backup" for different backup purpose.

Step 2: Choose the system, disk partition, files or apps that you want to back up. Then select a destination where you want to store the backup file.

Step 3: Click "Proceed" to start the data backup process.

Conclusion

Now that your SD card or USB drive will gain a faster-transferring speed on Windows 10/8/7 and you can move and transfer all data back to your SD card or USB drive to continue using them again. 

How to Speed Up SD Card for File Transferring FAQs

If you have related questions, you can read the questions and answers below:

What is the fastest SD card?

SanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC is the world's fastest transfer speeds of up to 275MB/s. Clocking in at up to 275MB/s, the SanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS-II Card delivers the fastest transfer speeds that you've ever experienced.

How do I recover a corrupted micro SD card?

To fix and recover data from SD card:

Step 1. Run SD card recovery software and scan the card.

Step 2. Check found SD card data.

Step 3. Restore SD card data...

How can I tell how fast my SD card is?

An SD card's speed class is identified on the SD card itself-look for the logo. You'll also see the speed class on the online store listing or the card's packaging when purchasing it. For example, in the below photo, the middle SD card is speed class 4, while the two other cards are speed class 6.