Make sure external hard drive is plugged on via a USB 3.0 port, it will become faster in opening up the drive or file copying.
If your external hard drive is being used for a very long period, it may contain many fragments, the best way out is to defragment existing fragments on the external hard drive.
Fix file system and bad sector errors by executing
[B]chkdsk E: /r /x [/B]command. Replace E with the drive letter of your external hard drive.
Optimize External Hard Disk Performance
Step 1. Connect the slow WD external hard drive to your PC.
Step 2. Right-click on the Windows icon and select "Device Manager".
Step 3. Expand Disk Drivers, right-click your WD external hard drive, and select "Properties".
Step 4. Go to the "Policies" tab, select "Better performance", click "OK" to confirm.
After this, you can get a faster WD external hard drive, and you can use it to transfer and save files at a high transfer rate again.
Check if your computer or external hard disk is infected with a virus.
You can try another cable to connect the external hard drive to your computer and then try to copy files from your computer to see if the transfer speed is improved.
Updating or reinstalling the driver of the external hard drive is also helpful.
