Users working with large files back up the files to external hard drives. One user's files take longer to back up than other users' files. The user has tried backing up the files to other users' drive

Replacing the USB cable is unlikely to fix the issue, as the problem persists even when the user backs up to *other users' drives*, implying the problem is not with the *external drive's* cable.

Defragmenting the external hard drive might slightly improve performance for fragmented files, but since the issue affects backups to *multiple* external drives and is specific to one user's system, it's not the root cause.

Since the issue persists even when using other users' external drives, the problem is likely localized to the user's *system* rather than the external drives or cables. Outdated or corrupted storage drivers on the user's computer can significantly impact data transfer speeds to external devices, making updating them a primary troubleshooting step.

Instructing the user to compress files might reduce backup *size*, but it introduces processing overhead and doesn't address the underlying issue of slow transfer speeds, potentially making the process longer due to compression time.