Why my NAS is slow – backing up small files.
I reviewed the backup and identified there are ~400K files <= 1Mb. Not sure how many total files as I have not investigated. I assume the amount I have is what you mean by a lot.
Is the slowness with that many small files an issue for the NAS, the backup software, the USB drive or some combination?
When you copy a file to a location, you’re essentially copying the information in the file, bit by bit to the new location, as well as adding some data to the file, allocation tables. This information may include data such as start of file, end of file, size, etc. This data mutt be written onto the allocation table for every new file. (Quora)

Is there anything I can do to speed up the process?
What is the best NAS filesystem for small files?
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