iMac back up to 1TB SSD drive doesn't work

[Hysteresis]

Question - did you format the SSD before you tried to use it?

Are you confused between a PC and a Mac? Different forms of computing. Are you using a Mac? If you are then connect up the external SSD, Mouse over the Apple symbol in top left corner and click on "About this Mac", Click on Storage (maybe 'More Info' first. You should then see all storage devices and what format they are configured to. It does seem from your description that the external drive is formatted to 'FAT" which a large capacity drive will only work slowly, very slowly. You may be able to format the external drive to the most suitable format from there as well.
Otherwise it's somewhere under the Cog Wheel (System Settings) Unfortunately my Mac's are either side of you HW generation for me to supply information.

Also ask the questions on Apple support communities e.g.

Search - Apple Community

Start your search above. Be sure to include device and other relevant details to get the best search results.

discussions.apple.com

Hi Diver Fred, I use the term PC as a generic term for Personal Computer. I am very aware of the different Apple and Microsoft systems.
I have reformatted the SSD several times with Mac OS Extended(journaled) and Mac OS Extended(Case Sensitive,Journaled) with the same inexplicable result. If you read the previous correspondence on this problem you will see that I decided to try not using Time Machine for back up, and downloaded a sample photograph to manually to the SSD, which was successful. So armed with this I took the whole of my Photograph file and manually downloaded it to the SSD. All appeared to transfer, the full list of photos was initially displayed (Grey) and as each file was transferred the label became black and the file size indicated. So in 20 minutes the whole file was on the SSD. Great I thought. So tried displaying a random Photograph from the SSD, this returned and error-36 message and failed to display. All random selected photos had the same result. So what I thought was a successful file transfer was NOT recoverable.
I have several USB memory sticks so I tried the same exercise on one of those. That worked successfully. I looked at the format of the USB stick and it was formatted as MS-DOS(FAT16)!!!!!!
So I have lost the will to live, as my VERY limited knowledge is now exhausted. Those very knowledgeable Curry's guys know even less that I do which is very little, but these Currys guys are being paid to be very very unknowledgeable.
My conclusion at this point is that the 1 TB SSD is faulty, but what do I know? - the answer is F--- ALL!!!!!

 

[Hysteresis]

Have two Macs one a 2006 model which still runs fine (even runs Windows 10)and works fine with SSD drive . Doubt it’s a hardware problem.

Hi Foxhole. Have a look at my reply to Diver Fred and see if you can make any sense of my Unknowledgeable Ramblings.

 

[Koolpc]

Have you tried to format the SSD to xfat or apfs?

This may be a choice worth trying if possible.

 

[Diver Fred]

Hi Diver Fred, I use the term PC as a generic term for Personal Computer. I am very aware of the different Apple and Microsoft systems.
I have reformatted the SSD several times with Mac OS Extended(journaled) and Mac OS Extended(Case Sensitive,Journaled) with the same inexplicable result. If you read the previous correspondence on this problem you will see that I decided to try not using Time Machine for back up, and downloaded a sample photograph to manually to the SSD, which was successful. So armed with this I took the whole of my Photograph file and manually downloaded it to the SSD. All appeared to transfer, the full list of photos was initially displayed (Grey) and as each file was transferred the label became black and the file size indicated. So in 20 minutes the whole file was on the SSD. Great I thought. So tried displaying a random Photograph from the SSD, this returned and error-36 message and failed to display. All random selected photos had the same result. So what I thought was a successful file transfer was NOT recoverable.
I have several USB memory sticks so I tried the same exercise on one of those. That worked successfully. I looked at the format of the USB stick and it was formatted as MS-DOS(FAT16)!!!!!!
So I have lost the will to live, as my VERY limited knowledge is now exhausted. Those very knowledgeable Curry's guys know even less that I do which is very little, but these Currys guys are being paid to be very very unknowledgeable.
My conclusion at this point is that the 1 TB SSD is faulty, but what do I know? - the answer is F--- ALL!!!!!

Sorry to hear of your problems.
A few additional comments :-
Large capacity external 'drives' (SSD or HDD) formatted to FAT do take a long time to load to to. By large capacity I mean just about if not every storage device over 32GB.
Is the SSD powered by an additional PSU or just by the data lead? if it's by the data lead is that lead USB2 or USB3?
Unfortunately I do not have my reference books to hand so unable to lead you through checking the external drive via the 'Terminal' feature.

I have posted your initial posting to the Apple Support Community webpages see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255102120
Corrected your PC comment to iMac.
Please follow the posting as it should provide you with answers.

Also see (although it doesn't cover your iMac) https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250003583

The support pages are very good (and free to use). If I have the detail wrong there is nothing to stop you from signing in and asking the question in your words (just don't use 'PC'). Certainly would confirm the hardware of the iMac.

 

[Hysteresis]

Sorry to hear of your problems.
A few additional comments :-
Large capacity external 'drives' (SSD or HDD) formatted to FAT do take a long time to load to to. By large capacity I mean just about if not every storage device over 32GB.
Is the SSD powered by an additional PSU or just by the data lead? if it's by the data lead is that lead USB2 or USB3?
Unfortunately I do not have my reference books to hand so unable to lead you through checking the external drive via the 'Terminal' feature.

I have posted your initial posting to the Apple Support Community webpages see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255102120
Corrected your PC comment to iMac.
Please follow the posting as it should provide you with answers.

Also see (although it doesn't cover your iMac) https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250003583

The support pages are very good (and free to use). If I have the detail wrong there is nothing to stop you from signing in and asking the question in your words (just don't use 'PC'). Certainly would confirm the hardware of the iMac.

I Will follow ALL of that up, Thanks so much for your help.
I have also tried formatting the SSD to ExFat as suggested by Koolpc, and no difference. At the moment I suspect the SSD is the issue.
Thanks again Fred

 

[Hysteresis]

Have you tried to format the SSD to xfat or apfs?

This may be a choice worth trying if possible.

Tried Formatting to ExFat, no difference, I have no idea what apfs is or how to format to that, Thanks for your help.

 

[Hysteresis]

Re Driver Fred postings:-
Sorry, I did not answer one of your questions regarding USB2 or USB3 and I think maybe that is the issue.
My iMac is USB2, The SSD drive is stated as Product Interface USB 3.1 type-c (Gen 1) and the lead I am using is that supplied with the SSD so presumably a USB 3.1 Lead. In my ignorance, I thought USB 2 and USB 3 were compatible and the difference was of speed rather than basic functionality and that the system function would operate at the lowest of the two specifications. It appears I am wrong with that assumption and that my two USB specification are maybe incompatible. Does that make any sense? If it does it will be typical of developers to introduce hardware that is not backward compatible, further driving us users into buying yet more new 'Stuff`". B'stards the lot of 'em.