Slow Merge Tool

[emd55]

Hello, I am trying to run the Merge tool and it seems to be running much more slowly than it should. 

The tool is running and says "Executing Merge..."; it has been stagnant at 2% for a while now with a total run time of 30 minutes so far. 

I'm using ArcGIS Pro 2.8.3 and Merge tool in Model Builder. Inputs are 10 shapefiles. I first tried to run Merge in the same Model that the 10 inputs were created in. Then I created a new Model just for this Merge tool in hopes that would help, but the result is the same. All the inputs are saved in the same place.

Any ideas for helping to speed this up? I may try merging two datasets together at a time instead of 10 all at once.

Thank you!

[DanPatterson]

It might have gone faster with featureclasses in a file geodatabase.  Also, if you specified field mapping, it will add a lot of time to the process given 10 inputs and you appear to have a large number of fields.

Try 2 first

[DavidPike]

Is Z a local drive?  How big are these shapefiles (no. features)?