USB2.0 to USB 3.0 ExpressCard help needed for new external HDD

DianaD 74 · Mar 8, 2011

Hi all, I hope I'm posting in the correct forum.
I also tried a search within this forum with no luck.

I'm looking to purchase a larger 3.5" external HDD for Imaging and storage. My current EXT HDD is 120GB which has become much too small for my current needs.
I've done some reading about usb 3.0 transfer rates and some articles say that the rate is much slower when using an Express card adapter.

I'd would really like to hear some advice on the performance of a 2.0 to 3.0 upgrade VIA an Express/54 laptop card or if there is another way to upgrade to USB 3.0... Possibly using an existing USB 2.0 port???

I'd also love to hear from members that have purchased 1TB or larger USB 3.0 EXT HDD's (I'm leaning towards a 1TB drive because of the cost) and how the transfer rate is with the 2.0 to 3.0 adapter card.

I have an HP DV6885SE laptop/Win7 Pro with the Express/54 card slot and 3 USB 2.0 slots.

I'll be using Acronis True Image for the backups.
Thanks to all for any help and hardware suggestions.
D.

DeaconFrost · Mar 8, 2011

Since you have a laptop, you'll only get USB 3.0 one of two ways. Either by a built-in USB 3.0 port, or an Express Card add-in. I would say that an Express Card add-in would still be quite a bit faster than a USB 2.0 port, so I wouldn't have any worries about it.

You definitely won't find an adapter for a USB 2.0 port, because the data still has to flow through the USB 2.0 port. I don't know iff hand the performance capabilities of Express Card, but you could easily compare the throughput of a USB 2.0 port to the stated throughput of the USB 3.0 Express Card.

Luckystar · Mar 8, 2011

Unless you are going to to use a SSD inside the case, there really is not much point.

At the moment, there are no HDD's on the market that can fill all the bandwidth of USB 3.0.

IMO, i would stick with USB 2.0 unless you are going to purchase a big SSD (Which by the way, bigger than 250GB, is getting on about (In your money) probably $4 -500)

I have asked a similar question before - http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/140273-transfer-speed-test-esata-vs-usb-3-0-a.html

Sorry to burst your bubble -best go for something like this - My Passport Essential SE 1 TB External hard drive - 5.0 Gbps (SuperSpeed USB) that is my opinion.

Lucky

DianaD 74 · Mar 8, 2011

DeaconFrost said:
Since you have a laptop, you'll only get USB 3.0 one of two ways. Either by a built-in USB 3.0 port, or an Express Card add-in. I would say that an Express Card add-in would still be quite a bit faster than a USB 2.0 port, so I wouldn't have any worries about it.

You definitely won't find an adapter for a USB 2.0 port, because the data still has to flow through the USB 2.0 port. I don't know iff hand the performance capabilities of Express Card, but you could easily compare the throughput of a USB 2.0 port to the stated throughput of the USB 3.0 Express Card.

Luckystar said:
Unless you are going to to use a SSD inside the case, there really is not much point.

At the moment, there are no HDD's on the market that can fill all the bandwidth of USB 3.0.

IMO, i would stick with USB 2.0 unless you are going to purchase a big SSD (Which by the way, bigger than 250GB, is getting on about (In your money) probably $4 -500)

I have asked a similar question before - http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/140273-transfer-speed-test-esata-vs-usb-3-0-a.html

Sorry to burst your bubble -best go for something like this - My Passport Essential SE 1 TB External hard drive - 5.0 Gbps (SuperSpeed USB) that is my opinion.

Lucky

Thanks you both very much. The few 2.0 to 3.0 cards I've researched in general seem to be junk according to the reviews. Either they need an additional 5Volt supply to operate or they don't even work at all.

Can anybody recommend a reliable, inexpensive 1 or 2 TB USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 since 3.0 would still be a good idea in case the technology changes (or if I ever catch up with it) for use down the road.
I'd like to keep the price under $150.... is this unreasonable for a 1TB or possibly a 2TB drive?

Thanks again
Diana.

Ponmayilal · Mar 8, 2011

DianaD 74 said:
DeaconFrost said:

........Can anybody recommend a reliable, inexpensive 1 or 2 TB USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 since 3.0 would still be a good idea in case the technology changes (or if I ever catch up with it) for use down the road.
I'd like to keep the price under $150.... is this unreasonable for a 1TB or possibly a 2TB drive?

Thanks again
Diana.

Click to expand...

You may just have a look at my post here . I have a Seagate GoFlex 1.5TB Ultraportable USB external drive that comes with a GoFlex USB3 adapter/cable with which the trial was done. Western Digital also have a large USB3 external drive. I went in for Seagate GoFlex since interchangeable adapter/cables are available for esata,firewire, USB2 etc.,

Note: Since I have a desktop, I used a PCIe USB3 expansion card plugged into PCIe slot in the motherboard.

DianaD 74 · Mar 10, 2011

Ponmayilal said:
You may just have a look at my post here .

I'm no guru by any means but from what I read in your link it seems the express cards don't perform all that well.

Maybe I'll just buy a 1 or 2 TB USB 2.0 external HDD and live with it.
Thanks for the help all!
D.

pparks1 · Mar 10, 2011

Luckystar said:
Unless you are going to to use a SSD inside the case, there really is not much point.

At the moment, there are no HDD's on the market that can fill all the bandwidth of USB 3.0.

Huh....A standard mechanical hard drive might be able to provide 80MB-120MB/sec throughput. However, in a USB 2.0 port, it might get 30MB/sec at best. If USB 3.0 is available, that might become 60-90MB/sec. Thus going at least 2x-3X as fast as it was previously.

You don't need an SSD to take advantage of USB 3.0.

Have you considered adding a eSATA card to your laptop and then buying an eSATA external hard drive? These eSATA cards might perform better or be more stable as they have been around longer.

whs · Mar 10, 2011

I would advise to stay with USB2. My comparisons making images with free Macrium showed only a 30% speed increase of USB3 over USB2 - and my USB3 ports came with the Viao laptop.

But then you run into another problem. The Linux recovery program that you run to recover from the image does not recognize USB3. So you are back to USB2 for the recovery. It's really not worth it.

pparks1 · Mar 10, 2011

I just ran a test, as I needed to grab an image anyway. I did the testing on a Dell Latitude E6400 with onboard USB 2.0 and eSATA connections to a ThermalTake BlacX dock that does both USB 2.0 and eSATA. And I just so happen to use Acronis True Image 2010 on my boxes. The hard drive I am using is a 2TB Samsung SpinPoint F4 at 5,400RPM.

My C drive on my computer has approx 70GB worth of stuff on it, and the System Reserved partition was included as well (100MB).

The following tests were performed with default settings, which include Normal Compression Level and a Backup Priority of Low.

Time to image using Acronis TIH with USB 2.0 connection: 40:16, file size of 47,098,308KB
Time to image using Acronis TIH with eSATA connection: 17:23, file size of 47,105,308KB

So, as you can see, the eSATA connection was 2.3x faster using USB 2.

mjf · Mar 10, 2011

whs,
with imaging you have a mix of processing and link speed (ie. USB2/3) factors. If it was straight link speed then given ext HDD are typically sata drives I'd expect x2-3 speed increase. Your 30% figure suggests processing is a big factor.

If you're buying another usb ext hdd what would the general feeling be - only buy usb3 from now on?

whs · Mar 10, 2011

mjf said:
whs,
with imaging you have a mix of processing and link speed (ie. USB2/3) factors. If it was straight link speed then given ext HDD are typically sata drives I'd expect x2-3 speed increase. Your 30% figure suggests processing is a big factor.

If you're buying another usb ext hdd what would the general feeling be - only buy usb3 from now on?

Not sure the CPU played a negative role. It is an i7. But I used a 5400RPM disk in an enclosure (both for the USB2 and USB3). Maybe my USB3 enclosure is not that swift and the disk is kind of the slowest you can have. Plus Macrium is pretty fast to start with. My compressed image was appr. 20GBs.

I was kind of disappointed too. If i had the results that ppparks shows, I would be happy. I think I will buy an eSata enclosure and try that. Some people say that is faster than USB3.

Plus there was another problem with USB3 - the Macrium recovery program would not recognize the disk. I had to move it to the USB2 enclosure to work.

pparks1 · Mar 10, 2011

eSata is faster than USB 3.0 in everything that I have ever seen or read. I'm very pleased with my eSATA enclosures, by far the fastest external devices that I have used. But as we all know, not that many machines natively have eSata.

However, as I have been looking at new mobos lately, it seems they are putting eSATA on them by default. That makes me pretty happy.

Ponmayilal · Mar 12, 2011

There is nothing that prevents one plugging in a USB3 device into a USB2 port. My trial results posted here clearly indicates that the Seagate HDD with a USB3 adapter/cable plugged into USB2 port shows a 50% increase in transfer speeds while plugging it into an USB3 port results in a 300% increase in transfer speeds. I do not think its gonna be any different on a laptop, since most use the same NEC upd720200 chip. Also sooner or later it will all be only USB3 on all machines. The Seagate GoFlex ultraportable is flexible in that there are adapter/cables for USB3, USB2, firewire and esata. However if one wants to use the esata adapter/cable with the Ultraportable HDD, the esata ports on the machine has to be powered. Such ports I understand are now designated eSatap.

whs · Mar 12, 2011

Also sooner or later it will all be only USB3 on all machines.

And what about the Intel Thunderbolt that Apple starts putting on it's systems. That is supposed to be twice as fast as USB3. And midterm we will see wireless USB. The standards group is working since 2004 and there are some modest implementations. It just needs someone to push the implementation. But there is too much politics preventing that right now.

stasioau · Aug 22, 2011

Welcome,
Have question concern how to install USB 3.0 in my PC.
1. My motherboard (Asus 4 yrs old) has not USB 3.0 connection; only USB 2.0
2. My external hard drive SATA has USB 2.0 technology not USB 3.0
3. Buy USB 3.0 express card and install into my PC
4. Buy USB 3.0 hub, and connected it:
4a) To USB 3.0 in my PC and
4b) From USB 2.0 in SATA hard drive to USB 3.0 hubs.
I am not sure about this installation, special about USB 3.0 hub, and will appreciate of any comments.
Best regards
stasioau

MilesAhead · Aug 22, 2011

On my system I used SIIG USB 3.0 express card. It has 2 ports. I have 2 SIIG USB 3.0 docking stations on my desktop. On my quad core machine WD caviar black 6 Gb/s drives will run at full speed. On my dual core they run a bit slower since the relevant hardware is slower than the quad. But in both cases the drives in the docks are faster than my internal system drives(3 Gb/s Sata)

I'm very happy with the setup. Especially since now backup imaging programs are coming out with USB 3.0 support. See my specs for details.

Another advantage of this setup is I have a USB 2.0 docking station connected to my WD set top box on the TV. I just slide the WD drive into the docking station to watch videos. Also it's good for swapping the HDs out as backups etc..

stasioau · Aug 22, 2011

Thanks Miles Ahead. Very interesting idea.
Best regards

DeaconFrost · Aug 22, 2011

stasioau said:
Welcome,
Have question concern how to install USB 3.0 in my PC.
1. My motherboard (Asus 4 yrs old) has not USB 3.0 connection; only USB 2.0
2. My external hard drive SATA has USB 2.0 technology not USB 3.0
3. Buy USB 3.0 express card and install into my PC
4. Buy USB 3.0 hub, and connected it:
4a) To USB 3.0 in my PC and
4b) From USB 2.0 in SATA hard drive to USB 3.0 hubs.
I am not sure about this installation, special about USB 3.0 hub, and will appreciate of any comments.
Best regards
stasioau

You probably should have started your own thread on this subject, so maybe a mod could move it

Anyway, you can install USB 3.0 in your computer with an appropriate card, but if your external drive is rated for USB 2.0, it will not run faster when connected to a USB 3.0 device. In fact, a mechanical drive doesn't even run up to USB 2.0 speeds, so you aren't even maxing out the USB 2.0 connection. I wouldn't bother unless you plan to buy an ultra-expensive external SSD.

Comp Cmndo · Aug 22, 2011

Luckystar said:
...-best go for something like this - My Passport Essential SE 1 TB External hard drive - 5.0 Gbps (SuperSpeed USB) that is my opinion...

That's the one I have. Crystal Disk Mark measured transfer speed about 2X that of a WD Elements on the same computer through a 2.0 port. In fact, the speed was the same as the internal WD 7200 rpm notebook drive. Don't expect 10X the speed, 2X is was most others measure. Also, it doesn't require any power adapter to function properly & is small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.

essenbe · Aug 22, 2011

Maybe this will help. They are not the same hard drives, but all 3 are 7200RPM drives

USB2.0 to USB 3.0 ExpressCard help needed for new external HDD

New member

My Computer

married to bearballet

My Computer

Owner of The_HAFmeister

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Banned

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Ubuntu/CentOS and Windows

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Ubuntu/CentOS and Windows

My Computer

New member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Ubuntu/CentOS and Windows

My Computer

Banned

My Computer

New member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Eclectician

My Computer

New member

My Computer

married to bearballet

My Computer

New member

Attachments

My Computer

Jedi Master (RET)

My Computers