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#11
That could explain it of course. Still, it is not earthshaking. Thanks for the additional info.
Hmmmm something must be weird because I keep seeing these low copy rates for USB 3.0 drives. I have SIIG USB 3.0 cards in my PCs with SIIG and Sharkoon USB 3.0 docking stations. I use WD Caviar Black 3 Gb/sec and 6 Gb/sec drives in the docks. Sequential read of multi GB files from the 6 Gb/sec drives are typically 120 MB/sec or faster. From the 3 Gb/sec drives it's over 100. Granted Windows Explorer give an optimistic number but Crystal Disk Mark shows sequential reads of over 130 MB/sec for the 6 Gb drives and over 100 MB/sec for the 3s.
On my dual core PC the numbers are a bit lower because the bus and the main drive are slower. Even so pulling from the 6 Gb/sec drives is still over 110 MB/sec with the 3s showing in the 70 to 100 MB/sec sequential read range.
On both machines Caviar Blacks plugged into docking stations are faster than the system drives that came with the machine. Being HP they are 3 Gb sec Sata. Not sure exactly what's in the quad because it has some weird fake raid setup that blocks any smart info about the drive and controller. All I know is the HD that came with the quad is 750 GB single drive.
I get transfer rates comparable with the speed of the drives. Copying from one USB 3.0 dock to another both hooked to the same card has no bogging effect. Doesn't run up the cpu much either. Perhaps other cards are different. I bought one SIIG USB 3.0 and liked it so I got another. I haven't tried any others.
One thing interesting, while I was waiting for my USB 3.0 docking stations to arrive, just for grins I hooked up a USB 2.0 Seagate external to the SIIG card. I got about an 18% increase in throughput. Large sequential writes went from 24 MB/sec or less to about 30 MB/sec or a tad more.
Something is weird! :) Tested a lot of USB 3.0 stuff recently on a lot of boards, in a whole load of cases it reverts to legacy ( 2.0) mode, or only gives marginally better performance, ( 10...30 % )
Why? Don't know, but it is particularly bad with NEC chips.
Regards....Mike Connor
Hmmmmm, just to make sure we're not apples & oranges, this is the card I have in my PCs:
Newegg.com - SIIG JU-P20412-S2 PCI Express to 2-Port USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Card
Not the "1 external 1 internal" port type. I've had no side effects I can detect other than the drives in the docks being faster than the system drives. Best thing I added since a Gb wired network card in the dual core.
If people are trying them with externals rather than docks I'm wondering if there's a bottleneck inside the external USB 3.0 drives themselves?
@Mike Connor:
what model of Sharkoon docking station do you use?
I have Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Duo USB3.0 -v.2- and with Windows XP it worked perfectly. Copying from one port to the other was quick - around 71MB/s with WD Green 2TB EARS disks. Copying to internal WD 640GB Blue was around 100MB/s. Which is quite OK.
Then I installed W7x64. Copying to internal HDD from the dock is the same. But copying between ports is quite slower. I get around 40MB/s while copying the same files!
I have a new Asus motherboard with NEC USB3.0 on-board. I installed the latest drivers and upgraded the firmware. SONY/NEC firmwares.
Does anyone have any idea what's wrong with W7???
I'm thinking of installing WinXP again
Regards.
My motherboard supports USB 3.0 directly, so I can use any 3.0 USB device. Some work fine, some don't. Just how it is! :)
For external storage I now mostly use eSATA.
Regards....Mike Connor
All my docks are the single drive type. For Sharkoon it's this one:
Newegg.com - Sharkoon SATA QuickPort USB3.0 2.5" & 3.5" Black USB 3.0 Docking Stations
The SIIG's are this model:
Newegg.com - SIIG SC-SA0D12-S1 2.5" & 3.5" Black USB 3.0 Drive Docking with Fan
(The SIIG looks like a dual dock. But it isn't. They must have decided to save money by using the same base for both versions. Plus it has a built-in fan. Even though it's a bit bulkier and you hear some fan, the drives run noticeably cooler. Doesn't burn your hand to pull the drive out.)
The USB 3.0 stuff runs fine on Vista64 SP1.
Do you have 2 separate USB 3 cables in the Sharkoon? I imagine it must but I don't know.