usb 3.0 EXTREMELY slow transfer rates

[Mike Connor]

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

I've heard in many cases the add-in card is better than on board native USB 3.0 since the add-in card hardware does the work. But it probably varies with the system. That could explain why I see a lot of surprise how slow USB 3.0 is.

I think there was a bit of a scrabble for manufacturers to produce results for USB 3.0 and this resulted in some less than optimal solutions.

The USB 3.0 ports on my machine work fine and with the right device everything is pretty fast. However, no device has yet been as fast as my eSATA ports.

I also tried a few add in cards on various machines, some worked great, others less so, and every drive is of course different.

I will stick with eSATA for the nonce for my personal machine.


Regards....Mike Connor

 

[whs]

The eSata results are interesting. I got a 30% better performance with USB3 than USB2 when imaging a 40GB partition with Macrium. The disk I used is a 5400 RPM model that I reovered from a laptop when I put the SSD in.
I am now looking for a cheap SSD with 200+ MB/sec write speed to try that out.

 

[MilesAhead]

...

The USB 3.0 ports on my machine work fine and with the right device everything is pretty fast. However, no device has yet been as fast as my eSATA ports.

I also tried a few add in cards on various machines, some worked great, others less so, and every drive is of course different.

I will stick with eSATA for the nonce for my personal machine.


Regards....Mike Connor

I haven't had any PCs with esata to try. I'm lazy so I buy the off the shelf towers.

It is kind of strange. I remember seeing a video from BlacX docking station about their new USB 3.0 docks. It showed a file transfer of a 700 MB video file. First they did with USB 2.0 then 3.0 dock. The 3.0 dock only looked about 3 times faster from the progress bar. When I purchased the USB 3.0 stuff I figured if I got the 3x result like in the video I'd be happy. Pleasantly surprised when I plugged in the new Caviar Black 6 Gb 64 KB cache drives and got about 5x performance compared to the 2.0 dock. One of those nice times when it wasn't as advertised but better.

 

[mjf]

We did some tests here which may be of interest.
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...humb-drive-vs-portable-hdd-2.html#post1172831
A USB 2 portable drive gives around 30MB/s on sequential tests. But as packet size changes so does speed as you might expect. Other speed limiting factors (head movements) take over.
You may be interested in doing some comparisons with the same tool -
Download Center - Crystal Dew World

 

[whs]

I am still confused about what some people say that eSata ia a lot faster than USB3. Both attachment options have a lot more data transfer capability than a spinning disk can supply. So it should be the disks that limit the speed and not the attachment. Could it be a difference in the capability of the enclosures?

 

[pparks1]

I am still confused about what some people say that eSata ia a lot faster than USB3. Both attachment options have a lot more data transfer capability than a spinning disk can supply. So it should be the disks that limit the speed and not the attachment. Could it be a difference in the capability of the enclosures?

There is CPU overhead and such involved over the USB bus. I use eSATA at work and at home and I get speeds of over 100MB/sec throughout most of my Samsung SpinPoint 7200 RPM 2TB hard drive.

I've seen posts from people online that got about 20-25MB/sec over USB 2, then around 60-70MB/sec over USB 3 and nearly 90MB/sec over eSATA using the same hard drive and just moving it from enclosure to enclosure.

 

[whs]

Yeah, but how much CPU overhead can there be. On the system where I have both eSata and USB3 ports, I have an i7 processor. Do you think the CPU could make such a big difference?

I have a USB3 enclosure but not an eSata enclosure. But if it were worth my money, would buy one. That's why I am so interested in the subject.

 

[pparks1]

The enclosure that I use is a Thermaltake BlacX. Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX ST0005U External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5” & 3.5” USB 2.0 & eSATA

I've seen it as low as $20 at NewEgg when on sale.

As far as the comments about CPU overhead, I recall this being a main issue between FireWire and USB 2. Firewire is often faster as it requires less CPU overhead.

 

[whs]

Thanks. That looks like a nice enclosure. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[mjf]

CPU overhead? What significant processing is being carried ?
I believe it's packet size, (fragmentation of the file), location on the disk and communications channel speed. There is a significant speed difference between inside and outside track (full vs empty disk).
quanzaboy,
using a common test package (CrystalDiskinof in this case) and the results of Tonytiger2004 and mine linked to above may give you a better indication if the communication channel (USB3) has a key role in this situation.
For the sequential test, I would expect a speed increase over the USB2 figures.

 

[pparks1]

CPU overhead? What significant processing is being carried ?

I don't think it's overhead per say, but I think that USB stuff goes through the CPU where other things like firewire and eSata do not.

I'm not sure of technical reasons, but it's the same reason that Firewire 400 outperforms USB 2.0 (which is 480mbps). Technically USB 2.0 should be faster, by 80mbps.....but it's been shown time and time again that firewire is more efficient and goes faster.

 

[MilesAhead]

CPU overhead? What significant processing is being carried ?
I believe it's packet size, (fragmentation of the file), location on the disk and communications channel speed. There is a significant speed difference between inside and outside track (full vs empty disk).
quanzaboy,
using a common test package (CrystalDiskinof in this case) and the results of Tonytiger2004 and mine linked to above may give you a better indication if the communication channel (USB3) has a key role in this situation.
For the sequential test, I would expect a speed increase over the USB2 figures.

I don't have any numbers but I believe the reason given that a PCI express card can outperform USB 3.0 built into the motherboard is that the cards typically have a processor that handles the overhead.

My WD Caviar Black 64 MB cache 6 Gb/sec drive is rated by the manufacturer at a max sustained read speed of 126 MB/sec. Crystal Disk Mark shows sequential read of 138 MB/sec but that's because CDM considers 1 million bytes per second as 1 MB/sec. I imagine WD uses 1024 kb /sec. when they talk about 1 MB/sec. throughput.

However you measure it, I don't think you can call it "slow" when you watch the progress bar just zip across when copying a GB video file.

 

[MOSFET86]

A Simple Test....

I own two identical WD Passport 0730 1TB drives with USB 3 capability and I own a USB 3 card with a single USB 3 port.

So one HD is connected to the USB 3 port and the other a standard USB 2 port.

Like many of you, I was very curious to see if USB 3 made much of a difference, and as I had two identical drives I figured I had the perfect way to test. So I ran HD Tune on both WD drives as well as my internal eSATA Samsung 500 gig drive.

FIRST WD CONNECTED WITH USB 2:

HD Tune Pro: WD My Passport 0730 Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 15.3 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 16.4 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average :
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage :


SECOND WD CONNECTED TO USB 3:

HD Tune Pro: WD My Passport 0730 Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 32.8 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 75.9 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average :
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage :


INTERNAL SAMSUNG 500 GIG DRIVE W/ eSATA:

HD Tune Pro: ST3500418AS Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 65.8 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 102.2 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average :
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage :

So clearly USB 3 IS indeed superior to USB 2, that much is clear. And perhaps some people may find this helpful if they are having problems with their USB 3 drives and what to expect speed wise.

But the surprising thing is that eSATA seems to be the clear winner. Of course, this may have to do with the speed of the Samsung drive so the IDEAL test would be to have THREE identical drives and connect them up to all three ways and compare speeds.

I DEFINATELY notice the speed increase with my USB 3 drive. As you can see, it is three times faster than a standard USB 2 connected drive, but still not as fast as eSATA.

If you are not getting 70+ MB/S with your USB 3 connected drives, clearly something is wrong.

Hope this helps,

Nick

 

[MOSFET86]

​

A Simple Test....
I own two identical WD Passport 0730 1TB drives with USB 3 capability and I own a USB 3 card with a single USB 3 port.

So one HD is connected to the USB 3 port and the other a standard USB 2 port.

Like many of you, I was very curious to see if USB 3 made much of a difference, and as I had two identical drives I figured I had the perfect way to test. So I ran HD Tune on both WD drives as well as my internal eSATA Samsung 500 gig drive.

FIRST WD CONNECTED WITH USB 2:

HD Tune Pro: WD My Passport 0730 Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 15.3 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 16.4 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average :
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage :


SECOND WD CONNECTED TO USB 3:

HD Tune Pro: WD My Passport 0730 Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 32.8 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 75.9 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average :
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage :


INTERNAL SAMSUNG 500 GIG DRIVE W/ eSATA:

HD Tune Pro: ST3500418AS Benchmark

Test capacity: full

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 65.8 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 102.2 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average :
Access Time :
Burst Rate :
CPU Usage :

So clearly USB 3 IS indeed superior to USB 2, that much is clear. And perhaps some people may find this helpful if they are having problems with their USB 3 drives and what to expect speed wise.

But the surprising thing is that eSATA seems to be the clear winner. Of course, this may have to do with the speed of the Samsung drive so the IDEAL test would be to have THREE identical drives and connect them up to all three ways and compare speeds.

I DEFINATELY notice the speed increase with my USB 3 drive. As you can see, it is three times faster than a standard USB 2 connected drive, but still not as fast as eSATA.

If you are not getting 70+ MB/S with your USB 3 connected drives, clearly something is wrong.

Hope this helps,

Nick

 

[MOSFET86]

gfgf
​

 

[Wizzzzard]

I know this post is old but my information is relevant.

I have recently been having problems with pci-x USB3.0 cards, when connecting the drives sometimes I was getting a pop-up that the drives could run faster on USB3, the drives were dropping out and on one card i was only getting a USB2 connection on one drive and no connection on the other, It turned out that my mega $$ Antec power supply which was a fear years old had cheap bad capacitors and was not giving a full 5volt on the 5volt rail so I put a new PSU in and now my USB3 cards all work properly and allow the drives to run at full speed IE: 100+mb's.

I will add that I have two USB3 cards, a 2 port Renesas and a four port VIA card, the Renesas card has reduced transfer speed across the ports yet the VIA card does not lose any speed.

 

[whs]

That is interesting information. I was always an Antec fan. But who knew that they use cheap components.

 

[Bleu]

I can't really add much to this discussion I'm not very technical, however I also have a Gigabyte motherboard with usb 3.0. As someone already stated copying between 3.0 drives does achieve the speeds as SATA to usb 3.0 or even 2.0 to 3.0 at least in my experience.

I've only read the first to pages so I'm not sure if this has already been brought up. I don't want to offend you either but my 3.0 drives came with two cables for 2.0 and 3.0 make sure your using the 3.0 cable and have the drivers installed.

 

[GhulKing]

Hey!! I ve been having problems lately with my external hdd! I d be glad if anyone could help me out! it's a transcend storejet 25M3 usb 3.0!Of late the transfer rates are very slow while copying a file from the PC to the hard disk!usually around 1MBps.
Thank You!!