USB 2 and USB 3 Transfer At the Same Speed on My USB 3 Port?

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Hightime7898

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Dec 7, 2013
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Hello folks,

I have a Dell XPS with about 6 USB 3 ports, I transferred a 1 GB file to my USB 2 flash drive and then transferred the same file to my USB 3 flash drive, both times I was using the USB 3 port on my PC - and the transfer speeds were the same!? The USB 3 was not faster in any way.

I'm running Windows 8.1, any solutions?

Thank you.
 
Solution
popatim
Keep in mind that You can only transfer as fast as the slowest device in the path, cables included. Ie - if you are transferring to/from a usb3 harddrive also attached to the computer but thru a usb2 cable you will never exceed usb2 speed.

What were you transferring to & from?

transferring lots of small files is much slower than transferring one large file, test with a large zip file or something.

When was the last time the flash drive were formatted, overwritting deleted files is much slower than writting to an empty drive (just like an SSD which is why they have trim and garbage collect that flash drives dont have)

We'll need the exact model numbers of the flash drive to look up benchmarks.
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Hightime7898

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Dec 7, 2013
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I only bought the machine about a month ago and I don't recall installing any USB chipset drivers, how do I check to see if they're installed or not and where do I get them from?

Also, my transfer rate is about 10Mb/s on the USB 3 flash, what is causing the confusion is that is also what my USB 2 flash drive gets, what is the transfer rate on a USB 3 supposed to be?
 
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benjii

benjii

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Oct 29, 2010
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Around 600MB/s. The maximum transfer speed on USB 3 exceeds what USB flash drives can currently offer. What make and model are your two USB drives? Also, what's the full model name/number of your laptop?
 
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Hightime7898

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Dec 7, 2013
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Sorry, forgot to say it's a desktop, a Dell XPS 8700.
 
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popatim

popatim

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Dec 2, 2009
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Keep in mind that You can only transfer as fast as the slowest device in the path, cables included. Ie - if you are transferring to/from a usb3 harddrive also attached to the computer but thru a usb2 cable you will never exceed usb2 speed.

What were you transferring to & from?

transferring lots of small files is much slower than transferring one large file, test with a large zip file or something.

When was the last time the flash drive were formatted, overwritting deleted files is much slower than writting to an empty drive (just like an SSD which is why they have trim and garbage collect that flash drives dont have)

We'll need the exact model numbers of the flash drive to look up benchmarks.
 
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Solution
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James Mauro

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Apr 7, 2014
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Having a faster connection, Is not relevant when the storage media cannot even achieve the slower connection speed. That is why you did not see a difference. If you had 3 identical rotational drives, with a max transfer rate of 135 mbs, it would not matter if you hooked them up in data 1.5, 3.0. or 6.0. the cables them selves are the same, This is an example of why a person should not buy the data version 6 of $20 more, when they will not see a speed increase of the 1.5.... Some times you might buy a DRIVE WITH A DIFFERENT CABLE, but only when you believe they are phasing out the old. However, USB is USB, Firewire is firewire, SATA is SATA, and so on. It would be like having a video card and motherboard with PCI express x16 Version 4 (31 gas transfer speeds) but the card can still only do version 2 speeds. So just because the middle ground is faster, you are limited by your weakest link. IE, sometimes you have just waisted your money.
 
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