Expected performance of external USB 2 hard drive

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

The drive in the external box is a WD Raptor 7200 RPM 80GB drive. The
USB2 port is on an MSI motherboard, and the system is running Windows
2000. It seems, to me, to be running *extremely* slowly; but I have
little experience with external drives newer than SCSI. So, is there
some rough rule-of-thumb expectation for what kind of read and write
throughput I should get?

(My performance test was backing up a big chunk with NTI Backup Now
and then "verifying" it, so straight sequential write and later read
from an unfragmented newly-formatted disk. Oh, I formatted it NTFS.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>

 

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"David Dyer-Bennet" <dd-b@dd-b.net> wrote in message
news:m264yu1nqk.fsf@gw.dd-b.net...
> The drive in the external box is a WD Raptor 7200 RPM 80GB drive. The
> USB2 port is on an MSI motherboard, and the system is running Windows
> 2000. It seems, to me, to be running *extremely* slowly; but I have
> little experience with external drives newer than SCSI. So, is there
> some rough rule-of-thumb expectation for what kind of read and write
> throughput I should get?


When I last ran tests on my three year old PC the USB 2.0 hard drive was
about half the speed of the internal drive (same WD drive in both). Try
running the free version of SiSoft Sandras on it and report what thats says.
Perhaps you have it connected to a USB 1.1 port or the port isn't set up
correctly.

http://www.sisoftware.net/

 

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"David Dyer-Bennet" <dd-b@dd-b.net> wrote in message news:m264yu1nqk.fsf@gw.dd-b.net
> The drive in the external box is a WD Raptor 7200 RPM 80GB drive.

You should be reported for torturing a second generation Raptor.

> The USB2 port is on an MSI motherboard, and the system is running
> Windows 2000. It seems, to me, to be running *extremely* slowly;

It should be able to do at least half it's maximum STR.

> but I have little experience with external drives newer than SCSI.
> So, is there some rough rule-of-thumb expectation for what kind of
> read and write throughput I should get?
>
> (My performance test was backing up a big chunk with NTI Backup Now
> and then "verifying" it, so straight sequential write and later read
> from an unfragmented newly-formatted disk. Oh, I formatted it NTFS.)

 

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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:

>"David Dyer-Bennet" <dd-b@dd-b.net> wrote in message news:m264yu1nqk.fsf@gw.dd-b.net
>> The drive in the external box is a WD Raptor 7200 RPM 80GB drive.
>
>You should be reported for torturing a second generation Raptor.
>
>> The USB2 port is on an MSI motherboard, and the system is running
>> Windows 2000. It seems, to me, to be running *extremely* slowly;
>
>It should be able to do at least half it's maximum STR.
>
>> but I have little experience with external drives newer than SCSI.
>> So, is there some rough rule-of-thumb expectation for what kind of
>> read and write throughput I should get?
>>
>> (My performance test was backing up a big chunk with NTI Backup Now
>> and then "verifying" it, so straight sequential write and later read
>> from an unfragmented newly-formatted disk. Oh, I formatted it NTFS.)

I just tested my hard drives (2 Western Digital w 8mb caches) with
SiSoftware. I got 27MB/sec and 26MB/sec (Windows xp).

I also have an external WD 250gb (8mb cache) on USB2.0 port. It
tested at 17 MB/sec.

Does that sound about right?

 

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"John ." <john@notme.com> wrote in message
news:ijgm519gdtitctgh1id67k4aftrae2q4kj@4ax.com...

> I just tested my hard drives (2 Western Digital w 8mb caches) with
> SiSoftware. I got 27MB/sec and 26MB/sec (Windows xp).
>
> I also have an external WD 250gb (8mb cache) on USB2.0 port. It
> tested at 17 MB/sec.
>
> Does that sound about right?

Yes. I got similar results (if I remember correctly) and same here with
Maxtor drives...

http://compreviews.about.com/od/cases/l/aaBlknUSB2Enc.htm

MethodDrive Index
Internal IDE 21,132 KB/s
USB 2.017,406 KB/s

 

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"CWatters" <colin.watters@pandoraBOX.be> wrote in message news:5PT6e.63205$DI4.4546649@phobos.telenet-ops.be
> "John ." <john@notme.com> wrote in message news:ijgm519gdtitctgh1id67k4aftrae2q4kj@4ax.com...
>
> > I just tested my hard drives (2 Western Digital w 8mb caches) with
> > SiSoftware. I got 27MB/sec and 26MB/sec (Windows xp).
> >
> > I also have an external WD 250gb (8mb cache) on USB2.0 port. It
> > tested at 17 MB/sec.
> >
> > Does that sound about right?
>
> Yes.

For Sandra, maybe. The results are obviously rubbish.

> I got similar results (if I remember correctly) and same here with
> Maxtor drives...
>
> http://compreviews.about.com/od/cases/l/aaBlknUSB2Enc.htm
>
> MethodDrive Index
> Internal IDE 21,132 KB/s

> USB 2.017,406 KB/s

No kidding.

 

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"John ." <john@notme.com> wrote in message news:ijgm519gdtitctgh1id67k4aftrae2q4kj@4ax.com
> "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:
> > "David Dyer-Bennet" <dd-b@dd-b.net> wrote in message news:m264yu1nqk.fsf@gw.dd-b.net
> > > The drive in the external box is a WD Raptor 7200 RPM 80GB drive.
> >
> > You should be reported for torturing a second generation Raptor.
> >
> > > The USB2 port is on an MSI motherboard, and the system is running
> > > Windows 2000. It seems, to me, to be running *extremely* slowly;
> >
> > It should be able to do at least half it's maximum STR.
> >
> > > but I have little experience with external drives newer than SCSI.
> > > So, is there some rough rule-of-thumb expectation for what kind of
> > > read and write throughput I should get?
> > >
> > > (My performance test was backing up a big chunk with NTI Backup Now
> > > and then "verifying" it, so straight sequential write and later read
> > > from an unfragmented newly-formatted disk. Oh, I formatted it NTFS.)
>
> I just tested my hard drives (2 Western Digital w 8mb caches) with
> SiSoftware. I got 27MB/sec and 26MB/sec (Windows xp).
>
> I also have an external WD 250gb (8mb cache) on USB2.0 port. It
> tested at 17 MB/sec.
>
> Does that sound about right?

Nope. That's awful.

 

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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in message
news:425c5e46$0$6058$892e7fe2@authen.white.readfreenews.net...
> > http://compreviews.about.com/od/cases/l/aaBlknUSB2Enc.htm
> >
> > MethodDrive Index
> > Internal IDE 21,132 KB/s
>
> > USB 2.017,406 KB/s
>
> No kidding.

What results do you get?

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1015
SiSoft Sandra 2001 Benchmark Results
40GB 7200 RPM Samsung HDD
HDD BenchmarkScore
1.USB 2.0 11462
2.USB 1.1 974
3.Hard Drive 26544

 

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"CWatters" <colin.watters@pandoraBOX.be> wrote in message news:dp37e.63626$B83.4632632@phobos.telenet-ops.be
> "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in message news:425c5e46$0$6058$892e7fe2@authen.white.readfreenews.net...
> > > http://compreviews.about.com/od/cases/l/aaBlknUSB2Enc.htm
> > >
> > > MethodDrive Index
> > > Internal IDE 21,132 KB/s
> >
> > > USB 2.017,406 KB/s
> >
> > No kidding.

Presumably that was to read USB 2.0 17,406 KB/s then.

>
> What results do you get?

And what has that got to do with my comment?
And what's with the snipping, there were hardly any lines in that post.

It's well known that Sandra is a broken benchmark.
What is it to you what (broken) results *I* might get?

>
> http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1015
> SiSoft Sandra 2001 Benchmark Results
> 40GB 7200 RPM Samsung HDD
> HDD BenchmarkScore
> 1.USB 2.0 11462
> 2.USB 1.1 974
> 3.Hard Drive 26544

Another wildly differing result. Faster drive yet USB is even worse.
Obviously these USB values are totally bogus.

 

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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in message
news:425d9e5b$0$880

> It's well known that Sandra is a broken benchmark.
> What is it to you what (broken) results *I* might get?

Sorry, what I mean is... What should the results be using something other
than SiSoft Sandra?

The results might be "obviously rubbish" to you but not everyone!

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"CWatters" <colin.watters@pandoraBOX.be> wrote in message news:J5W7e.65723$Ki2.4666498@phobos.telenet-ops.be
> "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in message news:425d9e5b$0$880
>
> > It's well known that Sandra is a broken benchmark.
> > What is it to you what (broken) results *I* might get?
>
> Sorry, what I mean is... What should the results be using something other
> than SiSoft Sandra?

What the drives can do or, if that's faster than USB can deliver, limited
to say 2/3(*) the clockrate (480Mbit/s), so let's say 32 MB/s or so.
Probably depends with transfer size whether you can quench out a little
bit more.

>
> The results might be "obviously rubbish" to you but not everyone!

They should be, knowing that USB 2.0 is 480Mbit/sec.

(*) Read somewhere that USB (12Mbit/sec) was designed/intentioned
for devices upto 8Mbit/sec, hence 33% suspected overhead.
USB 2 may actually do better but I can't find more current data.