External Storage USB 2 vs USB 1.1

[elrodvoss]

Im putting together an old 80GB and sticking it in a $20 enclosure(sp) case. I want a "jumk" drive to store all my torrents and other various large files.

The HD has the following stats:
Average Seek Time: 8.9 ms
Average latency: 4.2 ms
Rotational Speed: 7,200 rpm
Transfer Rate: 100 MB/s
Buffer Size: 2 MB

I have an old 20gb in there now, just to see if it works right (80gb should be here in a few days).

My concern is that I have an old motherboard that only uses USB 1.1 and from with the 20gb hard drive it takes about 30 mins to transfer 1GB of data. I found a speed test program and these are the results.

Everything I have can use USB 2.0, so would it greatly increase the speed to get a USB 2.0 PCI card and hook the HD up to that? Is it the HD that is the big limitation, the USB 1.1 or is UBS just not a fast transfer?

Does anyone have a link to benchmarks to for a USB 2.0 external HD?

 

[mkaibear]

It will *massively* increase your speed to get a USB2 PCI card.

 

[predaking]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124002

there is a combo usb/firewire card.


i've heard firewire is better cause the overhead for the packets is smaller than usb.

so lots of smaller files back and forth firewire would be better.

 

[mkaibear]

Firewire is generally a better standard than USB 2.

If your hard drive enclosure has a firewire interface, use that!

Otherwise, USB 2 is your best bet!

 

[elrodvoss]

Well I got myself a USB 2.0 6 port PCI card (4 external/2 internal)

Here are the new results:

As you can see, there is a visible speed increase. I think the current limitation is just the HD its self, as it may be an 5400 RPM or slower drive (its over 10 years old).

When I finaly get the 80 gig, ill see what increase in performance I get.


Thanks for the help and info.

 

[mkaibear]

10Mb is not a large file!

That's a rubbish speed test.

Have you got a 1Gb file? Try copying that over the slow interface and then the fast one - that'll show you the real speed improvement!

 

[elrodvoss]

I transfered a 1.2GB movie over before..

With USB 1.1: 30 mins
With USB 2.0: 2 mins.