Terribly slow USB 3.0 transfer rate

[invaderneal]

Greetings,
I bought a usb 3.0 16GB flash drive as i frequently transfer large movie files and folders of pictures onto this, however my transfer rate generally caps out around 14 MB/s. MY USB 2.0 OLDER flash can go up to 16 MB/s!

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P67A-D3-B3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128487

Flash drive: Team F108 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (Golden) Model TG016GF108N3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313094

Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795
And Crucial RealSSD C300 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348

CPU: i5-2500
OS: Windows 7
__________________________

Even transferring a large file from my SSD drive to the flash drive caps out around 14 MB/s.

My settings: Write caching enabled on the drives

Any thoughts?

 

[RetiredChief]

My bet - it's your USB3 driver.
I have a 32 gig team F108 USB3 drive.Will check on my two desktops when I get Home.

Looked thru the reviews at newegg, and there were a few that indicated low performance, but the majority (That did indicate a performance) got around 20->30 MB/s.

USB3 is still a 3rd party add on with a few giving poor performance. USB3 native Intel support is IB systems.

 

[invaderneal]

How can I get a different and better driver? if thats the case

 

[RetiredChief]

Note there are two ver of your MB (Gigabyte GA-P67A-D3-B3) a Rev 1 and a rev 2

For rev 1
Looks like the newest driver is 1.0.0.0109 dtd 2012/03/21
Etron USB 3.0 Driver For Win 7 32/64 bit is version
Ref: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3800#dl
For Rev 2 (looks the same, but should always choice correct MB rev
Ref: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4018#dl

ADDED: MAY also be your MB bios (More likely):
For REV 1 MB Check out Ver F7, Improve USB3
REF: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3800#bios

For REV 2 its BIOS FE
Ref: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4018#bios

 

[invaderneal]

Thank you very much.
How can I tell if i have revision 1 or 2 on my Mobo?

Nevermind my manual told me where to look

 

[invaderneal]

Thanks for continued help.

How do i flash the bios to update ?
I downloaded, unzipped it with 7zip, and tried to run FLASHSPI application.

It tells me the version of the file is not compatible with the version of windows im running and to check whether the file requires 32 or 64 bit?

Im running 64bit windows.....did they really put out a bios update that only runs in 32 bit?

 

[RetiredChief]

There is generally two ways to flash your bios
(1) thru a windows program - I DO NOT USE this merhod. It adds a another layer that could fail.
(2) Thru the bios screen. You download the file, Select just the file for the bios update and stick it on a thumbdrive (thumb drive needs to be formated in FAT32 normally). In bios there should be an F key that takes you to the Bios update page, Check your manual.


Added:
see page 62 in manual: Updating the BIOS with the Q-Flash Utility

 

[invaderneal]

BIG PROBLEMS
I'm typing this from my other computer now.

Short story: update bios and now unable to finish loading windows, it goes to startup repair.

Long story: I updated my Bios to the newest version (7), using the motherboards recommended software @Bios.
It said it updated correctly and needed to restart.
After restarting the post showed that the correct bios and the newest version was installed. However when it got to the point of saying, "Loading Windows", before it gets too the login point it quickly flashes a blue screen and then states my computer was able to startup, and recommends that I do windows startup repair.

I Tried:
1. setting bios to load optimized defaults
2. load failsafe defaults
3. flash bios with the newest drivers I had put on a flash/thumb drive (said it worked but same problem)
4. Startup repair (said it was unable to fix my problem) - If i look at the problem details it says, "Problem event name: StartupRepairOffline, and gives lots of info on Problem signature 01: ......I can give that info if it may help problem solve.

My mobo has two bios chips and it states that if one fails to load that it loads from the second one, but obviously i was not able to load windows

UPDATE: put the first version of the bios on a thumb drive and flashed it successfully to the computer. However on restart its still giving me the same problem: it crashes on windows startup before login screen.

Problem Signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: 21200523
Problem Signature 05: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 06: 5
Problem Signature 07: BadDriver
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

 

[J_E_D_70]

Can you force the mobo to boot from the backup bios?

 

[RetiredChief]

^ Most likely still same problem - it's mostly the bios setting for HDD not correct for Boot sector on HDD
Your problem is the bios setting for your HDD,
It needs to be the same as when windows was installed.
Normally it should be ahci, But a lot of times with a bios flash it will revert back to default which may be ide. OR VISA VERSA

What you need to do is go into bios, see what it is set to:
then
set to optimized defaults, save, reboot back to BIOS.
- Then Change it and see if you can now boot back to windows. ie if you find it set to ide, chage it to ahci, or if ahci, set to ide.

It is always a good Idea to go thru your bios and see what things are set to

 

[photonboy]

I agree that modifying the SATA chip in BIOS to AHCI should work. I suppose there could be other issues but I can't think of any off hand.

Other:
Many people forget the most important driver of all which is the main chipset driver for the motherboard. It doesn't hurt to re-install if you aren't sure if you have the latest. It must match your exact motherboard and Windows version (sometimes Vista x64 works for Win 7 x64 though).

The main chipset driver, if NOT installed, can prevent Windows from recognizing other attached devices.

 

[RetiredChief]

Chipset driver for OP's MB should be the Intel RST driver (believe the latest version is 10.8. But intel should be releasing 11.X that MAY offer trim support when SSD is a member drive in a Raid confif.

 

[invaderneal]

I was finally able to get into advanced boot options and set it too stop restart after a crash so i could read the blue screen.

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF880009A97E8, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x000000000000000000, 0x000000000000000000

I looked up the error message, that stop code, 7B relates to drives i believe.
Before i flashed the bios I had updated the USB 3.0 drivers and gotten an error message. I wonder if this problem is related too incorrectly installed drivers for that.....or 2 pairs of drivers existing, if thats the case how do i go to fix that?

 

[invaderneal]

Best answer selected by invaderneal.

 

[invaderneal]

Your problem is the bios setting for your HDD,
It needs to be the same as when windows was installed.
Normally it should be ahci, But a lot of times with a bios flash it will revert back to default which may be ide. OR VISA VERSA

What you need to do is go into bios, see what it is set to:
then
set to optimized defaults, save, reboot back to BIOS.
- Then Change it and see if you can now boot back to windows. ie if you find it set to ide, chage it to ahci, or if ahci, set to ide.

It is always a good Idea to go thru your bios and see what things are set to

This was it!!
Thanks so much.

I had 2 problems.
1. It was set to IDE not ACHI Mode
2. Boot order was ALL screwed up, with a flash drive at top, then secondary HD, then OS harddrive.

Thanks everyone for your help!


PS- Updating my bios to the newest version that had to fix to USB 3.0 DID fix my slow transfer rates btw.

I went from 14 MB/s cap to around 40-80 MB/s on that flash drive.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Congrats!

 

[David Dutton]

Your problem is the bios setting for your HDD,
It needs to be the same as when windows was installed.
Normally it should be ahci, But a lot of times with a bios flash it will revert back to default which may be ide. OR VISA VERSA

What you need to do is go into bios, see what it is set to:
then
set to optimized defaults, save, reboot back to BIOS.
- Then Change it and see if you can now boot back to windows. ie if you find it set to ide, chage it to ahci, or if ahci, set to ide.

It is always a good Idea to go thru your bios and see what things are set to

This was it!!
Thanks so much.

I had 2 problems.
1. It was set to IDE not ACHI Mode
2. Boot order was ALL screwed up, with a flash drive at top, then secondary HD, then OS harddrive.

Thanks everyone for your help!


PS- Updating my bios to the newest version that had to fix to USB 3.0 DID fix my slow transfer rates btw.

I went from 14 MB/s cap to around 40-80 MB/s on that flash drive.

Those are still REALLY slow xfer rates from a USB 3.0 Thumb drive.

It's possible the USB thumb drive could have VERY slow memory on it.. but 40-60MB/sec is more like USB 2.0 speeds (80 going faster than USB 2)....USB 2.0 is 480Mbit/sec and that's 60MB/sec - not taking in account for overhead, etc.

USB 3.0 is 3Gbits/sec or 384MB/sec.. without considering overhead... about 300-320MB is about the max IMO considering overhead

I have a 32GB flash drive that I used as a ReadyBoost drive for Win 8.1 as I don't have any SSDs. It's does a nice, whopping 200MB/sec write and read operations (especially on a large file). So it makes a FANTASTIC cache for my system. Windows will use Readyboost as long as it detects at least 1 drive will benefit from it (older version of windows only compared it to the boot drive).

I also have a 16TB Raid 5, UBS 3.0 backup array. It has 5x4TB SATA3 drives in it... Granted Sata 3 is Gbits/sec... physical HDs come no where near that.. but with FIVE of them in raid 5, I EASILY hit the 3Gb/sec USB 3.0 xfter cap.... rates as each drive is capable of about 75-100MB/sec under Raid 5 (even 75*5 exceeds the USB bandwidth)... That's faster than most people's INTERNAL Sata configurations... but I use it for fast back up.. I COULD use it for fast drive access.. but with my storage needs , I NEED to back up FAST....

My C: Drive is 3 750GB Sata 2 drives, that boots Windows and any programs that don't require speed... it also houses my documents and pictures.This runs as Raid 5.. This way if a drive fails, I can hot swap it with no data loss.

My D: Drive is 2 4TB Sata 3 Drives in a Raid 0... they usually cap out at about 250MB or so total speed. My games, and anythings that demands speed is on this drive. It has no data redundancy, so nightly backups happen.

My E: Drive is the 32GB RB drive I spoke about

My F: Drive is the USB 3.0 External Raid box.


Why so much backup space compared to my storage space? so I can have backup history

Back to your issue: Either you have a SLOW Usb 3 thumb drive, are in need of a USB 3.0 controller driver upgrade, and/or a general chipset drive upgrade as well. I had SLOW USB 3.0 speeds.. and I had to update BOTH the chipset AND the usb controller/root hub drivers to fix my speed issues.