USB 3.0

[valourant]

Well im using USB 3.0 between a USB 3.0 hard drive and another USB 3.0 hard drive, the speed is 50mb/s to 70mb/s which is still slow because it's only reaching the potential speed of USB2.0.

USB 3.0 can achieve up to 600mb/s. So i would have expected that between two USB 3.0 drives, it would reach 100 at least.

My hard drive in my PC is 10,000 RPM, WD, so it transfers 11 gigs, in 11 minutes. And between the two USB 3.0 drives, it takes 4 minutes. And my WDigital drive is SATA.. so now the USB 3.0 drives transfer faster to each other, than a 10,000 rpm sata does to usb 3.0?

Also, my external sata hard drive, was way faster than both these USB 3.0's combined. How come to speed limit on mechanical devices doesn't apply to my esata drive?

Makes no sense.

 

[Dereck47]

Here's a good article on the subject: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3-uas-turbo,3215-2.html

 

[valourant]

The article starts with 150MB/s and im not even hitting that, so there is obviously an issue. I'm only getting between 50 and 70 MB/S. Usually 50 (as 70 is rare) also i would expect a similar transfer rate all the time, why does it spike to 70 rarely?

50MB/S is indicative of USB 2.0 which means if USB 3.0 is broken somehow my PC is defaulting to 2.0? since it's backwards compatible.

I would be damn happy with 100MB/S or even the 150MB/S that the article starts off saying people think is slow. 150 is actually what i would expect.

As well my SATA external drive is noticeably much faster.. and its 7200 RPM drive. Mechanical limitations are the same as the USB drives, i would expect. So why is SATA preforming faster than USB 3.0? They should be equal or USB slightly better. Or something, whats the difference in the data being sent through SATA?

Nice article though ( i read it, it's very interesting, i understand most of it, and skimmed one or two parts) I'll also try the USB boost program. However i would appreciate it if someone can help me to make sure the USB 3.0 i have is working properly? Is there a program that can test my USB 3.0 hardware off the motherboard. I'm sure the drives themselves are fine. And the driver is updated and declares it has no problems. Last update on the driver was in 2010.

Yeah i figured it's partially a driver issue, since the last update was in 2010. Graphic cards get driver updates every month. But still im sure everyone who reads my post and has USB 3.0 is getting faster than 50MB/S all hardware and software limitations aside. =/ But they have a nice 13$ hardware solution to use in conjunction with some software.

 

[Pyree]

What are the spec of all of the HD? What are they connected to? The speed you measure is from which HDD to which HDD? Are they large continuous file or many small files? Write cache on for USB drives?

 

[valourant]

Well i installed USB 3.0 Boost from ASUS. And then restarted the computer. After i switched both USB3.0 drives to TURBO. One drive didn't appear anymore, and the other drive couldn't be accessed. So i restarted the computer. Then both drives could easily be accessed with data there, and they are on TURBO now.

So that 11 GIG song folder. (many 8mb files) Took 5 minutes on the WD drive. And much less time on the Verbatim drive. (this is from internal PC to external drives)

The WD passport drive, started at 30MB/S and reached 40MB/S
The Verbatim Hdrive started at 190MB/S (which is a first) and averaged out at about 60 MB/S, still under achieving in my opinion.

The reason i think it's a motherboard issue is because earlier i only had ONE usb 3.0 drive, and it was the Verbatim, i just got the WD drive, and put it in my second USB 3.0 Port, and the computer consistently gave me the message, that the device can preform faster if connected to A super speed USB 3.0 port. (But it already was connected to USB 3.0) However this message disappeared now. And on occasion both drives might not appear in My computer so i would need to restart - (like the situation above when switching to Turbo.)

I'll try and find the information you requested.

Motherboard - Asus Crosshair IV Extreme
Processor - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Procesor 3.31 GHz
Ram 8.00 GB
64 bit Operating System Windows 7 SP1
In my computer Hard Drive is Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0GB/s

The External Hard drives are
Verbatim It's a 3.0 USB, and 1 TB drive.

And a My Passport Essential SE 1TB, Western Digital, USB 3.0

Not sure where to see Cache info. And between the Verbatim and WD passport i get 50MB/s to 70MB/s but almost always 50. Both are USB 3.0 and connected to USB 3.0 port.

 

[Pyree]

You check the cache for USB 3.0 drive by right click on it> properties

On the hardware tab, click on you external HDD and click change settings> policies> better performance> ok

 

[valourant]

Thanks that makes a noticeable difference the WD passport started at 90, and leveled out at 60mb/s now. Better than the 40 it was getting.

I'm sure the verbatim drive is faster.

Edit
Data transfer froze on the Verbatim.. or the bar and speed stopped moving. Even deleting the impartial transfer is freezing.

Error 0x8007045D the request could not be preformed because of an I/O device error.

Now the My Passport WD won't even enter the drive, not recognized.

And now C: drive displays no usage info.. which never happened before.

LOL and now all three drives show.. but they are slow. This PC/drives are weird.. Should I uninstall USB 3.0 Boost?

Is there anything else anyone can think of from my posts? If the speeds seem normal, let me know, if not i'd appreciate any other advice, or tests or things i can try. Thanks for the help.

 

[valourant]

Won't even let me switch back to Quick removal without freezing for 3 minutes, but finally was able to switch it back.

Sigh verbatim drive wont switch back to quick removal, and now My Computer doesn't even open up. Or anything.. probably it will work after a restart. But this whole drive computer crap is messed. You think getting the drive to work with windows 7 would have been their first priority.. and yet drivers not updated since 2010, lack of USB transfer rate, even though the software and technology exists for it..

Now i got the message Server execution failed.

But all the My computers i clicked on opened up at once..

EDIT

Both drives still unresponsive, after restart, Verbatim won't appear, and WD passport is slow, and crashes explorer. I guess i'll uninstall USB 3.0 boost.

EDIT 2

So the drives work better with USB 3.0 Boost gone (but back to being slow) they are back on Renesas drivers. I'll try the better performance cache thing now and see if it crashes the drives still under the original drivers.

 

[bokeypunk]

I had these same hardware as you and I believe the motherboard is definitely the issue. The USB 3.0 ports would get awesome speeds at first but as the months passed it gradually slowed down. Then about 4 months ago the data transfers would start lagging to the point where it was moving at a speed of 10 bytes a second. Eventually the motherboard died. I switched to a GIGABYTE brand board and it has been smooth sailing ever since.