What's my limiting factor here?

ProfoundGlee

Honorable
Feb 5, 2013
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I have a samsung QX411-W01. Stock HDD.

I bought an Adata C103 USB 3.0 16GB flash drive.

Why are my transfer speeds only around 10MB/s according to windows's standard file transfer window. (I assume that is byte, not bit)

Do you think my HDD can only put out 10MB/s? (it is only 5400rpm) Do you think there is something in the pipe to the flash drive? Or, do you think that the flash drive is the limiting factor here? Is there a test that I can do to find out?

I was hoping for about 3 times this in speed, so I was a little disappointed when I found my transfer speed was so slow for 1 to 10gb files. This is my only USB3.0 device and I wasn't expecting like 600mB/s but at least 50.

(Before you ask, yer, I am using the 3.0 port)
 
Solution
there are some very fast usb3 drives available on the market. kingston had an example of their hyperx predator at one of the recent shows and claimed it did 240mb/s read with 160mb/s write. the thing is like an SSD on a stick! The cheap ones are cheap because they are slow and sometimies they are just old flash mated to a usb3 controller so they still wont work faster than the usb2 speeds they came from.

Storage devices will most certainly be the slowest component of any computer for a long long time to come. If they could be made as fast as the cpu then we wouldn't need ram.

ProfoundGlee

Honorable
Feb 5, 2013
22
0
10,520


90MB/s or so. lol Wow, I feel so dumb, I should have thought to look for that. If you have time, I have multiple questions for you: why is the write speed so slow compared to read? Do you think I will ever have to worry about my limiting speed being something other than the hard drive or flash drive? (Within reason and assuming I keep my stock HDD) At what speeds do people's HDDs start becoming the issue more than the drive? (assuming modern HDDs)

I am really glad that my first foray into USB 3.0 was a 13 dollar flash drive, rather than a larger model.
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
there are some very fast usb3 drives available on the market. kingston had an example of their hyperx predator at one of the recent shows and claimed it did 240mb/s read with 160mb/s write. the thing is like an SSD on a stick! The cheap ones are cheap because they are slow and sometimies they are just old flash mated to a usb3 controller so they still wont work faster than the usb2 speeds they came from.

Storage devices will most certainly be the slowest component of any computer for a long long time to come. If they could be made as fast as the cpu then we wouldn't need ram.
 
Solution