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    Is there something wrong with my USB 3.0 external dock? Or is the drive a piece of crap?

    Discussion in 'Accessories' started by moviemarketing, Jul 17, 2010.

  1. moviemarketing

    moviemarketing Milk Drinker

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    I have 3.0 ports on my laptop and internal SSD. With a Western Digital WD10EACS 7200RPM external drive in the 3.0 dock, I get 50-60MB/s transfer rate (transfering a few large ISO files 10GB total) - reading from external drive, writing to laptop internal SSD). When transferring the same file, reading from laptop, writing to external drive on the 3.0 dock, I get 130-160MB/sec.


    When I use a Western Digital MyBook 3.0 (no idea how many RPMS but I think it is 7200), transferring the same 10GB, the speed is 250-300MB/s (read from MyBook, write to laptop) and 130-160MB/s (read from laptop, write to MyBook)

    So it seems that the WD10EACS 7200RPM external drive in the 3.0 dock is reading and writing about half the speed of the MyBook.

    Could this be the maximum speed of the drive? (60MB/s read and 160MB/sec write)? Or is it possible that this USB 3.0 dock is crap? Or is the drive in need of some defragging perhaps?

    Here are the crystaldiskmark scores:
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64
    Western Digital WD10EACS in USB 3.0 external dock

    Sequential Read : 56.530 MB/s
    Sequential Write : 56.867 MB/s
    Random Read 512KB : 28.421 MB/s
    Random Write 512KB : 39.164 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.424 MB/s [ 103.5 IOPS]
    Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.237 MB/s [ 302.0 IOPS]
    Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.541 MB/s [ 132.1 IOPS]
    Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.253 MB/s [ 305.9 IOPS]

    Test : 1000 MB [I: 69.6% (641.6/922.4 GB)] (x5)
    Date : 2010/07/17 3:38:41
    OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

    ---------
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64
    Western Digital MyBook 3.0

    Sequential Read : 131.302 MB/s
    Sequential Write : 129.662 MB/s
    Random Read 512KB : 51.476 MB/s
    Random Write 512KB : 75.305 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.747 MB/s [ 182.4 IOPS]
    Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.440 MB/s [ 351.6 IOPS]
    Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.595 MB/s [ 145.3 IOPS]
    Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.367 MB/s [ 333.8 IOPS]

    Test : 1000 MB [G: 11.1% (103.8/931.5 GB)] (x5)
    Date : 2010/07/17 3:45:20
    OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
     
    moviemarketing, Jul 17, 2010
    #1
  2. Krane

    Krane Notebook Prophet

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    Your problem sounds like a lot of the review I've read from the tests done on similar components. A lot of them don't live up to their potential, and for the most part, there are few speculations ever made as to why.

    Unfortunately, I don't read too much about the SSDs since it's unlikely I'll be getting one anytime soon. But as far as the HDDs are concerned, some 7200RPM drives can be no better than a 5400RPM (Seagate GoFlex portable HD) and nobody really explains why.

    At least now you know some of the numbers don't always mean much.
     
    Krane, Jul 17, 2010
    #2