L701X USB 3.0 External HD does not go at 3.0 speed

I just got a USB 3.0 external hard drive so I could finally utilize my USB 3.0 ports. The drive connects fine but when transferring files to it, it goes at the same speed as my 5+ year old USB 2.0 hard drive. The average transfer rate is about 30 megabytes/second. The USB 3.0 monitor is running, nusb30mon.exe *32. I updated the USB 3.0 Host Controller and Root Hub drivers with Renesas 2.0.34.0. The device manager shows them working properly. It is plugged into the USB 3.0 ports that have the "SS" next to them. I even changed the caching algorithm to "Optimize for Performance" and it didn't make a bit of difference in the speed. I updated the BIOS to A06 I believe.

I expected trumpets to sound or a burst of light to shine from the icon tray when I plugged in the USB 3.0 HD, but it reacted the same as when I plug in a 2.0 device. Anything I'm missing here? Thanks!

 

I'm transferring some more files to the external HD and now it's going at an average of 65 MB/s. Does that sound right?

 

The top speed of your transfer will ultimately depend on your external hard drive's max read/write speeds (and possibly your internal HDD if it is slower). It is the bottleneck in your transfer path from a to b. 65MB/s is close but a little short of what a normal WD Caviar 7200RPM drive will do (~70-90MB/s depending on the drive).

What type of External HDD, External Enclosure, and internal HDD do you have?

 

External = Fantom Drives G-Force3 2TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive GF3B2000U32 Newegg.com - Fantom Drives G-Force3 2TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive GF3B2000U32

Internal = Samsung HM640JJ, the 640 GB hard drive that came with the laptop.

Both are 7200RPM drives. Perhaps I got the wrong external drive? I noticed Fantom has other USB 3.0 drives of the same size but different part numbers and prices Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Hard Drives, External Hard Drives, FANTOM DRIVES, 1TB and higher, 2TB

I transferred more files (movies) and it peaked at 115 MB/s in the beginning then dropped to around 70 MB/s after 30 seconds or so.

Thanks for your help!

 

If you're transfering lots of little files scattered over the disk then the speeds will go down, only if the read head can sit in on place most of the time will you get the 90 or so MB/s you're expecting (probably the reason the videos went quickly). It also depends where the data is on the disk. If it's near the spindle then you can only really expect about half the rated speed.

 

I think your speeds are typical of what to expect from your drive (100-70mb/s)

Dell replaced my motherboard, and 2 daughterboards because of my USB 3.0 port issues, so now I have working USB 3.0 ports. Im using an Iomega portable 500 gig USB 3.0 HDD and it usually starts transferring at 90mb and then slows down to 40 mbs- but there is only 1 gig left on the Drive and its really fragmented.

I'm just glad my ports are working again cause Im always transferring movies to friends at work.

Costco is going to sell the Seagate 1.5 Terabyte USB 3.0 portable HDD on June 9, for $109. so I'll probably pick that one up.

Heres a Portable USB 3.0 Harddrive Showdown that I came across...

USB 3.0 Hard Drive Shootout

 

Sounds like mine is working normally then. For large movie files it will go at about 70MB/s.

Is there a way to see if the computer recognizes the device as 2.0 or 3.0, other than going by the transfer speeds? If I plug it into one of the 2.0 ports then it indeed pops up the icon that says it can perform faster if I plug it into a 3.0 port.