How to Properly Use USB 3.0?

I was transferring a large amount (37.7 GB) of stuff from my laptop to my external hard drive, I noticed that the rate of transfer was averaging about 25.0 MB/sec, is this normal for USB 3.0? Is it possible that the external hard drive being USB 2.0 is actually slowing down the rates. At first, very momentarily, the rate of speed jumped to 46.1 MB/sec, this was what the transfer started off with for a second and then trickled down rather quickly to 25.3 MB/sec, reaching as fast as 29.5 MB/sec and as slow as 21.1 MB/sec

I have an express card installed on my laptop, the 54mm dual USB 3.0 Express Card, with the proper drivers installed. Furthermore, I was also able to acquire a USB 3.0 w/backwards compatibility to USB 1.0/1.1/2.0 extending cable. Am I doing this wrong?

 

well, if the external hdd is usb2, what do you expect? magic?

 

Good point, I don't know, I thought that's why I bought the cable, but perhaps, I'll have to purchase a USB 3.0 External Drive.

 

not just perhaps, i guess.

 

your expresscard slot could also be the limitation, or the source hard drive, or the laptop chipset, etc, etc.

USB3 (or esata, or thunderchicken, or whatever) is hardly a magic bullet.

To take advantage of a 'fast' interface, the entire system has to up up to the job, not just one part.

 

Did you update all your drivers/service packs. That might help a bit. But yeah you will need a USB 3.0 external to really reap the benefits.

 

Yeah, I did, but I thought I may have forgotten something important, well, traditionally all of my USB ports that came w/my laptop were USB 1.1 and not 2.0 and at best, I was able to get under 8 MB/sec of data transfer with them. So even going up to another 15 MB/sec makes all the difference in the world. Perhaps when I get a 3.0 External, I'll be able to exercise those speeds.

I see...I bought this one, specifically, so would you know about limitations that exist?

 

I have a built-in USB 3.0 in my new laptop and a USB 3.0 hard drive and I can transfer up to 100MB/s.

Everything in the system needs to be USB 3.0 compliant. You will need a USB 3.0 cable, USB 3.0 external hard drive, USB 3.0 connection in the PC to reach maximum speeds. I thought ExpressCards were designed with same throughput as USB 2.0 speeds?

 

I don't think you will be running into any limitations caused by a expresscard slot (rated bandwidth at 2.5Gbit/s), because even the USB 3.0 hdd won't be able to work up to the total rated speed of USB 3.0 (like said, expect ~100MB/s transfer speeds)

It is just the usb 2.0 interface on your HDD/ cable that is bottle necking you (plain and simple)

 

If one wants to take advantage of eSata slot speeds (which should be faster than USB2), then your HDD must be on an external eSata enclosure/cable.

If you want to take advantage of USB3 speeds, then you have to have USB3 on your laptop, external hdd and the cable itself (otherwise you run into bottlenecks).

 

Heres mine with a express card and a 3.0 enclosure

Its wierd cuz my writes are faster than my reads


On a side note does anyone else with these express card 3.0 adapters feel how HOT they get during transfer!

I mean WOW.I figured it would get warm but it gets so hot you cant touch it afterwards!

 

Expresscard runs through a x1 PCI-Express conection to the chipset. x1 PCI-Express specification allows for a maximum theoretical data throughput of 2.5 Gbit/s.
That is 312.5 MB/s (8bits in a byte).
Unless you are using an extremely fast SSD the expresscard protocol is not going to be a limiting factor as far as data throughput goes.

+1

If you want to be getting any faster than 480Mbit/s throughput, then the external drive must be USB 3.0 as must the USB port on the laptop and the USB Cable.

 

Lol...yeah I figured, it was USB 2.0 speeds because when I use regular USB speeds, I get close to nothing per second (3.5 MB/s).

Yeah, I just ordered a USB 3.0 2TB External HDD, hopefully I can get faster movements and etc. I am planning on upgrading to a SSD, most probably a SATA II, but just waiting on them to get bigger in size and cheaper in money.