USB 2.0 - "High-Speed" Transfer Rate?

So I have my new laptop and it's SATA. The drive from my old laptop is PATA. I have all this data to transfer to my new system... lots of data. I just transferred ~15GB of media over to the new drive through the USB port and the transfer rate never broke 4 MB/s (according to Vista)... Most of the (long) time I had to wait, it was actually transferring at < 2 MB/ps. I am aware that USB 2.0 can transfer at up to 40MB/s in high-speed mode if the USB 2.0 hardware is compliant with USB 2.0 high-speed, which the hardware that I have here seems to support, so I am not sure if this is a limitation I am seeing with windows, or drive speed, false advertising, or just some setting I missed or something; Is it posible to get a faster transfer rate with my current hardware? Has anyone achieved a high-speed transfer rate with an external HDD (> 12 MB/s) ?

Current config:

Laptop: Lenovo T61p
OS: Vista
External HDD Enclosure: Dynex "high-speed" USB 2.0 Eclosure, Model DX-HDEN20
Source (External PATA) HDD: Seagate Momentus - 160GB - 5400RPM
Destination (Internal SATA) HDD: Hitachi Travelstar - 200GB - 7200RPM
Mini-USB Cable: Just in case it proves relevant, I am using a cable that came with my (Canon SD400) camera, since I can't find the cable that came with the drive. Would the cable make a difference anyway?
Other Observations: Looking within the device manager in Vista, I can see that the Belkin High-Speed USB Transfer Cable I was trying out is listed under the Advanced tab of "Intel(R) ICH8 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller", while the external HDD is not - in fact, the external HDD isn't listed on the advanced tab of any of the available USB Host Controllers; However, when I reviewed the properties of each "USB Root Hub" deviced listed, the external HDD is listed on the Power tab of the same "USB Root Hub" device as the transfer cable.

 

The theoretical highest speed of usb is 48MBps but it never actually goes that fast. 2-4 is kinda slow though, I'd expect more like 8 in general use but then in your situation there may be constraints like the OS and the hard disks.

 

You can run HDTach or HDTune to determine if the external is working correctly. If it is maybe your files are seriously fragmented.

 

I can try those programs, but I'm fairly certain it is not the drive because when I install that drive back into my old laptop and I use the high speed USB transfer cable to transfer data to transfer the data instead, the rate bursts up to 25 Mbs and seems to average about 18.5, so that is the method I am using to transfer my files now.

Still curious about this though. So if anyone can explain it or resolve it let me know. If I check it with HDTune then I will post the results.

 

I figured it would show a USB problem, because if it is the USB the drive will not read at full speed. That was my thought, not testing HDD per se but I guess you already know it is the USB.

 

When you pay for 8mb Comcast broadband internet, do you ever see 8mb speeds? more like 800kb....that's the problem with all of this speed tests...i consider it false advertising

 

Well I sent an email to Dynex to see what they say. We'll see I guess.

 

Dynex is Bestbuy's in-house crappy brand. I would buy Rocketfish, Bestbuy's not as crappy brand.

 

Is the external HDD's policy set to "Optimise for performance" or "Optimise for quick removal" (you can see the policy under the HDD properties in Device Manager).

Optimise for quick removal means that receipt of each file has to be acknowledged before the next one is sent. Optimise for performance pushes the data through as fast as the receiving end can swallow it.

John

 

Yep, I would definitely check this. My USB drive switched from "performance" to "quick removal" when I undocked and then reconnected it. It was the first time I noticed that.............

 

Vista has certain performace problems handling external devices (check KB936824, KB938979 and other HF from MS...), but 2-4MB/s is too slow. What you are getting on your old laptop 18-20MB/s is normal, I get the same on XP with my IFL90. The "optimize for performance" switch is VERY important like John said. If you have FireWire output on your external drive you should try, it's better than usb2 for massive transfers.
good luck.

 

Good idea - that's probably it. I'll let you know after I ge the chance to test this out!

 

Ok this is a OS problem. I got a 500GB ex hard drive
I try to copy 10GB to it from my internal HD windows shows me more than 2 hours
I do this from Linux, it takes hardly 9-10 minutes