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    Z2: USB 3.0 Adventures

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by rmcx, Jan 15, 2012.

  1. rmcx

    rmcx Notebook Evangelist

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    I was interested in finding out if I could boot and recover using a portable disk drive/USB key via USB 3.0.

    The answer is yes, at least for external drives. It appears that the Z2 motherboard will automatically recognize and boot using external 3.0 devices.

    I'm using a Seagate GoFlex Slim drive (USB2.0/USB3.0/320GB/7200RPM) and the differences between booting from the 2.0 port versus the 3.0 port are quite noticeable.

    The initial file load when booting from a Windows Recovery configuration runs about 2-3 times faster using the 3.0 port. (I haven't bothered to time the entire image restore process yet, but will sometime in the future.)
     
  2. rrm998

    rrm998 Notebook Consultant

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    ^^^
    That's good to know.
     
  3. phoebusvh

    phoebusvh Notebook Consultant

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    So if my Z2 crash, I can theoretically boot from an external drive and restore the system (assuming i delete the backup partition coming with the laptop)?
     
  4. rmcx

    rmcx Notebook Evangelist

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    Yes. Either USB 2 or 3.