Thread: usb 3.0 slow transfer rates

Hello i just got my a usb 3 external HD and the transfer rate are pretty disappointing..



should be better right?

List of device bit rates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

USB Hi-Speed (USB 2.0) 480 Mbit/s 60 MB/s

USB Super Speed (USB 3.0) 5 Gbit/s 625 MB/s

You have an USB 3.0 connector on your computer? The problem is that you won't get max speed of USB 3.0 as HDDs speeds are slower that that... but still this is pretty slow if you have all right conected on USB 3.0 and your cable is not too long.

also you can try this http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php <- great program that improves your transfer speeds.

For an external drive.. your speeds sound about right to me. If you have an especially fast drive, SSD RAID array or install the drive internally you might break 100 MB/s. But the bottom line, short answer is that the big marketing machine that told you that USB 3.0 was going to be insanely fast.. lied to you.

Let's look at this closer.. USB 3.0 might be theoretically capable of 5.0 Mbit or whatever their claim was. Under ideal conditions.. with a very expensive, internal SSD RAID disk array, 0% fragmentation, using a very fast, quad core workstation during a full moon if you hold it upside down. Or something like that. But the real world truth is that you are going to be limited by the slowest bottleneck in the pipeline.

So if the USB interface is capable of 5.0 Mb/s (625 MB/s), but your drive can only sustain 100 MB/s (before overhead), then there is no way that your speed will exceed ~ 70 - 80 MB/s. You might see faster speeds with SSD drives, RAID arrays, etc. But basically, the marketing guys were being disingenuous and knew that you would see a fraction of the speed claim that they printed on the box.

It's been this way for a long time. When USB 2.0 came out, all of the ad copy claimed 480 Mb/s capability. But most people saw speeds closer to 10 - 15 MB/s. Only after USB 2.0 had been out about six years, have typical, real world 2.0 speeds moved into the 40 MB/s range. Bottom line, after you discard the marketing hype.. your measured speeds sound about right.

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thx for made it so clear..

A chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Or so to speak. :P