Poor USB 3.0 performance on Windows 10

MarcLister · 27 Mar 2016 at 14:34

I have a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK motherboard and I'm running Windows 10. I'm finding that the performance of USB 3.0 transfers to be awfully slow. The maximum I have seen is about 17MB/sec. I should point out that this is using the front USB 3.0 sockets on my Corsair 750D case and not the ports on the back of the motherboard itself. Would this make a huge difference? If it does I suppose I'd have to buy some USB 3.0 extension cables so that I can plug stuff in from my desk without having to mess around at the back of my PC.

The only x64 USB 3.0 drivers offered by Gigabyte for my motherboard are for Windows 8; there's nothing for Windows 8.1 or 10. I have downloaded the drivers for Windows 7 and 8 but my PC refuses to accept them as newer than the current drivers. There are no USB 3.0 drivers for Windows 10 x64 on the Intel site that I have found to be compatible with my PC.

My work PC runs Windows 7 x64 and its USB 3.0 performance is several times better than my home W10 PC! Looking in my Device Manager there is a single USB 3.0 entry, "Intel (R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 1.0 (Microsoft)". The driver provider is Microsoft and the driver date and version are 29/10/2015 and 10.0.10586.0 respectively.

Am I just stuck in that I need to wait for Windows 10 x64 USB 3.0 drivers to be developed and released or is there something I can to to speed things up?

Orcvader · 27 Mar 2016 at 14:39

Try see what the transfer speeds are on the back, just to rule out it's not the USB device you're using that's having issues.

What exactly is the USB device? If it's a flash drive, have you checked the read/write speeds?

MarcLister · 27 Mar 2016 at 14:47

Orcvader said:
Try see what the transfer speeds are on the back, just to rule out it's not the USB device you're using that's having issues.

What exactly is the USB device? If it's a flash drive, have you checked the read/write speeds?

Hey Orcvader. It is the 64GB version of this http://support.kingston.com/en/support/technical/products?model=DTSE9G2#

Having just read the specs it seems that the device is limited to 15MB/sec speeds when writing. I just copied a file off it and it was hitting 100MB/sec so I think it looks like the device is quite limited in its write speeds compared to its read speeds.

marc2003 · 27 Mar 2016 at 14:51

MarcLister said:
Am I just stuck in that I need to wait for Windows 10 x64 USB 3.0 drivers to be developed and released or is there something I can to to speed things up?

Nope. Intel only provide USB3 drivers for 7. The ones built into 8/8.1/10 are already the best you can get.

edit: Just seen your new post. That sucks...

Even my Sandisk USB3 drive connected via USB2 front ports in the case (too cheap for USB3) has 40MB/s write speeds.

MadMatty · 28 Mar 2016 at 10:49

You can try some modded drivers for the Intel usb in win 8/10. I use them myself in windows8 without issue. With the default Microsoft drivers I would sometimes find that the usb3 ports would stay in usb2 mode and not give me full performance.

http://www.win-raid.com/t834f25-USB-Drivers-original-and-modded.html

chaparral · 28 Mar 2016 at 11:48

MarcLister said:
Hey Orcvader. It is the 64GB version of this http://support.kingston.com/en/support/technical/products?model=DTSE9G2#

Having just read the specs it seems that the device is limited to 15MB/sec speeds when writing. I just copied a file off it and it was hitting 100MB/sec so I think it looks like the device is quite limited in its write speeds compared to its read speeds.

They class it as a USB 3.0 Memory stick and it only supports up to 15MB write speeds LOL

I love what they say

MarcLister · 28 Mar 2016 at 12:12

marc2003 said:
Nope. Intel only provide USB3 drivers for 7. The ones built into 8/8.1/10 are already the best you can get.

Ah. Will Intel ever provide USB 3.0 drivers for W10?

marc2003 said:
edit: Just seen your new post. That sucks... Even my Sandisk USB3 drive connected via USB2 front ports in the case (too cheap for USB3) has 40MB/s write speeds.

Yeah, does suck.

MadMatty said:
You can try some modded drivers for the Intel usb in win 8/10. I use them myself in windows8 without issue. With the default Microsoft drivers I would sometimes find that the usb3 ports would stay in usb2 mode and not give me full performance.

http://www.win-raid.com/t834f25-USB-Drivers-original-and-modded.html

Cheers. Will give them a go.

chaparral said:
They class it as a USB 3.0 Memory stick and it only supports up to 15MB write speeds LOL

I love what they say

Yes. It is quite amusing. I was waiting for one or two shops to get the 128GB version in stock. Obviously I'll not bother with that. The 15MB/sec for the Kingston USB 3.0 drive isn't that much faster than what USB 2.0 can do I reckon.

marc2003 · 28 Mar 2016 at 12:47

MadMatty said:
You can try some modded drivers for the Intel usb in win 8/10. I use them myself in windows8 without issue. With the default Microsoft drivers I would sometimes find that the usb3 ports would stay in usb2 mode and not give me full performance.

http://www.win-raid.com/t834f25-USB-Drivers-original-and-modded.html

Must admit, I wasn't aware of this but this clearly isn't a usb controller issue for the OP!

chaparral · 28 Mar 2016 at 13:12

MarcLister said:
The 15MB/sec for the Kingston USB 3.0 drive isn't that much faster than what USB 2.0 can do I reckon.

USB 2.0 specs are up to about 35mb/s....

PaulM · 28 Mar 2016 at 16:09

The default Windows 10 USB 3.0 drivers paired with a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK motherboard give me ~250MB/s with an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure. Definitely get a better stick

MarcLister · 28 Mar 2016 at 16:23

chaparral said:
USB 2.0 specs are up to about 35mb/s....

Wow. So my supposed USB 3.0 pen drive is barely reaching 50% of USB 2.0 speeds!!

PaulM said:
The default Windows 10 USB 3.0 drivers paired with a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK motherboard give me ~250MB/s with an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure. Definitely get a better stick

Yeah yeah!

Seeing as you have the same motherboard as me perhaps you could tell what, if any, USB 3.0 pen drives you have? I'd have thought an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure would be pretty fast. Faster perhaps than a USB 3.0 pen drive? The Corsair pen drives look decent but I think they have a price to match their speeds!

I just tried copying a file from my PC to another make of USB 3.0 pen drive. It kept phasing between 33MB and 40MB so averaged at around 36/37MB which, although perhaps not brilliant, is still twice as fast as my Kingston.

marc2003 · 28 Mar 2016 at 16:44

A Sandisk Ultra 16GB USB3.0 costs 7 quid on the high street and does 95MB/s read and 50MB/s write for me. It does slow down if you start dealing with smaller files though.

MarcLister · 28 Mar 2016 at 17:51

marc2003 said:
A Sandisk Ultra 16GB USB3.0 costs 7 quid on the high street and does 95MB/s read and 50MB/s write for me. It does slow down if you start dealing with smaller files though.

Cheers. I find most pen drives struggle when faced with a lot of small files.

I did have one of these pen drives but the loop bit at the end broke which is why I went for pen drives like the Kingston, made of metal and likely to be a bit sturdier. I also find pen drives with retractable connectors to be a flipping pain when I have to plug them into extremely tight USB sockets!

I like the look of these pen drives, also from Sandisk. If that little slot at the bottom is able to let me tie a loop onto it I'll get some of those and some more Lego keyrings.

PaulM · 28 Mar 2016 at 18:43

MarcLister said:
Seeing as you have the same motherboard as me perhaps you could tell what, if any, USB 3.0 pen drives you have? I'd have thought an SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure would be pretty fast. Faster perhaps than a USB 3.0 pen drive? The Corsair pen drives look decent but I think they have a price to match their speeds!

Due to having the external SSD I don't use pen drives often but the one pen drive I do have (SanDisk Ultra 32 GB) maxes out at around 40MB/s write, 130MB/s read (sequential) which isn't too bad.

MadMatty · 28 Mar 2016 at 19:08

My fastest usb pen drive is a Sandisk Extreme 32gb. I have a couple of these as they are cheaper then you would expect them to be. Windows will report approximately 190mb/s read and 90mb/s write when transferring large files. I will attach an atto benchmark image in case of interest.

I have an external usb3 Samsung 1tb drive and it only gets around 90mb/s

marc2003 · 28 Mar 2016 at 19:30

I think I'll have to grab myself an extreme. I did wonder if they were worth the extra money and it looks like they are.

Danny75 · 29 Mar 2016 at 20:21

Test with a Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB pen drive on Windows 10 Pro (default drivers), USB 3.0 port. Averaging 50+ MB/s writes and 150MB/s reads, except with tiny files.

Another thing I noticed was it transferred a 3.5GB movie file to an SSD in slightly under 2 seconds, at 2.2GB/s. Maybe this is normal between flash-to-flash devices? Or with large files like that?

Rensin · 30 Mar 2016 at 14:53

marc2003 said:
I think I'll have to grab myself an extreme. I did wonder if they were worth the extra money and it looks like they are.

certainly are worth the money mate, had the same problem and bought several different pen drives whilst testing and the Extreme was the best with transfering larger files.