USB 3.0 drive only transferring at 30MB/Second?

Donkeyfumbler · 28 Jul 2011 at 21:47

Just got a new motherboard with two USB 3.0 ports on it and am currently transferring about 180gb of data to a WD External USB3.0 My Passport drive. Thing is, it is only currently transferring at approx 30MB/Second, which is USB2 speeds as far as I am aware.

Everything seems to be working OK. I didn't get a prompt about it being able to connect quicker if I plug it into a USB3 port as some people seem to have had in this same position.

How can I check if it is being recognised as a USB3 drive and is there anything else I need to look at to try and find out why it is so slow?

DragonQ · 28 Jul 2011 at 21:51

Passport drives are USB-powered, right? Those drives are 2.5" and usually 5400 rpm so they wouldn't be as fast as a desktop HDD even with USB 3.0.

It does seem a bit slow though, should probably be around 50 MB/s. Do you have the correct motherboard chipset drivers? They're probably required to get USB 3.0 working properly.

Donkeyfumbler · 28 Jul 2011 at 21:52

OK, so I tried plugging it into a USB 2 port and it does then warn me that it could go quicker plugged into a USB 3 port.

Transfer speed on this USB port is only 19MB/Sec.

Why would my speeds be so slow on both USB2 and USB3, or is this normal?

Donkeyfumbler · 28 Jul 2011 at 21:54

So you reckon it's close to normal DragonQ? These are folders of installed games, so lots of files of all different sizes which I imagine would slow things down versus a few big movie or ISO files, but that is disappointing - I was expecting a much bigger difference between usb2 and usb3.

DragonQ · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:00

Well you'll always get fastest performance transferring large files rather than small ones. Do you have any large files to test?

Donkeyfumbler · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:03

I have - I'll give them a go once this transfer finishes and report back.

Broken Hope · 28 Jul 2011 at 22:56

I have a Buffalo USB 3 external drive, so not bus powered I tend to average around 60MB/s on various file size transfers, on single large file transfers I get up to 135MB/s.

Surveyor · 28 Jul 2011 at 23:55

Have you installed the USB 3.0 drivers?

HighlandeR · 29 Jul 2011 at 13:59

DragonQ said:
Well you'll always get fastest performance transferring large files rather than small ones. Do you have any large files to test?

yeah reckon its this too, ive noticed even with 7200rpm drives and 5400rpm 2.5 hdds even when using usb 2.0 speeds can vary and be quite small but this is usualy since im transfering small files.

I get frustrated half the time and just put it directly into the sata port and run outside of windows when doing larger transfers seems to help a lot and cut down the hours of transfering.

Need some SSD loving I reckon

Donkeyfumbler · 29 Jul 2011 at 15:34

Thing is I had an e-sata port on my previous mobo but this one didn't come with one - I thought since it had USB3 that would do instead

Broken Hope · 31 Jul 2011 at 17:18

It should do just fine, I don't know why you're seeing such slow speeds.

I get transfer speeds up to the following

Though depending on file sizes and such it usually averages around 70-90MB/s

Phil3 · 1 Aug 2011 at 17:42

Same situation here.
I start a large file transfer and it begins at about 120MB/s but then it slows down to about 40, where it stays.
I also have the USB3 My Passport.

I always assumed it is just because of the 2.5" drive speed.