USB2 bottleneck for external SSD Raspberry Pi 4b

Soogs · 27 Jul 2021 at 08:36

Hi all, am I likely to see much difference in performance using a 2.5SSD with USB2.0 drive enclosure over a usb3.0 enclosure?

The drive is set up so, there are no files to be transferred or installed (all the heave writing is done).
I'm talking purely day to day use.
1. using android TV (Lineage OS) for Plex, VLC, IPTV Clash of Clans and sometimes RetroArch.
2. RetroPie (or maybe Batocera if I can be bothered to rebuild)

Thanks in advance

EsaT · 28 Jul 2021 at 13:19

Ancient USB2 is dog slow and maxes around 40MB/s.
USB3 can do ten times that.

Soogs · 29 Jul 2021 at 14:26

I do understand that but will I notice any real difference if there’s no big transfers to do?
Will it outperform an Sd card?
Thanks

jrwagh333 · 30 Jul 2021 at 15:27

Soogs said:
I do understand that but will I notice any real difference if there’s no big transfers to do?
Will it outperform an Sd card?
Thanks

A USB3 drive will certainly out-do an SD card. It really depends what you're doing on it.

If it's just sat running Pi-Hole then no bother.

If you're using it as a desktop with GUI, installing apps in the regular, then it'll make a noticeable difference

Soogs · 30 Jul 2021 at 19:15

jrwagh333 said:
A USB3 drive will certainly out-do an SD card. It really depends what you're doing on it.

If it's just sat running Pi-Hole then no bother.

If you're using it as a desktop with GUI, installing apps in the regular, then it'll make a noticeable difference

no desktop use intended for now.
ive installed android tv and use it for plex, netflix, prime, iptv and retropie for emulation on the other partition.