USB 3.0 Transfer Speed with external memory devices

Ink stained Fingers said:

I'm not getting much info from the device manager. Anyway - I got the types of USB connections on my notebook identified properly....

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Neither am I, so please @stratman how do I get more info from the device manager. This is a crop from device manager of my main computer:


USB-Lagerenhed = USB Storage device, USB-rodhub = USB root hub and USB-sammensat enhed = USB composite(?)/multiple(?) device

My computer has got four USB 3.0 ports, two on the back, one on the front and one on top for an external HDD drive bay. It has also got six USB 2 ports, three on the back, one on the front and two used internally for a card reader and a WLAN adapter.

From my post #7 is a way using Device Manager to get simple USB port speed status. The utility listed in my link in that same post, which ISF used, gives more information.

There are four USB specs: 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0. But to confuse things, each USB spec has more than one data rate assigned to it. Those rates are "low", "full", "high", and "super."

Therefore, benchmarking data throughput solely on speed is not necessarily conclusive as to what the actual spec being used. Thus, a USB 3.0 port may not be actually running at a "super" rating but at a "High" rating instead.

On a Windows machine, check the data rating of the USB root/hub - Goto: Device Manager --> USB Controllers --> USB Root Hub (Right Click) --> Properties --> Advanced (Tab).

It should tell you the data rating for the USB hub/port. Once you know that, you'll know the maximum throughput from the computer's POV.

Low = 1.5 Mbps Full = 12 Mbps High = 480 Mbps Super = 5 Gbps

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I wondered how the info of USB port speeds found with the utility app ISF used compared with the finding in Device Manager. This was more about corroboration of results than anything else, especially since Device Manager provides easy access to the multitude of data from the utility app.

It is a pleasant and not infrequent surprise the amount of data one can access in Windows about your computer without third party apps.

The USB class rating is one thing, that's what the transfer chip and firmware are supposed to handle - data exchange at connection time, power requirements and all that, but this does not indicate the actual transfer speed with a device connected - video, card reader, SSD whatever, that's when an actual speed test - peek speed - tells you the other part of the story and gives you some surprises - how slow or fast an USB 3 device is actually running on an USB 3 port

Ink stained Fingers said:

The USB class rating is one thing, that's what the transfer chip and firmware are supposed to handle - data exchange at connection time, power requirements and all that, but this does not indicate the actual transfer speed with a device connected

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I think that has been established more than once here and I agree. Did someone argue otherwise?

Off topic... Someone said to me yesterday that my handwritten "French" 7's were "German" 7's. Never heard that before. Is this like the argument on who made the first humus?

USB speed - I'm done with my tests , it was fun - you run a series of tests and just scratch your head about the results, there is USB 3.0 hardware slower than USB 2.0 connections, there are fake adapters etc - lots of possibilities to slow down a system, very slow and rather fast HDD's , USB sticks , memory cards ; speed does not matter in all cases, but when it comes to run a backup of 500G you expect to get that done as fast as it possibly can go.
I'm not aware of the differences between French vs. German '7' handwritten numbers , but there are rather critical differences between the German and the US handwriting of the '1' and '7', the German '1' can be mis-read as a '7' , and the US '7' can be mis-read as a '1' by a German.

Ink stained Fingers said:

there is USB 3.0 hardware slower than USB 2.0 connections, there are fake adapters etc - lots of possibilities to slow down a system, very slow and rather fast HDD's , USB sticks , memory cards ; speed does not matter in all cases,

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I all at 6’s and 7s, when it comes to USB 3 ?... I don’t have any.. and what’s time to a pig…

I've owned some USB2 external drives in the past. I would assume that a WD external drive would adhere to standards and two other externals was about the same transfer. But I had one that was significantly faster than the WD and the others and by my calculation. It was faster that a USB 2 spec but this was when it was plugged into a USB3 port on a router. On a standard USB2 port. It matched the other drives including the WD. To me, there is so much involved in these "specs" you really don't know what you are really getting until you get it. These are all complex interfaces and USB has a whole set of specs and classes and subclasses. I'm sure it is complex and more than I understand.

mikling said:

These are all complex interfaces and USB has a whole set of specs and classes and subclasses. I'm sure it is complex and more than I understand.

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a user wouldn't need to understand it all - since everything is claimed to be compatible and easy to use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0
It just gets irritating when the same device runs with 40MB/s with one adapter/hub/connection and does 400MB/s with another.
USB 3.0 is not the latest version, but quite popular with external memory/storage devices, drives etc
And there are newer versions since then - USB 3.1 and USB 3.2 - with even higher speed.
When you look to the complexity there is quite a lot to consider for somebody programming the USB firmware,
the USB 3.0 standard is already a document with 480 pages
https://www.usb3.com/whitepapers/USB 3 0 (11132008)-final.pdf

I got some more USB hardware shipped from China, 2 different M.2 SSD enclosures with an USB 3.0 port, they run at quite different speeds as I have tested them, the boards look quite similar but with some changes - they use different chips.


This one is listed with an ASM1053E chipset, but is actually using an ASM1153E chip
http://www.asmedia.com.tw/eng/e_show_products.php?cate_index=171&item=133,
the other enclosure is using a JMS578 chip which is running much slower than the ASM chip.
When looking around I found this report about exactly these same chips and measuring their
performance as well
https://www.everythingusb.com/drive-adapters.html
This report shows as well a tremendous speed difference for a mixed operating mode - read/write/small/large files
by a factor of more than 2.


You never know which version, which chipset you get when you place an order for such an adapter, no seller on
Ebay or Aliexpress is telling you before you place your order. You just have to assume that their reference to USB 3.0
gives you all the speed you expect.
Both adapters are working, the product description at Ebay does not promise any actual speed, so I cannot claim any
refund - not for a defect product and not for a product not meeting a particuar spec.

Ink stained Fingers said:

You never know which version, which chipset you get when you place an order for such an adapter, no seller on
Ebay or Aliexpress is telling you before you place your order. You just have to assume that their reference to USB 3.0

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