USB 3.1 need some advice.

[wade7575]

I got 3 new USB 3.1 Vantec HDD case's in today and I live in Canada and I'm having a friend of mine in the State's ship me the ASRock USB 3.1 Front Panel,I don't know why but no one in Canada right is carrying the ASRock Front Panel,good old Newegg.com has the Front Panel but not Newegg.ca so that means I couldn't order it myself as I don't in the States.

So anyway I get the HDD case's and from what I can see they are a USB A Type plug and if I didn't know any better they are just a USB 3.0 plug on both ends one being A Type and the other Micro B.

Is it the partly the cable that makes USB 3.1 faster or is it just the controller,I really don't care I just don't want to find out that the cable is going to be a big bottle neck,if I get 300Mb transfer speed's I'd even be happy with that I as I transfer a lot of data at time's.I'm hoping to see a bit of a speed increase with an HDD I plan to try as well.

Are there any good programs that can let you monitor the transfer speeds to see what's really going on.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811990012

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...7&cm_re=vantec_usb_3.1-_-17-392-087-_-Product

 

[trents]

I would bet that to get the higher transfer speeds of the 3.1 standard you will need a cable rated for that. Remember how when 3.0 came out the cables were larger in diameter than the ones we had been using with USB 1.x? More wires I suppose.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

You won't saturate USB 3.0 or 3.1 with an HDD.
Any SATA SSD won't saturate USB 3.0.

 

[JrClocker]

You won't saturate USB 3.0 or 3.1 with an HDD.
Any SATA SSD won't saturate USB 3.0.

+1 Agree.

USB 3.1 has it's best use as a USB 3.1 to USB 3.0 hub. Will allow for more data to go back along the 3.1 link.

That said, you need a lot of devices to saturate even a USB 3.0 link.

 

[trents]

"The now-aging USB 2.0 standard can theoretically transfer data at a very high 480 megabits per second (mbps), or 60 megabytes per second (MBps). That's impressive, but not as much as the newer USB 3.0, which can handle up to 5gbps (640MBps)—over ten times as fast as the 2.0 maximum."

It is not uncommon for SSDs to exceed 500 MBs currently. In the near future technology improvements may allow them to exceed what USB 3.0 can handle, especially considering the fact that actual USB transfer rates are typically far less than the theoretical maximum. I expect in real life there will be something to gain over 3.0.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

"The now-aging USB 2.0 standard can theoretically transfer data at a very high 480 megabits per second (mbps), or 60 megabytes per second (MBps). That's impressive, but not as much as the newer USB 3.0, which can handle up to 5gbps (640MBps)—over ten times as fast as the 2.0 maximum."

It is not uncommon for SSDs to exceed 500 MBs currently. In the near future technology improvements may allow them to exceed what USB 3.0 can handle, especially considering the fact that actual USB transfer rates are typically far less than the theoretical maximum. I expect in real life there will be something to gain over 3.0.

SATA based SSD's can't saturate USB 3.0. Period.
I've never seen one over approx 550MBps read and 500MBps write.

 

[Woomack]

USB 3.0 theoretical max badwidth is 600MB/s+. However most USB controllers can't even handle 400MB/s+.
I was testing flash cards ( various types like CFast, Compact Flash, micro SD/SDXC ) and USB flash drives specified to run above 400MB/s ( up to 500MB/s+ ) that could pass 400MB/s only on some motherboards, even though all had the same USB controllers.

Example: MSI X99A SLI Plus with Intel USB 3.0 controller couldn't pass ~320MB/s while ASUS RVE went up to 450MB/s using the same drive for tests and the same drivers.
Z170 motherboards have results between 300 and 450MB/s. I haven't seen any motherboard capable to run at higher bandwidth than ~450MB/s.
Many USB 3.0 controllers for some reason stuck at ~45MB/s. It's clearly some driver issue but if you have Win8/10 then for some controllers are only built-in drivers.

I've seen max ~565/550MB/s on SATA SSD. Actually Mushkin SSD which I was testing for review made 565.789MB/s read and 544.125 write in ATTO. M.2 SATA SSD can make couple of MB more but not more than 570MB/s. At least I saw slightly above 568MB/s read on my Crucial MX200 and ASRock X99 board. However USB 3.0 SSD ( I have one too ) can't pass 450MB/s on even the best USB 3.0 controller.

On the other hand I haven't seen any drives in other standard than USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 Gen1 what is exactly the same as USB 3.0. That Vantec enclosure is marked as Gen 2 but I don't know if it's going to work faster than ~400MB/s.

 

[trents]

My biggest concern is that we will see even more device compatibility/driver issues than we did with 3.0.

 

[Woomack]

Right now if you pick Intel motherboard and Intel controller then you are limited to 1 USB 3.0/3.1 driver which is built-in Win8/10. There is no way to fix it, if it corrupts in any way. Also deleting it may cause USB not to work at all and Windows probably won't install it from Windows Update. I made that and I had to reinstall windows.
I've seen USB 3.0 performance issues on many laptops. I mean not 300MB/s limit but random locking at 40-45MB/s. The only way to fix it was to reinstall windows.
On the other hand if you use other manufacturer controller then it will work but never so fast as Intel. At least I haven't seen any other controllers passing ~300MB/s.

So we constantly get technologies that are great only on paper. Always something isn't working like it should. Or controllers, or other devices. In most cases higher ASUS and ASRock motherboards have good USB 3.0/3.1 performance.

 

[wingman99]

So how fast would my 3.0 USB be on my Gigabyte in my signature with a SATA SSD?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

So how fast would my 3.0 USB be on my Gigabyte in my signature with a SATA SSD?

Depends on the device you're using to go from USB 3.0 to SATA, but I've seen some reach full SATA throughput.
Heck, I've reviewed flash drives which are capable of 300MB/s and higher on USB 3.0:
http://www.overclockers.com/mushkin-impact-256gb-usb-3-0-flash-drive-review/
http://www.overclockers.com/patriot-supersonic-magnum-2-usb-3-1-256gb-flash-drive-review/

 

[wingman99]

My motherboard Has a Etron USB 3.0 eXtensible Hoste controller, is it as fast as intel controller?

With my Corsair Flash Voyager GT USB 3.0 32 GB I can only read at 180MB/s with CrystalDiskMark and it is rated for 240MB/s. So is the slow down because of the Etron controller?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

My motherboard Has a Etron USB 3.0 eXtensible Hoste controller, is it as fast as intel controller?

With my Corsair Flash Voyager GT USB 3.0 32 GB I can only read at 180MB/s with CrystalDiskMark and it is rated for 240MB/s. So is the slow down because of the Etron controller?

Not sure, you'll have to find someone who has tested it.

Most likely you're maxing the drive, try ATTO instead.

 

[Woomack]

This is CFast 2.0 card in USB 3.0 on ASUS Maximus VIII Hero. This card is designed for up to 540MB/s bandwidth. It's also the highest result I had on any USB 3.0 device.

 

[trents]

Woo, what SSD did you use for that test?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Woo, what SSD did you use for that test?

As he said it was a CompactFlash 2.0 card.

 

[Woomack]

CFast 2.0 , not Compact Flash. This is card standard for professional devices like cameras ( you can find maybe 10 cameras in total which are supporting it , I haven't seen more ) ... on the other hand it looks like Compact Flash but is faster and more durable ( should be on SLC ). 128GB card cost ~$500.

You can consider it as USB 3.0 SLC SSD as performance is about the same. Also new MLC and SLC SSD are about the same so if you have good USB 3.0 enclosure then any modern SSD should make ~450MB/s on USB 3.0 ( on good boards ).

 

[ATMINSIDE]

CFast 2.0 , not Compact Flash. This is card standard for professional devices like cameras ( you can find maybe 10 cameras in total which are supporting it , I haven't seen more ) ... on the other hand it looks like Compact Flash but is faster and more durable ( should be on SLC ). 128GB card cost ~$500.

You can consider it as USB 3.0 SLC SSD as performance is about the same. Also new MLC and SLC SSD are about the same so if you have good USB 3.0 enclosure then any modern SSD should make ~450MB/s on USB 3.0 ( on good boards ).

CFast 2.0 is made by Compact Flash, got twisted up a bit

 

[Woomack]

Compact Flash and CFast ( Compact Fast ) are 2 standards.
Here is what wiki says about it:

"A variant of CompactFlash known as CFast is based on the Serial ATA bus, rather than the Parallel ATA/IDE bus for which all previous versions of CompactFlash are designed. CFast is also known as CompactFast.

CFast supports a higher maximum transfer rate than current CompactFlash cards. As of 2011, SATA supports transfer rates up to 600 MByte/s while PATA is limited to 167 MByte/s using UDMA 7.

CFast cards are not physically or electrically compatible with CompactFlash cards. However, since SATA can emulate the PATA command protocol, existing CompactFlash software drivers can be used, although writing new drivers to use AHCI instead of PATA emulation will almost always result in significant performance gains. CFast cards use a female 7-pin SATA data connector, and a female 17-pin power connector,[42] so an adaptor is required to connect CFast cards in place of standard SATA hard drives which use male connectors.

The first CFast cards reached the market in late 2009.[43] At CES 2009, Pretec showed a 32 GB CFast and announced that they should reach the market within a few months.[44] Delock began distributing CFast cards in 2010 and offers several card readers with USB3.0 port and eSATAp (power over eSATA) port to support CFast cards.

The CFast 2.0 specification was released in the second quarter of 2012. As of 2014, the only product employing CFast 2.0 cards was the Arri Amira digital production camera,[45] allowing frame rates of up to 200 fps; a CFast 2.0 adapter for the Arri Alexa/XT camera was also released.[46]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash

So like Compact Flash with much faster bus.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

So like Compact Flash with much faster bus.

Yes, it's a second generation of CompactFlash. Developed by the same company.