USB 3.0 performance evaluation?

[PeterAit]

I just installed a USB 3 card in my computer and connected a USB 3 docking station for my backups (I use bare hard disks for backups). Backing up using USB 2 was just too slow. The new setup is faster but I am not convinced it is as much faster as it should be. How can I test to see if I am getting the speed I should? FWIW the internal source disk is SSD. Thanks.

[rdonson]

What platform are you on?  Windows?  Mac?

Do you have any USB 2.0 devices connected to the machine?

There are some well known tools for testing drive performance such as BlackMagic Disk.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I just installed a USB 3 card in my computer and connected a USB 3 docking station for my backups (I use bare hard disks for backups). Backing up using USB 2 was just too slow. The new setup is faster but I am not convinced it is as much faster as it should be. How can I test to see if I am getting the speed I should? FWIW the internal source disk is SSD. Thanks.

Hi,

On Windows, use the resource monitor to see what throughput you actually achieve, per Process and per Disk. Maybe there is some indexing going on in the background, or a virusscanner might be interfering.

Cheers,
Bart

[Pictus]

If you are using Windows, may get better performance from
http://www.win-raid.com/t834f25-USB-Drivers-original-and-modded.html

The open source and multi platform(Win/OSX/Linux/FreeBSD) Double Commander
displays the throughput when copying/moving/etc...
http://doublecmd.sourceforge.net

[PeterAit]

Thanks for all the replies. I will look into these ideas.

[RonaldSill]

I work in the semiconductor industry and specifically do physical design of high speed data chips. I work on a team that develops USB chips. What the consumers typically don't know is that when USB 3.0 was first spec'ed no one was designing a chip to hit the numbers so they backed off on the specs and allowed a 'phase 1' release of the USB 3.0 chips that didn't have to meet the 5gbps speed. Later on the 'phase 2' chips were released that now meet the speed. But since the consumers only see USB 3.0 there's really no easy way to tell which release they have short of doing some evaluation. The USB committee issues what's called a logo (USB Super Speed) to chips that meet the speed so some machines will display the super speed usb 3.0 sticker (much like the Intel Inside sticker). If it has this sticker it meets the 5gbps speed.

Now, onto USB 3.1, which our team is currently working on. The story is the same. No one is meeting the original spec'ed speed yet (that I know of) but there are machines shipping with the USB 3.1 listed. Again, these, as far as I know, are 'phase 1' releases and do not meet the 10gbps speed yet. The phase 2 chips are still in development and when released are designed to meet the spec'ed speed.

Ron

[BradSmith]

Ron,
Thanks for the informed, inside info on this technology.
Brad

[Cornfield]

The USB saga enters a new phase with two variants of 3.1  Latest is 3.1 (Gen 2) which promises double performance over plain old 3.1.  Why did the decision makers not come up with a naming solution to make things clear?  USB 3.2 would be nice and simple.  3.1 (Gen 2) also has (10Gbps) added to the title added to the title with some suppliers.