PC Peripherals Do USB 3.0 flash/thumb drives have decent write speeds on USB 2 bus?

deusExMachina

deusExMachina

Disciple
I see a lot of USB 3.0 pen dives that have practical speeds around 35MBps, the USB 2.0 bus spec is about 60 MBps. Have any of you used one of these USB 3.0 flash drives in an older 2.0 bus port? do you still get that high speed writing?
 
Here are speeds on my system..

USB 3.0 DRIVE ON USB 2.0 PORT

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USB 3.0 DRIVE ON USB 3.0 PORT

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No reason not to get the real world speed if it's within the usb 2 spec...
nRiTeCh said:
How can one expect 2.0 giving 3.0 speeds?
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You misunderstood the query I guess.
deusExMachina said:
I see a lot of USB 3.0 pen dives that have practical speeds around 35MBps, the USB 2.0 bus spec is about 60 MBps. Have any of you used one of these USB 3.0 flash drives in an older 2.0 bus port? do you still get that high speed writing?
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Speed should not be a problem...

Problem is chance of older usb 2 port not recognise newer usb 3 pen drive.

I bought a couple of miniature usb 3 32gb pen drive to use with my old sony Blu Ray player and it would not detect
 
The answer is NO, it will not reach 60MB/s on USB 2.0 port.
I tried copying same file on Sandisk Extreme 64GB USB 3.0 Drive from Samsung 970 Evo Plus (Absolutely no bottleneck here)
These are the write speeds on both ports.
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3.jpg
 
You guys are missing the part where OP asked about usb3 pen drive with SLOW transfer speeds of 35 MBps... Probably any budget model...

Those pen drives will not lose speed on older usb 2 ports because they are anyway under the usb 2 speed limit.
 
I am getting 60mbps write using samsung duo plus 128 gb on usb 3.1 port. This is one of the better pen drives in the market.
This goes down to 20-30 when using usb 2.0.

From what I've read, pen drives have comparatively crappy controllers and hence will almost never consistently hit the write speeds that external ssd's give, so forget theoretical speeds.
 
vishalrao said:
You guys are missing the part where OP asked about usb3 pen drive with SLOW transfer speeds of 35 MBps... Probably any budget model...

Those pen drives will not lose speed on older usb 2 ports because they are anyway under the usb 2 speed limit.
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I got it, but budget usb 3.0 drives may not even reach 35MB/s. we can try testing it.
Kmkaks said:
I am getting 60mbps write using samsung duo plus 128 gb on usb 3.1 port. This is one of the better pen drives in the market.
This goes down to 20-30 when using usb 2.0.

From what I've read, pen drives have comparatively crappy controllers and hence will almost never consistently hit the write speeds that external ssd's give, so forget theoretical speeds.
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I don't know if it's a budget drive but as you mentioned IT DROPS to 20 MB/s it's not sustained performance like high end drives.
 
My SanDisk extreme pro 128gb gives me about 400 MBps read write on my front usb 3 ports rated at 5 gbps so I guess port is the usb 3.1 gen 1 spec.

Haven't been able to check on a usb 2 port anywhere yet
 
vishalrao said:
You guys are missing the part where OP asked about usb3 pen drive with SLOW transfer speeds of 35 MBps... Probably any budget model...

Those pen drives will not lose speed on older usb 2 ports because they are anyway under the usb 2 speed limit.
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Also, I have a crap SanDisk usb 3.0 pendrive. It always performs worse on usb 2.0 when compared to usb 3.0. If it gives 35 Mbps on usb 3.0, it will give only 20Mbps on usb 2.0. Would be great if someone knows the reason for this!
 
vishalrao said:
My SanDisk extreme pro 128gb gives me about 400 MBps read write on my front usb 3 ports rated at 5 gbps so I guess port is the usb 3.1 gen 1 spec.

Haven't been able to check on a usb 2 port anywhere yet
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Just an OOT suggestion from my experience - When I tested on crystaldiskmark, my samsung duo gave me consistent 60mbps write and 400mbps read. Fraudulent samsung markets it as 400mbps pendrive, whereas 400mbps was for read only. Only benefits with this pendrive are its dual connectivity (usb a and c) option and water/dust resistance.

If at all you guys are planning to get a pendrive, pay the 1,000 rs extra and get the SanDisk extreme. As @vishalrao said it actually gives ssd level write speeds too(400mbps). I don't understand why some popular websites recommend this samsung as an alternative to the SanDisk one, even mentioning it is "almost as fast".

vishalrao said:
See https://superuser.com/questions/317217/whats-the-maximum-typical-speed-possible-with-a-usb2-0-drive
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Thanks for sharing this bro. I think this should answer op's question too. I guess interface limitation combined with crappy flash in cheap pen drives causes double bottleneck.
 
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Kmkaks said:
If at all you guys are planning to get a pendrive, pay the 1,000 rs extra and get the SanDisk extreme. As @vishalrao said it actually gives ssd level write speeds too(400mbps). I don't understand why some popular websites recommend this samsung as an alternative to the SanDisk one, even mentioning it is "almost as fast".
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I already own 16/32/64 GB variants of previous gen SanDisk extreme, certainly Sandisk extreme is a real performer, 128 GB pro variant will surely give 400Mbps as @vishalrao said. I am looking for Sandisk extreme pro 256GB variant but it costs approx Rs. 6k +-500
At this price I think of Samsung T5 500GB which I already've and it doesn't get hot. heat may build up on smaller extreme thumb drives and performance won't be sustained when copying large files or data.
 
Yep , depends on your use cases and pricing , a proper external ssd might make more sense than a fast and costly pen drive.

I just wanted the SanDisk extreme pro 128gb for my usage of copying and booting and installation of multiple ISO files of various operating system using the Ventoy tool, and for the handy compact size.
 
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