Storage Solutions Need to improve HDD to external HDD copy speeds via USB

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Kneo

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Jun 27, 2006
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I have a mobo having USB 2.0. Whenever I copy any data from my internal SATA HDD to external drives (pen drives, My Passport), via Teracopy, the speeds that it shows is just 3.5 MB/s. Somehow this appears too slow. I've read that practical speeds of USB 2.0 should hover around 15/20 MB/s at least.

I have checked that the USB port in use is 'enhanced' i.e. 2.0 using Everest. What are the other options of improving the speeds?
 
axeman

axeman

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Pen Drives will be slow. Use Everest/ HDTach to benchmark the USB drives actual speed. That value is the maximum u will see.

If using a external HDD the cable also matters, so try using another USB Cable. Again use the same tools to verify actual drive speed to know the max u can get.

Antivirus programs can also slow down the system. So try disabling the same.

If you have many small files, again you will see lower speeds. To do a real check try to copy a 200Mb+ file (Movie?).
 
K

Kneo

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Jun 27, 2006
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How would front/back ports matter? If you mean checking for USB 2.0, then Everest lists the Passport drive as being used under USB 2.0 connections, so that should be treated as a confirmation.

As far as wires are concerned - it gives the same results across two wires - so I am not sure whether that is a problem too. What kind of speeds do you guys get via USB 2.0?
 
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Naga

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Apr 5, 2005
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^^Sometimes ports do matter. Does it hurt to check it out? And like axeman pointed out, the media also matters. The results might vary depending on media, cable and even the hardware platform. No point in asking what speeds ppl get via USB 2.0.

That said, a WD passport should give you much, much higher speeds than 3~4 MBPs. Most generic pen drives I've seen average aound 3~5MBps. What model's your pen drive and what's the speed you're getting on the WD?
 
K

Kneo

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Jun 27, 2006
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I'll definitely check out the ports. I have tried it on Corsair Flash Voyager and WD My Passport. For both the speeds are 3.5 MB/s
 
zhopudey

zhopudey

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May 14, 2005
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Kneo said:
How would front/back ports matter?
Click to expand...

Sometimes the front ports might not work as 2.0 Also, as axeman pointed out, speed depends on the file size as well.
 
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anfjavid

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Dec 16, 2006
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man, the ports do matter. In my case, m using an asus m3n78em and a zebronics korea cabinet. I have seagate 160gb usb harddrive. Whenever i plug the hdd into the front panel port it shows me that

THIS DEVICE CAN PERFORM FASTER

and my hdd transfer speed is slow.

this is because the cable which connects the front usb to the header of ur mobo isnt a usb 2.0 cable but a 1.1 cable. Unless the cable is 2.0 it will run in low speed only.

On the other hand when u connect ur hdd to the back ports of ur mobo it works fine , because there is no cable connection between the usb port and the motherboard header.

In other words the back panel usb port is embedded in your mobo itself . Thats the reason

The working of your front usb port depends on the cabinet. If u have a good quality cabinet like that of primesource, cooler master, etc., then surely u will get a good front panel port. On the contrary for cabbys like mercury, zebby, etc. you may or may not get.

For instance, i bot the same above zeby korea cabby for my brother b4 6 months. the front ports in his pc works excellent.

Having this in mind i bot the same cabby for my pc upgradation. But unforuntately its not working properly. I dont know the reason. May be in the course of time the zebby idiots started to give worst cables.

But there is one way to sort out this issue. Get a proper usb 2 cable and connect it ur cabinet. It requires soldering. But i havent heard any1 doing this. Try it or take it to a chiplevel computer engineer and get it done..
 
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Naga

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Kneo said:
I'll definitely check out the ports. I have tried it on Corsair Flash Voyager and WD My Passport. For both the speeds are 3.5 MB/s
Click to expand...

Something's waaayy off. Try using the drives on some other machines with the same cables. If the results are better, try uninstalling the USB drivers from your original machine. The drivers should be re-installed on the next restart. Also check the CPU utilisation while copying. What are the speeds you get in transfers between the internal drives/ partitions?
 
K

Kneo

Adept
Jun 27, 2006
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Yeah - Something seems to be way off !! A 'move' across two SATA internal drives (Hitachi to Seagate - both 16Mb buffer) too is being shown up as 3.5 MB/s !!!

Guys now this is getting serious. I am sure that this was not the case earlier. Also, I've been copying files ranging from 1 Gb to 8 Gb. I have a Gigabyte G31M-S2L/E7300/Corsair 4Gb XMS kit which is not bad for a rig. I am also running Nod32, but I've been running that since the first day and this is more of a recent problem.I don't remember changing anything (h/w or s/w).
 
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vijaysurendran

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Apr 18, 2008
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go 2 device manager -- disk drives right click on the drive --properties --policies tab--select optmize for performance --enable write caching --enable advance performance.that shud improve speeds a bit one thing though might lead to data loss if the comp does not have backup power.
 
K

Kneo

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Jun 27, 2006
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axeman said:
Check if your system HDD's are in PIO or DMA mode. PIO will give you above mentioned speeds. Also see what the cpu load is when u are copying files. If that is high, then def PIO is enabled.
Click to expand...

Yes.

One of my disks is showing up as PIO even though it's DMA if available !! Can you guys tell me any good utility to check HDD health?

UDPATE: Problem solved !!!

THe problem was not writing to the target, it was reading from the source. THe source drive in question (internal HDD) was working in PIO mode despite having selected DMA. Just removed the Primary IDE channel from device manager and restarted the PC. The new drivers automatically setup the drive in DMA mode. Now the read speeds on teh source have improved and the transfer from internal to external via USB is 26 MB/s.
 
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