What affects USB 2.0 Transfer speeds?

[rhony2]

I just bought a USB 2.0 external hard drive from buy.com - FANTOM TITANIUM TFDU50072. I have hooked it up to my HP s7520n (1.7GHz AMD Turion with 1 gig RAM) which only has one other USB device - wireless keyboard/mouse). I only seem to be getting a 3.5MByte/sec transfer speed. I have read that USB 2.0 transfer speeds should max out near 40 MBytes/sec.

I have another USB external HD on my main computer (WD 500GB Mybook attached to Dell E510 - Pentium D 3.2 GHz with 4 gig RAM - with about 4 diiferent USB devices hooked up to it) and that runs at least 5 times faster (probably closer to 7 times).

I noticed that for the Fantom, my HP installed a "Generic USB device" driver while for the WD, the driver was more specific.

Is the Fantom a dud?
Do I have a bad driver?
Does the fact that my HP have such a weaker CPU and much less RAM have THAT much effect on transfer speeds?
Are there any utilities I can use to test my USB 2.0 ports?

Thanks very much in advance!

[Sylf]

Are all devices between the enclosure and your PC USB2.0 compatible, including the hubs and cables?

[rhony2]

Originally Posted by Sylf

Are all devices between the enclosure and your PC USB2.0 compatible, including the hubs and cables?

No hubs. All connected directly to PC. Cables used came with the external HD so I assume compatible.

[Sylf]

I wouldn't assume so. Switch around with the cables that you know that's 2.0 and test that way.

[rhony2]

Originally Posted by Sylf

I wouldn't assume so. Switch around with the cables that you know that's 2.0 and test that way.

OK. Cable change didn't really change anything. Still got less than 4MBytes/sec. However when I hooked up the WD Mybook to same machine/connector it was only about twice as fast, rather than about 5 times on the other machine. So I guess CPU/Memory does count for something.

To try to figure out why the WD was twice as fast as the Fantom, I looked at specs. The Fantom only has 2MB cache while the WD has a 16MB cache. So the WD IS a better USB hard drive. Explains why the Fantom was so much cheaper.

[EvErLaStInG-LiFe]

....... Ur processor GHz maybe affecting........ Processor is as important as CPU

[killmoms]

On an older machine like that, also, Firewire would be a better choice, since it requires no CPU overhead for processing as USB does.

[rhony2]

Originally Posted by killmoms

On an older machine like that, also, Firewire would be a better choice, since it requires no CPU overhead for processing as USB does.

Good to know. WHile machine has Firewire port, USB external HD doesn't. I was wondering why Firewire 400 cost more than plain USB 2.0 when USB 2.0 has a "higher" transfer rate of 480Mbits/sec. I learn something new here every time I post...

THanks!

[KNETTER2000]

Originally Posted by EvErLaStInG-LiFe

....... Ur processor GHz maybe affecting........ Processor is as important as CPU

Well.. that's like saying water is as important as H2O.. it's the same thing

A Turion 1.7Ghz and 1G of RAM is more then sufficient to run anything with USB2.0 at full transferspeeds.

The 4G/1G difference also has no impact on the transfer.. one of my machines is much slower with less RAM ( first series P4 2.0G with 512MB RAM) and that runs a 2.0 external drive at about 30MB/s and 11% processor load when I run a heavy drivetest with HDtach

What can have an impact, are drivers.

You have a HP Pavilion Media Center Slimline s7520n - Turion 64 ML-34 1.8 GHz
this has, according to the specifications, an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset.

If this is so, I recommend downloading the latest Southbridge driver from the ATI site:

All drivers for that chipset can be found here:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

The direct link to the southbridge driver package is:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...p_sb_35179.exe

It might just do the trick

Read up on it before you install it, and install it at your own risk (Sorry, disclaimer from me )

[rhony2]

Originally Posted by KNETTER2000

What can have an impact, are drivers.

You have a HP Pavilion Media Center Slimline s7520n - Turion 64 ML-34 1.8 GHz
this has, according to the specifications, an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset.

If this is so, I recommend downloading the latest Southbridge driver from the ATI site:

All drivers for that chipset can be found here:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

The direct link to the southbridge driver package is:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...p_sb_35179.exe

It might just do the trick

Read up on it before you install it, and install it at your own risk (Sorry, disclaimer from me )

Well, the HP is new - I bought it about a month ago directly from HP - just to serve as my dedicated BitTorrent machine, so I'd rather not invalidate my warranty yet. It was cheap, had a relatively large HD (200GB), a DL 16x DVD burner, and a wireless G connection, and shipping was free. I'm only running Azureus on it right now. After getting about 120 gig in fansubs over the last month I figured it needed more space and got the Fantom USD drive when buy.com featured it in an email to me. I'm kinda annoyed at buy.com since the website says it has a 16MB cache when the box says >2 MB cache. THis is where I think the performance difference with the WD is. I only plan to use the drive to keep all the fansubs so it will pretty much be a Read-Only device once I fill it up. So I guess I can live with its sluggishness.

But much thanks!

[soraryu]

Check to see if your usb device is a full speed. If it is, you've bought a "fake" usb 2.0.

[rhony2]

Originally Posted by soraryu

Check to see if your usb device is a full speed. If it is, you've bought a "fake" usb 2.0.

Um. How exactly do I do that? Is there a website I can download a utility or something?

[soraryu]

Originally Posted by rhony2

Um. How exactly do I do that? Is there a website I can download a utility or something?

The trial version of usbmon (http://www.hhdsoftware.com/usbmon.html), might be able to do it. (Disclaimer: I have not used this software before, just gleamed from the internet).