USB 2.0 Download Speeds?

[billhercus]

From my card reader into USB 2.0 my Downloader Pro software reads a download speed of about 2.0MB/s - this from a CF ultra ll 1.0GB card.

Literature about USB 2.0 mentions much higher speeds. Is this about normal?

[PacAce]

Is it possible your card reader is a USB 1.1 reader? If it is, plugging it to a USB 2 port is not going to increase it's speed.

[billhercus]

No, the card reader is a POI USB 2.0 reader. Are you saying the download speed reading should be a lot higher?

What does your one read?

[drisley]

The CF card is the bottleneck.

[billhercus]

Thanks Drisley but I'm still curious about what speed chaps get from their cards.

Any takers?

[samdring]

Just tested transferring a number of files from CF and reader to hard drive and got 210 MB through in 68 secs i.e. 3.1 MBps

That was with a crucial standard card but through my Apacer portable CD burner which is significantly faster than my standard card reader - dont know why.

[drisley]

I just discovered that you can use HDTach (http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach), a harddrive benchmark, to test your flash card reader.
Using a 1GB Sandisk UltraII in my USB2 reader, I got an average of 6.4 MB/s thruput! Pretty darn good!

http://www.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/miscellaneous/hdtach.gif

[samdring]

Thanks Drisley - useful bit of software - much easier than 'Sandra' benchmarks but.......

I now suspect that Bill's problem could be reader related rather than card

Tested 2 'standard' (of different makes) Cards with HDTach in 2 different readers with all tests at 8 and 32 MB and with both readers in same USB 2 port

Apacer Disc Steno 37% faster than Dazzle Reader on faster card (4.1 MBps compared to 3.0 MBps)
Apacer 48% faster on slower card 3.4/2.3

Those are significant differences - not all readers are the same :?:

[billhercus]

Thanks (again) Drisley.

I have tested 2 cards - 512MB Sandisk and 1.0GB Sandisk Ultra 11.

Ultra = 2.2MB/s and other 2.1MB/s. Obviously something not right here.

Hope its the card reader - most likely (?)

[drisley]

Yeah, I wonder if it's the type of reader.
Perhaps they all aren't created equal.
Your computer does support USB2.0 right?
I also wonder if it could be a driver issue?
What motherboard and operating system do you use?
BTW, I have a generic 8-in-1 USB2 card reader.

[B_uzz]

If your reader is actually a USB 2 and your computer supports USB 2 then you should check to see if the USB 2 driver is loaded in your system. I had this problem when I bought an external USB 2 reader for my camera cards. I had built the computer a while ago and thought that everything was loaded since the USB ports worked. But since I didn't have a USB 2 device in the machine at original startup, it only loaded the USB 1 driver. Unless you specifically load that driver your machine won't take advantage of the extra speed of USB 2.

[drisley]

If your reader is actually a USB 2 and your computer supports USB 2 then you should check to see if the USB 2 driver is loaded in your system. I had this problem when I bought an external USB 2 reader for my camera cards. I had built the computer a while ago and thought that everything was loaded since the USB ports worked. But since I didn't have a USB 2 device in the machine at original startup, it only loaded the USB 1 driver. Unless you specifically load that driver your machine won't take advantage of the extra speed of USB 2.

Yup, that is very good advice, and may likely be the problem.

[tim]

How do you load the USB2 driver?

[billhercus]

I've just changed card reader and same problem - low speed. I'm beginning to think that I have got USB 1.0 drivers as advised.

Further examination shows I have the enhanced controllers under USB hub in Device Manager - all my drivers are up to date. Occasionally, I get a warning message saying go to another port which will be faster but regardless of what port I plug into (2 front, 2 back and 4 on a USB 2.0 PCI card) the download rate is 2.0MB/s. Same ports do my Epson 2100 fine and I have a 40GB hard drive on a USB port with acceptable transfer rates.

Two different readers give same speeds so I'm stumped and shall wait for
inspiration.
It is annoying though .....

[samdring]

www.sisoftware.co.uk is worth a look for download
Sandra, as I mentioned in earlier post is very slow for testing drives/cards etc but has useful module 'ports' which will show you which USB devices are loaded to which controller and at what speed.

Its free so no further expense at this stage :wink:

[Namagemo]

I suggest trying http://www.usbman.com/ and start investigating USB 2.0. If I remember correctly, there is a difference between USB 2.0 and USB 2.0 Hi-Speed.

[billhercus]

Well samdring, had a go with Sandra which said my USB 2.0 was fine. (Told me I had not the best RAM and one or two other things which will now keep me lying awake).

I have a 5400 RPM 40GB drive (quite slow data rate) in a USB housing and it transfers data from the computer, using the same port as my card reader, from 450 - 500MB/min which seems about the rate that you guys are getting from your card.

Even a friend's card (different make) also only made about 2MB/s when I tried it so I am seriously confused.

I shall now look at www.usbman.com

Wish me luck :!:

[drisley]

This is where it would be handy to have a friend with a computer and USB2 reader so that you could try your reader on his computer, and vice versa.

According to this (http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm) page, USB2.0 spec incorporates three speeds... Hi-Speed, Full-Speed and Low-Speed.
Apparently USB2.0 "Low-Speed" drives aren't any faster than a USB1.1 drive.
If it doesn't say "Hi-Speed" on the device, it may not be taking full advantage of the USB2.0 speeds.

[billhercus]

I have tried my friend's card (also USB 2.0) with the same result but you may have a point. Being a canny Scot, I purchased the cheapest USB 2.0 reader I could find - my friend would have done the same. However, I have noticed quite a price spread over these items - maybe you need to get one with the High Speed logo on it?

Anyone getting 3-6MB/s download speed - do you have plain old USB 2.0 or High Speed USB 2.0 printed on the reader?

[samdring]

Getting 5-6 MB/s off Lexar 64 8x which is a very old card

Puzzled......

You claim 2.1+ MB/s from your fast cards - anything over 1.5 MB/s MUST? be USB 2.0 cos 1.0 was either 0.18 or 1.5 MB/s UNLESS as someone said earlier the early USB 2.0 (not Hi-speed) was just slightly faster than USB 1.0

All my readers (StarTech 3.5" bay, Apacer and Dazzle) are hi-speed.

For what its worth

1. Did Sandra at 'PORTS' module report 'enhanced' board? If not have you got a USB 2.0 but not hi-speed card?
2. Your reader is USB 2.0 not hi-speed

[billhercus]

Yes, samdring. I'm beginning to think that what I have is a plain USB 2.0 reader which is supposed to read up to 12 MB/s - 'up to' being the key words here. Hi Speed of course is capable of 480MB/s which is seriously mind blowing.

I'm now looking carefully at readers which are advertised specifically as Hi Speed USB 2.0 (many are just advertised as USB 2.0 - I thought there was no difference :oops: ) and, perhaps with a few more checks may go down that route.

We're all mad really - what difference does a few minutes make? - However, I'm thinking of fast downloads in the field

[drisley]

Yes, my reader says USB2.0 High-Speed and I get about 6.4Mb/s with a Sandisk Ultra II.

[cmar]

The specs of card readers differ.

Even if the reader is capable of a "high-speed 2.0" connection, that does not mean the reader is capable of processing information from the card to the connection that fast.

Also, some motherboards have only a couple ports capable of full 2.0 speeds.
Sometimes the front ports are not high speed, either.

[tim]

I have a USB 2.0 full speed CF card adaptor, on a P4 2.8 hyperthreaded. The card is a Sandisk Ultra II 1GB. I got 8MB/sec using HD Tach, and at the same time the PC was formatting a hard disk running of the USB port.

[billhercus]

I have ordered a 'Kingston Hi Speed USB 2.0 Compact Flash card reader/writer.'

First duty will be a speed check. Guess who will be PO if the speed remains the same?

[FlyingPete]

Yes, samdring. I'm beginning to think that what I have is a plain USB 2.0 reader which is supposed to read up to 12 MB/s - 'up to' being the key words here. Hi Speed of course is capable of 480MB/s which is seriously mind blowing.


Just a thought, the USB1.1 rating of 12Mb/s is actually megabit, not megabyte. so divide by 8 to get the speed in Megabytes/s, same goes for USB2's rating of 480Mb/s.

So theoretical limits are:
USB1.1 = 1.5 Megabytes/s
USB2 = 60 Megabytes/s

So your 2.0MB/s is defiantly exceeding the limits of USB1.1.

Are you using the same cable for both readers, or is the cable 'hard wired'? I have had USB2 performance issues when using old cables.

I have also found that the cheap and nasty 7 in 1 controller in my X'S Drive is only about twice as fast as USB1.1, even for a card capable of 6MB/s plus.

[billhercus]

I have checked the whole system out on Sandra which says I have the full USB 2.0 speed set up.

I purchased a Kingston single CF card HI SPEED USB 2.0 reader - connected it up - just the same.
Now, - it is not USB 1.1 but neither is it full USB 2.0 so I give up. I shall learn to be patient, I shall sing a little song - or go and have a cup of tea, or run round the block, or recite modern poetry or anything else to usefully fill the time while it ONLY transfers just over 2 MILLION little thingies every second - what am I saying?

[Jesper]

How did you measure the speed of your card reader? By copying files from your CF card to your harddisk?

Until a few days ago, I was also getting CF-to-harddisk copy times that were a lot slower than I expected (also using an USB 2.0 CF card reader and Sandisk Extreme 512 MB card).

It turned out that my harddisk was running much slower than it should. A tip about performance in a magazine brought this to my attention.

If you're using Windows XP, try this: Click on the Start menu and right-click on My Computer. Choose Properties in the popup menu. Choose the Hardware tab in the dialog and click Device Manager (I don't know exactly what it's called in English as I have a Dutch version of Windows, but you'll find out).

In Device Manager, click on the + left of "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". You'll most likely see at least two items, including "Primary IDE Channel" and "Secondary IDE Channel". You main harddisk is most likely connected to the primary IDE channel.

Right-click on "Primary IDE Channel" and choose Properties. Choose "Advanced" in the dialog. You'll now see in what mode the devices on that IDE channel are running. If your harddisk is running in PIO mode instead of Ultra DMA mode, then you either have a very old and slow harddisk, or it's not running at optimal speed.

To my surprise, my main harddisk was running in PIO mode, while it shouldn't - it's a fast Seagate Barracuda harddisk, which should be able to run in Ultra DMA mode 5 (100 MB/s) on my computer.

I tried several things, and what finally worked was this: I de-installed the driver for the Primary and Secondary IDE channels (right-click on the thing in Device Manager and choose "Undo Installation"). After that I rebooted, Windows automatically re-installed the driver, and now my harddisk is running in Ultra DMA 5 mode, and my computer is a whole lot faster! Also copying from a CF card to my harddisk is now faster.

The driver version number was higher after I did this, I think it went from version 5.1.2600.2100 to 5.1.2600.2180 (Microsoft driver).

However, one annoying now is that sometimes my USB devices start acting up and I get balloons in the lower right corner saying that something is wrong with my USB devices..... :-x I don't know if it is because of the new IDE driver or because I also opened up the computer and plugged some wires out and back in....

Hope this helps..... note: make a backup of important data before you start doing things like this!