USB 3.0 port speeds not much faster?

[sjahanmi]

Is it just me or is the USB 3.0 speeds really not that much faster than the regular USB 2.0? I tried transferring about 9 gigs of music using a USB 3.0 flash drive via my USB 3.0 port on my ThinkPad vs the 2.0 USB port and I didn't notice that much of a difference in download/upload speeds. I thought USB 3.0 was supposed to be soOo much faster?? What gives?

[Medessec]

Well- is that USB 3.0 flash drive you're using a cheaper one? Some flash drives may advertise 3.0, but only barely tap the potential speed in the new USB 3.0 interface. It's best to discover the blistering speed from an External Hard Drive or Wireless card/Gigabit controller over a blazing fast internet connection.

Regardless though... I've never really felt like USB 3.0 gives you that much of an advantage. USB 2.0 more than suffices, and most of the Thinkpads that people on here use(T4x, T6x, X6x) have USB 2.0.

When technology improves and USB 3.0 products become completely commonplace, I'm sure you'll be experiencing those blistering fast USB 3.0 speeds more often. But until then... don't worry too much. Just be glad your Thinkpad has USB 3.0.

[jayton4]

The USB 2.0 port can transfer at about 25MB/sec.

USB 3.0 can see do about 300 MB/sec.

Are the files that you are copying off the ThinkPad on a HDD or SSD? If it is an HDD, then it will do about 100 MB/sec.

Run a speed test and see where the bottleneck is, but as others pointed out, that USB 3.0 drive is the likely culprit. With a decent flash drive, you should be seeing around 4X speed increase.

[automobus]

Is it just me or is the USB 3.0 speeds really not that much faster than the regular USB 2.0?

Three of four USB 3.0 speeds are not faster than USB 2.0 speeds.

I tried transferring about 9 gigs of music using a USB 3.0 flash drive via my USB 3.0 port

Two electrical busses are in a 3.0 connector: SuperSpeed and conventional busses. I did not read documentation, so I do not know what is the correct terminology. It is possible, your data transferred via the "conventional bus" instead of the SuperSpeed bus.

I've never really felt like USB 3.0 gives you that much of an advantage.

I find a huge advantage for portables and non-expandable computers. In some modern systems, all outward-facing ports connect to chipset xHCI (internal components connect to a EHCI). These user-access ports handle High Speed traffic as if each port has a separate controller. Until just a few years ago, a typical laptop had one to seven (I think, this is the most I have seen) built-in USB 2.0 ports, and all ports shared one High Speed bus, one EHCI. A stationary desk computer might have had eight or ten built-in ports! If it is a expandable system, then more USB busses can be added. But several PCs are not very expandable: in USFF / ultra-compact PCs, mainboard chipset USB is the only option.

[Summilux]

For very small files there isn't much difference, however with a total of 9 gigs (acknowledging the fact that the size of each file is also to be taken into account) you should have noticed an appreciable difference.

Try again whilst copying bigger files, e.g. hundreds of megabytes or several gigabytes.

Also since we don't know which TP you're using... it could come from crappy drivers or a crappy adapter.

[sjahanmi]

I'm using this USB 3.0 flash drive on a T440s: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BF9HYXQ

It had high reviews so I thought I was real 3.0...but the speeds are no different from 2.0

[skinnie]

Do you have Intel USB 3.0 driver installed? Grab it on Intel website

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[dr_st]

I'm using this USB 3.0 flash drive on a T440s: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BF9HYXQ

It had high reviews so I thought I was real 3.0...but the speeds are no different from 2.0

It does say right there "100MB/s read, 30MB/s write". 30MB/s write is really low for a USB3 drive (some USB2 drives are comparable), and is definitely within the capabilities of the USB2 controller.

So you wouldn't notice any improvement copying files to the drive, but you should notice improvement copying from the drive.

[sjahanmi]

Yea I should have read that stuff first I guess. Is installing the driver from the Intel website recommended over what Lenovo would have on their support site?