Does the W520 dock do USB 3.0?

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plympton · #1 Post by **plympton** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 11:29 am

I don't *THINK* so, but figure I'd check here. Kinda moots the point of having the dock if I can't hook my USB 3.0 drives to it...

ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 - 170W - 433830U
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 76767.html

Anyone?

-Dan

davidhbrown · #2 Post by **davidhbrown** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:21 pm

I'm pretty sure they're not, but are attached to the Intel chipset which does only USB 2.0. I have a whole bunch of devices plugged into the dock for my W520. When I go to the device manager, I find them listed in the Advanced tab of the second "Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D"

"The Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller" doesn't offer the device list (no "Advanced" tab), but the Arduino I plugged in to one of the blue ports on the side isn't showing up on either of the Intel controllers but is showing up correctly under communication devices in Device Manager.

ExcursionPSD · #3 Post by **ExcursionPSD** » Sun May 01, 2011 5:54 am

You might consider attaching your external drives thru the e-SATA interface. This exists on both the system unit and the mini dock plus Series 3. Plenty of speed also, with e-SATA III support.

commander · #4 Post by **commander** » Sun May 01, 2011 4:31 pm

I don't think that the eSATA can do SATA 3 speeds.

Volker · #5 Post by **Volker** » Sun May 01, 2011 4:47 pm

The two Sata III = Sata 6Gb/s ports are the built-in hdd and the ultrabay. All remaining Sata ports are Sata II = Sata 3Gb/s.

pkincy · #6 Post by **pkincy** » Mon May 23, 2011 9:24 pm

And the W520 has a USB 3 but the Dock does not. So I get continual messages that my external USB 3 drive could work faster in a USB 3 slot.

Fact of the matter, is it is a HDD and can't saturate a USB 2 connection.

Also I back up at night and don't care if it takes a bit longer. I was using it from the W520 USB 3 slot but got tired of demounting it every time I took the laptop out of the dock.

Perry

wolfindersteppe · #7 Post by **wolfindersteppe** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:59 pm

Volker wrote:The two Sata III = Sata 6Gb/s ports are the built-in hdd and the ultrabay. All remaining Sata ports are Sata II = Sata 3Gb/s.

I can confirm this too, eSATA port is using SATA II. Here you can find my test results on VERTEX3 Pro 240GB SSD in external HD enclosure via USB3, eSATA and eSATAp - eSATA beats them all:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo- ... ost7593804
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo- ... ost7633027

Colonel O'Neill · #8 Post by **Colonel O'Neill** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:43 pm

pkincy wrote:Fact of the matter, is it is a HDD and can't saturate a USB 2 connection.

Umm. HDDs saturate a USB 2 connection with no effort at all.

Does the W520 dock do USB 3.0?

Does the W520 dock do USB 3.0?

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