Is my USB2.0 HDD Enclosure running correctly?

[edro]

I bought a USB 2.0 off a guy here and it works fine. The only thing I am wondering, is if it is transferring at speeds that it is supposed to. I am using a random USB device cable laying around and I do not know if it is USB 2.0 compliant or not. (Or if it matters)

I am using a 40gb 5400rpm drive in it and I test copied 4.3GB to it (some 800 MP3s) and it took 495sec. I used some 1337 math skillz to figure that that is around 8.3mb/sec. That seems pretty slow for USB 2.0.

Do you think I need USB 2.0 drivers? A 100% sure USB 2.0 compliant cable?

I am using a Shuttle SK41G XPC (the little cube computers) and the USB device shows up as USB 2.0.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lord Evermore]

Assuming you're not using WinNT/2k/XP, download HDTach and run it on the drive. Or download SiSoft Sandra and use the hard drive benchmark in that. That'll give you a benchmark number to compare with.

I don't know whether an older 1.1 cable will actually affect USB2.0 or not. Possibly a higher grade of cable is needed for the higher speeds.

My 7200RPM Maxtor drive gets about 14MBps on a firewire connection, using an older chipset in the enclosure that doesn't perform nearly as well as newer ones. I would think your USB2.0 enclosure capable of at least a bit more performance than that.

 

[edro]

I am using XP. The drive is older, but the enclosure is fairly new. I guess I can try Sisoft Sandra and see what she gives it.

 

[Pariah]

Sounds about right to me. Real world file transfers aren't as fast as straight STR tests like HDTach. The ATA-USB2 conversion will slow down a drive quite a bit, even if it is a slowone like the one you are using.

 

[edro]

^

 

[aliu79]

hi,

i found a review of a usb2.0 hard drive enclosure which includes transfer speeds:

http://thetechzone.com/display.php?i=227&p=3

in the review, they transfered 5.6 GB in files, it took almost 10 minutes (587 seconds to be exact). that's about ~9.5 MB/s. they were using a top-notch computer with a slightly faster HD. your numbers aren't that far off.

i used to have a usb1.1 external hard drive at work and it took HOURS to transfer 2 gigs of pdf documents.

 

[edro]

Cool, sounds like its workin!

Thanks!

 

[LouPoir]

Speed sounds about correct.

 

[Macro2]

Where do I get a good enclosure? Can't seem to find CS constar or comstar.

mac