Poor USB 3.0 speeds on CF card reader.

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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
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I've just put a sytem together for my dad who works in photography, he didn't need a lot of horespower but he did need good transfer speeds as he moves a lot of images around. The system specs relevant to this question are below.

CPU - Intel core i3 4130
MB - MSI H81M-E33 V2
HDD - Seagate ST1000DM003 1TB SATA 3 Hard Drive
Card reader - Lexar Professional USB 3.0 Dual-Slot Reader
CF Card - SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash 60MB/s 8GB

When I transferred some images from card to HD to test the system Windows was telling me I was only getting 24MB/s speeds (with his old USB 2.0 card reader and the same card it was 17MB/s) so I ran CrystalDiskMark and it showed sequential read/write speeds of 24 and 19 MB/s (this was backed up by the time it took to transfer 700-800MB of data at 30-40 secs).

I checked I was using a USB 3.0 port which I was and even tried another USB 3.0 port to check but to no avail. I checked in the bios to make sure USB 3.0 was enabled which it was.

I updated the MB bios and formatted the card and ran Crystal again, now I was getting sequential read/write speeds of 210 and 190 MB/s but when I transferred images, Windows was again telling me I was getting 24MB/s transfer speeds

Now I tested the hard drive in Crystal and got sequential read/write speeds 220 and 200MB/s, when I put the drive into a SATA 2 port (as opposed to SATA 3) it was still coming out around the same speed.

I transferred images again and still got 24MB/s, I know the card won't deliver the full advertised speed of 60MB/s but I was hoping for at least high 40's. Anybody have any ideas if this can be adressed?
 
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Doomer

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Dec 5, 1999
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Just my personal opinion but USB 3.0 sucks, it's not ready for prime time yet. I've had so many issues with it all the way across the board that I rarely plug a USB 3.0 device into a 3.0 slot. USB 2.0 seems to work just fine in a 3.0 slot however. I have used serveal different USB HD's, flash drives, hubs, etc. It's been hit or miss for me. Sometimes they work but most often they don't.
 
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Insert_Nickname

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May 6, 2012
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Firstly make sure that you have installed the latest Intel USB3 drivers. You can get them here. Don't worry about the "for Intel NUC", they run just fine. If you're running Windows 8(.1), then you don't need them as drivers are updated silently.

I would actually say that going from 17MB/s to 24MB/s is pretty respectable. You have to realize that transferring a lot of small files (images) from/to a card will always be a lot slower then purely sequential transfers. Cards will almost never hit top speed under these conditions.

To test speed, transfer a -large- file (something between 1-4GB) and watch the speed. If its still hovering around 24MB/s, there is a bottleneck somewhere.
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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Doomer said:
Just my personal opinion but USB 3.0 sucks, it's not ready for prime time yet. I've had so many issues with it all the way across the board that I rarely plug a USB 3.0 device into a 3.0 slot. USB 2.0 seems to work just fine in a 3.0 slot however. I have used serveal different USB HD's, flash drives, hubs, etc. It's been hit or miss for me. Sometimes they work but most often they don't.
Click to expand...

That's really not what I wanted to hear, I work as a 3d artist and was hoping to upgrade to USB 3.0 this year myself, was dreaming of lighting fast file transfers....
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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Insert_Nickname said:
Firstly make sure that you have installed the latest Intel USB3 drivers. You can get them here. Don't worry about the "for Intel NUC", they run just fine. If you're running Windows 8(.1), then you don't need them as drivers are updated silently.

I would actually say that going from 17MB/s to 24MB/s is pretty respectable. You have to realize that transferring a lot of small files (images) from/to a card will always be a lot slower then purely sequential transfers. Cards will almost never hit top speed under these conditions.

To test speed, transfer a -large- file (something between 1-4GB) and watch the speed. If its still hovering around 24MB/s, there is a bottleneck somewhere.
Click to expand...

Thanks I'll give that a go, I assumed win 7 would update drivers as was necessary. I was pushed for time when I was running tests so I didn't run the full set but I'll have to go back and try again after loading the drivers.

I just find it a huge step down from 200MB/s for both card/card reader and hard drive to 24MB/s transferring actual files, I'm surprised to hear that's a reasonable speed for USB 3.0 to be honest.
 
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Insert_Nickname

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May 6, 2012
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boing said:
That's really not what I wanted to hear, I work as a 3d artist and was hoping to upgrade to USB 3.0 this year myself, was dreaming of lighting fast file transfers....
Click to expand...

boing said:
I just find it a huge step down from 200MB/s for both card/card reader and hard drive to 24MB/s transferring actual files, I'm surprised to hear that's a reasonable speed for USB 3.0 to be honest.
Click to expand...

The limiting factor is not USB3, it is the CF card. With one of my UHS-1 compliant SDHC cards I only get 25-30MB/s depending on file sizes. Also non-sequential read/write slows down USB significantly, because of protocol overhead. That is common to all versions unfortunately. Even external HDDs can't saturate USB3. To go above 200MB/s, you need either a "real" external SSD or HDDs in RAID. But when you do use one of those, transfer speeds of 350MB/s are not unheard of. With special equipment supporting UASP, I've seen 400MB/s+ speeds. So its possible, you just need the right equipment... :)
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
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Jesus, hearing that I suppose 24MB/s isn't bad for a CF card with a 60MB/s limit, I suppose I'll have to add USB speeds to The Book Of Broadband Speed Bullshit :(

Thanks for the feedback though.
 
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Insert_Nickname

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May 6, 2012
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boing said:
I suppose I'll have to add USB speeds to The Book Of Broadband Speed Bullshit :(
Click to expand...

:D

It's always been that way. I remember more-or-less the same comment back when USB2 launched. 480Mbit/s!? Yeah right, in practice you're lucky to get even half that. Even further back when USB1.1 launched we all agreed USB stood for UnStableBus... :p

(I checked the specs for all your components. All manufacturers had a variation of the "usual" disclaimer: "Results may vary based on system configuration and card speed". They fail to tell you just -how- much actual real-world performance can vary from their best case lab-tests...)
 
Coup27

Coup27

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2010
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I'm surprised to read all this negativity towards USB3. I personally have never had an issue with it. My Patriot SuperSonic 32GB USB3 stick easily can sit at 130MB/s sequential read and 70MB/s write over USB3. My external HDD is also much faster over USB3 than 2. Sounds more like the CF card isn't as fast as it's advertised.
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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Insert_Nickname said:
:D

It's always been that way. I remember more-or-less the same comment back when USB2 launched. 480Mbit/s!? Yeah right, in practice you're lucky to get even half that. Even further back when USB1.1 launched we all agreed USB stood for UnStableBus... :p

(I checked the specs for all your components. All manufacturers had a variation of the "usual" disclaimer: "Results may vary based on system configuration and card speed". They fail to tell you just -how- much actual real-world performance can vary from their best case lab-tests...)
Click to expand...

Yeah, the good old days, when Plug and Play was better known as Plug and Pray..... :D
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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Coup27 said:
I'm surprised to read all this negativity towards USB3. I personally have never had an issue with it. My Patriot SuperSonic 32GB USB3 stick easily can sit at 130MB/s sequential read and 70MB/s write over USB3. My external HDD is also much faster over USB3 than 2. Sounds more like the CF card isn't as fast as it's advertised.
Click to expand...

I have to run the full suite of benchmarks on the card but the sequential read/write speeds shot up after I updated the motherboard BIOS, as mentioned by others though it's not really representative of real world speed.

I would consider getting a faster card if necessary (it's about £60) but if I could get this card to even hit 80% of its listed speed it would be fast enough.
 
Throckmorton

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
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Try copying a big file or making an image of the card with a program like Easis. If it's faster you know the problem is the small file size
 
Cerb

Cerb

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Aug 26, 2000
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boing said:
That's really not what I wanted to hear, I work as a 3d artist and was hoping to upgrade to USB 3.0 this year myself, was dreaming of lighting fast file transfers....
Click to expand...
USB 3.0 is fine, and readily capable of >150MBps transfers (Sandisk Ultra Plus, TR BlackX dock, B75 USB 3.0 port, Clonezilla), and blows USB 2.0 out of the water with small files.

But, the card reader and the card have to be capable of that speed, as well. A well-used CF card is not likely to get near what it could get new. "Up to" are always bunk ratings, because that only works with big files, before the drive's been written over entirely.With a faster CF card, you aught to be able to get faster copies.
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
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I'm going over to my dad's place tonight so I'm going to work through these suggestions and see where it gets me, I'll report back tomorrow and let you know if I got any improvements. Appreciate all the suggestions!
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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Seems like I buggered up originally, my dads hard drive is E:800GB and his card is F:8000MB so after updating the MB BIOS I accidentally selected his hard drive to test instead of his CF card which explains the leap up in speeds.....:oops:

Didn't get a chance to go over so I had to run tests remotely (can't test the card in the camera) and my comp keeps crashing on the last 4K test so I just discarded it and ran the rest.

The results below cover 50MB/100MB/500MB/1000MB tests, my 4 year old, USB 2.0 MB and card reader are above (same card as dads), the new USB 3.0 MB and card reader are below. As you can see the new card reader/MB are trounced right across the board by the old ones :confused:



I've updated the USB 3.0 and chipset drivers, the MB firmware, the card reader firmware and even checked for HDD firmware updates (none exist) I've ran diagnostics on the HDD too and tried formatting the CF card. I'm out of ideas, surely to god this can't be normal? :confused:

The fact that my card speeds drop as the test file size increases but my dads stay the same across the board seems to imply it's bottlenecking somewhere, does this sound reasonable?

[edit] The only think I can think of is that my dads machine uses on-board graphics to save the cost of a dedicated card, that wouldn't shut down any internal CPU bandwidth would it? I only ask because I nearly bought a USB 3.0 MB in 2009 when I put my system together but found out at the last minute that if you used a PCI Express lane at full speed you couldn't enable USB 3.0 as they shared some bandwidth.
 
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d33pblue

Senior member
Jul 2, 2003
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I have this compact flash card and it's capable of 60-70MB/s read, easily. I use mine hard and have seen no decrease in speed over the past couple years. I also use a Kingston USB 3.0 reader with mine and regularly get 90MB/s+ with the right card - so USB 3.0 isnt likely to be the issue either.

I would try using the card/reader combo with another computer - and also try using a different card in the reader.
 
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boing

Senior member
Sep 13, 2001
354
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d33pblue said:
I have this compact flash card and it's capable of 60-70MB/s read, easily. I use mine hard and have seen no decrease in speed over the past couple years. I also use a Kingston USB 3.0 reader with mine and regularly get 90MB/s+ with the right card - so USB 3.0 isnt likely to be the issue either.

I would try using the card/reader combo with another computer - and also try using a different card in the reader.
Click to expand...

You've just taken the words out of my mouth, I asked my dad to try another card and he dug out an old back up card, the speeds are through the roof! the original card must be a damaged.

Phew! :biggrin:

 
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d33pblue

Senior member
Jul 2, 2003
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That's really weird. Generally these cards are super reliable. Maybe try a low-level format to the card and see if that helps things any?
 
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Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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d33pblue said:
That's really weird. Generally these cards are super reliable. Maybe try a low-level format to the card and see if that helps things any?
Click to expand...

boing said:
Good idea might give that a go, certainly can't make it any slower!
Click to expand...

Generally, a regular format/secure erase is a good idea. This "resets" the NAND inside the card, thus removes all traces of old/invalid data. If you just delete images from the card, data on the card will soon become fragmented, as new data is added into the "holes" left by the old data. Worse, when you write to the card, it has to do a read-modify-write. That kills performance. CF-card controllers are not really geared to the same amount of "house keeping" as f.x. an SSD.

Kind of sounds like you have a very fragmented card.
 
tweakboy

tweakboy

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Jan 3, 2010
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www.hammiestudios.com
Im sure each diff USB 3.0 ports and device gonna have diff speeds. But 108mbps for usb 3.0 is slow. Return it get another USB 3.0 device u want. I promise it should get you 150mbps if not over 200mbps , speaking fnrom experience guys btw.. thx gl,
 
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