USB 2.0 vs 3.0 power. Can USB 2 drive get 4.5 W? Also, what USB 3.0 card to get?

[Eug]

USB 2 provides up to 0.5 Amps x 5 Volts = 2.5 Watts.
USB 3 provides up to 0.9 Amps x 5 Volts = 4.5 Watts.

If I attach a USB 2 drive to a USB 3 port, will I get up to 4.5 Watts? Or am I still limited to 2.5 Watts?

I'm just wondering because I have several mobile USB 2 drives that don't work consistently with a single USB port. It'd be nice if I knew they'd work on a single port if the ports were USB 3.

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Also, I want to add USB 3.0 to my Acer Aspire X3400, which is a slim machine. It takes low profile PCIe cards.

Any recommended brands? My local stores sell Mediasonic, Vantec, D-Link, Syba, Silverstone, SIIG, Star Tech, Bytecc, Zalman, Western Digital, etc.

The only two issues I've come across:

1) Low profile USB 3.0 adapters with low profile brackets seem pretty uncommon.
2) This machine has all of two power plugs, both SATA, and both used. The power supply seems tiny but I figure I can just buy a Y-splitter for say the optical drive SATA power, and attach a molex adapter at the end, right?

 

[vailr]

Check for the USB 3.0 controller chip. NEC-Renesas seems good.
Here's one example, but the controller chip is "VIA VL-800":
http://www.camera2000.com/en/low-profile-pci-e-to-2-usb-3-0-one-20pins-usb-3-0-adapter-card.html
As far as USB port wattage: check your system owner's manual. Some newer Gigabyte motherboards provide some selected USB ports with extra wattage for charging iPads, for example. I would tend to doubt that your Acer Aspire X3400 has that sort of USB port functionality.
Can't answer your question about using a USB 2.0 device in a USB 3.0 port.

 

[Eug]

Thanks. I ended up buying the D-Link DUB-1310, mainly because it was a recognizable brand name and because it was the only decently priced one (CAD$35) available locally that came with a low profile bracket in the box. There was a Startech one as well, but it cost almost twice as much.

I didn't look at the card's chip before I installed it but Google seems to indicate it's a NEC chip. By NEC-Renesas are you talking about two different chips?

As for using a USB 2.0 device in a USB 3.0 port and power, it may be a moot point if I stick with branded external drives, instead of buying an enclosure and putting my own drive in it. It seems all of my USB 2 2.5" external drives that I bought as one-piece units work fine over regular USB power. However, the ones where I harvested 2.5" drives and then stuck them in 3rd party enclosures are the ones that sometimes have issues being powered by only a single USB port.

In fact, I've noticed that they even sometimes have problems using power from a single port + an external AC->USB adapter, if I use a cheap power adapter presumably because of the crappy quality of the power provided. Works fine if I use a single USB port + an Apple iPod AC->USB.

 

[Phynaz]

A USB2 device plugged into a USB3 port only makes contact with with with USB2 connection in the port.

Therefore you will only be guaranteed USB2 power.

 

[Eug]

A USB2 device plugged into a USB3 port only makes contact with with with USB2 connection in the port.

Therefore you will only be guaranteed USB2 power.

OK thanks. That's what I figured.

2) This machine has all of two power plugs, both SATA, and both used. The power supply seems tiny but I figure I can just buy a Y-splitter for say the optical drive SATA power, and attach a molex adapter at the end, right?

I'll answer my own question.

Molex is 5V and 12V. SATA power is 3.3V, 5V, and 12V. You lose the 3.3 power support for SATA by converting molex to SATA power. However, luckily the vast majority of things don't use 3.3V power, so not having 3.3V support for SATA is not a big deal.

Unfortunately, it turns out SATA power to IDE molex adapters and variations on that theme aren't very popular and are thus harder to find locally than molex to SATA adapters.

So I had to do this:

SATA->molex adapter ----> molex Y-adapter ----> molex->SATA adapter

(I split the power off my SATA hard drive and everything still works fine. To reduce the number of splits - potential failure points - to the hard drive I would have preferred splitting it off the optical drive instead since I don't use the optical drive much, but there is no room in the case to put an adapter on behind the optical drive.)

P.S. It turns out my PSU only supports 12 V x 14 A = 168 Watts. This is going to make choosing a GPU upgrade in the future a bit difficult, should I ever decide to do that in the future.

 

[vailr]

There may be a firmware update here:
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/renesas.htm

 

[Eug]

Thanks.

Hmmm... I don't see an updated driver on D-Link's site. Assuming that D720200F1 model number I got off Google is correct - and I'll open up my PC again to confirm -- then there is new firmware on that page you linked, assuming uDF720200 is the same thing as D720200F1. However, I'm a little hesitant to install a generic driver for a branded card since I don't know if the D-Link card would be exactly the same as a generic reference model.

 

[vailr]

Check Windows Device Manager. You won't see any D-Link branding there. Just the brand name Renesas will appear there (under USB Controllers).
Conclusion: should be safe to update to the latest firmware
"NEC/RENESAS USB3 Controller (uPD720200 & uPD720200a) firmwares Version 4.0.2.0"
and driver
"NEC/RENESAS USB3 Controller (uPD720200 & uPD720200a) Drivers Version 2.1.36.0"
Note: leave the USB 3.0 port unoccupied when flashing the firmware.

 

[Eug]

Nope, definitely D-Link branded. Judging from the page you linked, it looks like this 3025 firmware is from 2010, but there is no updater on D-Link's site. The card revision is 1.0 from May 2011, and manufactured November 2011.

 

[vailr]

Windows Device Manager's "D-Link" branding might (or might not) change to "Renesas", if you were to use the generic driver (linked previously). I own a similar ECS branded USB 3.0 PCIe card, and have always used the generic Renesas driver and firmware updates.

Note: the chip on my ECS branded card has the marking "D720200F1", (same as your D-Link card) but the latest firmware & driver that I could update to was to firmware version 2.0.1.4 and driver version 3.0.20.0, which station-drivers.com lists for different (the uPD720201 & uPD720202) controllers. The flash updater does check the hardware version prior to actual completion of the update.

 

[kami]

I wonder if AI Charger will help you out. http://event.asus.com/mb/2010/ai_charger/

It works on non-Asus hardware too. It lets stuff like an iPad charge faster over a USB port, so maybe it will provide moe power to the drives too?

 

[Eug]

Well, I'm impressed. Even with my lowly slow 250 GB 5400 rpm 2.5" laptop drive I'm getting over 70 MB/s real-world with sequential file transfers (and 85 MB/s in artificial benches). It is less than 30 MB/s over USB 2.

I'm transferring video files over to the drive for playback on my Blu-ray player, so this speedup is very nice to have.

I'm gonna have to go pickup some USB 3.0 enclosures for my 3.5" drives I use for backups. Unfortunately, this one PC is the only USB 3 machine I have. I actually have more machines with Firewire 800 than USB 3, but FW 800 is damn expensive and of course isn't compatible with my USB2-only machines.

Firewire, it's been nice knowin' ya, but all relationships must come to an end eventually.

I only wish I had USB 3 on my machine when I was doing those drive clones for my SSDs. It would have saved me so much time.

 

[Smoblikat]

Well, I'm impressed. Even with my lowly slow 250 GB 5400 rpm 2.5" laptop drive I'm getting over 70 MB/s real-world with sequential file transfers (and 85 MB/s in artificial benches). It is less than 30 MB/s over USB 2.

I'm transferring video files over to the drive for playback on my Blu-ray player, so this speedup is very nice to have.

I'm gonna have to go pickup some USB 3.0 enclosures for my 3.5" drives I use for backups. Unfortunately, this one PC is the only USB 3 machine I have. I actually have more machines with Firewire 800 than USB 3, but FW 800 is damn expensive and of course isn't compatible with my USB2-only machines.

Firewire, it's been nice knowin' ya, but all relationships must come to an end eventually.

I only wish I had USB 3 on my machine when I was doing those drive clones for my SSDs. It would have saved me so much time.

Personally Id choose eSATA for my personal rig, but USB 3 is nice because all computers have a USB port.

 

[Eug]

IIRC, I had problems with eSATA hotplugging way back when with an old USB2/eSATA enclosure.

So, for an external removeable drive I'd stick with USB3. Also, since none of my Macs support eSATA, it'd have to be at least dual USB3/eSATA.

However, for an external drive I'd just leave connected all the time, I'd consider using eSATA.

P.S. Kinda off topic, but since we're talking eSATA... I had an LG Blu-ray drive that came with bundled software... but the software refused to install. It would check for the drive, not find it, and then quit. It took me a few hours to realize it simply wouldn't install with a USB drive, since the error messages were cryptic.

The install worked perfectly over eSATA. I guess LG didn't want me installing this software on all my computers, since the bunded Blu-ray playback software doesn't actually check for an LG drive once installed, and with eSATA the installer just perceived it as equivalent to an internal drive. So, another benefit of having eSATA on the enclosure.