What's the bottleneck on a USB copy?

[jelifah]

Curious technical question. I have an 80GB drive.

When I copy 4GB from the external to a CPU it takes less than 5 minutes.

When I copy 4GB from the external to a freshly staged laptop it takes an hour.

Is it the chipset?
The hard drive speed couldn't cause that much of a drop, could it?

Just curious... and my name's not even George

 

[PurdueRy]

USB 2.0 vs 1.0(or whatever number the old one was)

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
USB 2.0 vs 1.0(or whatever number the old one was)

exactly, 480mbit/s (2.0) vs 12 mbit/s (1.1)

When I copy 4GB from the external to a CPU

:Q 4Gb cache.....

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
USB 2.0 vs 1.0(or whatever number the old one was)

exactly, 480mbit/s (2.0) vs 12 mbit/s (1.1)

When I copy 4GB from the external to a CPU

:Q 4Gb cache.....

LOL I noticed that too. Took me a couple or rereads to understand what he meant

 

[jelifah]

I'm rather certain that it's 2.0 because the external drive is being powered by the USB.

Is that an incorrect assumption?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: jelifah
I'm rather certain that it's 2.0 because the external drive is being powered by the USB.

Is that an incorrect assumption?

due to the slow transfer speed, yes.

 

[spike spiegal]

Wreteched performance of laptop HD's coupled with the greater overhead incurred with laptop integrated USB controllers. Not surprised.

One reason I refuse to use a laptop.