Usb 3.0 connectivity

hey, just a quick question about USB 3.0 connectivity.

im doing a final prep on my recently built i7 2600 pc ready for selling it, and i plugged my new Usb3 WD 1tb portable hdd into the 2 Usb3 ports on the back of the case and it will not show up in windows 7, even tho the hdd is spinning up (you can feel it working)

the blue light on the drive wont turn on when i plug it in, but if i reboot the pc the light on the drive will then light up but the drive still wont show up in windows.

it works ok in the USB2 ports ok.

my new mobo is an Aus P8H67-M-LE (B3)
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=anRBLQ8WEKcWZHSt

should this device just work straight up, or is there something i am missing regarding Usb3 on this motherboard.

cheers

edit: Usb3 is enabled in the bios, and when this drive is connected via Usb2 my transfer speed from the drive to the pc storage hdd is about 25 MB/ps ???

 

Installed USB3 Drivers yet?

 

nope, my portable drive didnt come with any, and i wasnt aware i needed drivers for it anyway.

edit: just read an article about my 1tb drive write/read speeds on both Usb2 and Usb3 and there is stuff all difference, especially if copying large folders full of lots of files like movies, music or photos, so ill just keep using Usb2, given my i7 pc is the only pc i have that has Usb3 anyway, and this 1tb drive is my main daily backup drive anyway, and is used on all my systems.

 

I think he means the usb3 driver for your motherboard.

I don't know about your board, but on mine usb3 is provided by an NEC chip and needs the driver installed otherwise it won't work at all.

The driver should be on your motherboard's driver disk.

Have you checked in device manager (under Universal Serial Bus controllers) that the USB 3.0 Host Controller and USB 3.0 Root Hub are shown?

 

no Usb3 drivers for my mobo

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8H67M_LE/#download

but i wont bother now for the reasons i mentioned in my last post, and i need to connect the drive to one of the 2 blue Usb ports on the back of the case for Usb3 to work anyway, and thats just a pain in the butt to bother with, given the lack of extra write speed over Usb2 anyway.

cheers

 

On both my boards with usb 3, I can't get either of my two usb 3 drives to go any faster than usb 2 speeds either.

I think usb 3 is a bit of a white elephant at the moment.

 

totally agree, everything i read at the moment regarding testing speeds of both 2.0 and 3.0 suggests only a couple of MB/s difference in write speeds, a few more in read speeds, but read speeds isnt my concern, its write speed i need.

i still think firewire should have been retained as the primary interface for storage devices, simply because it is far superior and much more stable and reliable than USB will ever be, but it could never be used on portable devices without the need for mains power to run it, which is a shame.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about.

USB3 outstrips eSATA for me.

It beats/equals it in sustained read/write, as well as if i start doing multiple operations (do 2-3 copy operations in various directions at the same time).

I'm seeing 120MB/sec plus off a 7200rpm 2.5in drive <-> Intel G2 SSD/W.D Caviar Black/eSATA connected Lian-Li EX-503 w/ 5x7200rpm 3.5in Seagate Barracuda's in Raid5.

I've never had a problem with eSATA (I build all machines as AHCI or RAID sata mode on all ports) - outside of PM (port multiplier support) on some onboard chipsets.

I had initial problems with my 2.5in Vantec USB3 enclosure, these were fixed by a firmware update provided by vantec.

IIRC Firewire has support for powered devices in the spec as well - but well FW outside of Mac/AV Editing is almost unheard of, and Apple has a long history of either using little known connectors or making their own proprietary ones for aesthetic reasons.

My USB3 support experience has been across 2 ASUS boards and 5 Gigabyte boards. I've just bought a Vantec ExpressCard34 USB3 Card, which should show up next week - and i expect it will work fine as well.

 

Even on a crappy PCMCIA USB3 card and a generic USB3 enclosure I could max out the hard drive (640GB SATA2) drive in read/write. I saw no difference between eSATA and USB3 when I last tested it a year ago.

If you're getting USB2 speeds, then something is wrong with the enclosure, the USB driver or something inbetween.

 

I have a usb 3 flash drive with a claimed performance of 60MB write, 80MB read speeds. With it plugged directly into one of the two rear usb 3 ports I get a maximum 14MB write and 29MB read.
I get similar poor results with my usb 3 hard drive enclosure. I get much better write speeds with my usb 2 flash voyager drive.

I have 2 PC's with usb 3, and 2 usb 3 devices, yet using combinations of either yields no speed improvement. So either both PC's are at fault, or both devices are.

 

Lolz, I think that's a problem with your USB in general. I mean I know a lot of generics out there that claim USB2.0, yet copy at 1MB/s. You really get what you pay for. USB3.0 Flash working at those speeds, it's very close to the best of USB2.0. Which is fair enough, considering it's brand isn't even worth your mentioning. Try grabbing the same brand USB2.0 version and watch the speeds crawl at USB1.1 speeds.

As for USB3.0 not giving any speed difference to USB2.0. I don't know what you guys are using. I just purchased a cheap $25 enclosure for my laptops 2.5" 5400rpm WD Scrop Blue. I get 50MB/s write for HD vids. Which is a lot more than I get from USB2.0 on my laptop, which averages at about 28MB/s. Compared to eSATA off my Vantec Dock though (albeit using a WD Green 3.5"), I get 90MB/s with 110MB/s burst. I suspect that's because of the WD Green more than eSATA limitations.

 

I agree with the fact a lot of generics won't be much chop. This is the flash drive I bought, specifically to test my usb 3 speed when my enclosure failed to deliver.

http://www.mymemory.co.uk/USB-Flash-Drives/Centon/Centon-Rush-USB-3.0-Flash-Drive

Can I ask which $25 enclosure you're talking about and where you bought it?

 

who is talking about eSata here, this us Usb 2.0 and 3.0 we are talking about, dunno where eSata even entered this debate.

i will say that in my opinion Usb is shit when it comes to stability and reliability for data transfer, firewire kills it and always has, and anyone who knows the real history behind firewire will agree, and it shits me when i read comments posted in forums saying firewire is crap and old/outdated, because its not, but for some stupid reason someone in their wisdom decided to invent Usb and now its become the standard, and it sucks.

have u ever used firewire, especially firewire 800 ???

like i mentioned earlier, im reading a lot of stuff that still says Usb3.0 is pretty much still in its infancy, and many are not getting acceptable speeds from their Usb3 devices, so im not going to bother with it, especially when most machines i access dont even have Usb3 anyway.

 

Yes in Audio production (MIDI Interfaces) and Video Editing (Sources and File Storage).

And when talking storage, USB3 is faster, so is eSATA.

If you need to move and access bulk amounts of data, firewire is not the superior choice.

The reason USB is so "unreliable" is the spec is basically a set of loose guidelines. USB2 is indeed terrible for concurrent transfers, you also have problems with Windows every now and then wigging out and deciding to stuff up the install of a device (and the easiest way to fix it is to rebuild the machine).

That said, its everywhere. And when you buy *decent* devices, they just work - quickly as well.

USB3 fixes the issue of concurrent transfers, and has a 5Gbps theoretical ceiling - it has a backwards compatible connector and wide install base.

 

I got a Generic (A-Power) enclosure from MSY. It was 2.5".

And yes, USB2.0 was unreliable, mainly because it was designed to output 0.5amps, while most external HDD require 0.7 to 0.9amps when spinning up. Thus the biggest 3.5" HDD require an external adapter, while the smaller 2.5" 5400rpm drives (which were designed with energy efficiency in mind) can still manage. With USB3.0, they've upped the limit to 0.9amps. Of course, you could always buy a Gigabyte board, with which they advertise 3x power, that is 1.5amps, which make a world of difference. The proof. MotherBoards I've used include AsRock X58 Extreme (old board, no SATA 3 or USB3.0) real fail, HDD didn't work from rear I/O ports nor front case ports. Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, works as gem, both front and rear ports work. Asus P6X58D-Premium, rear ports work just fine. Front case ports work with some HDD, not others.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/usb-3_8.html#sect0

 

firewire is only needed in video work for capture of digital video footage from dv tape, its impossible to do it using Usb.

audio work required firewire, Usb is not an option (my son studies and works in audio production and recording and he has used Usb in the early days with Mbox and pro-tools)

and i dont agree with you on point 3, its always been a better option for me, but again, each to their own.

 

USB 3.0 is much better than firewire 800. It's not even comparable.

 

Better or Faster ???
Firewire will always be more reliable than Usb regardless of speed.

anyway, i needed to bump this thread up again because i still cannot get my 1tb WD Usb 3.0 portable drives to detect in windows explorer when plugging them into the 2 Usb 3.0 ports on my Asus mobo.

they are powering on and spin up, but not detected in windows.

this mobo has Usb 3.0 support enabled in the bios, so these drives should be detected in windows, just like my Usb 2.0 portable drives are.

can anyone shed any light on this please.