Windows 10: Why is my USB 2.0 vs. 3.0 performance the same?

I created a USB Recovery Drive on a friends ACER Aspire ES1-533-C55P Windows 10 laptop with a 3.0 flash drive that includes Backup system files. The computer was purchased about 3 months ago.
At first I connected the 3.0 flash drive to a USB 2.0 connector on the right side of the laptop: it two 2 hours.
Then connected that same 3.0 flash drive to a 3.0 connector on the back of the laptop: it still took two hours.
According to this article, neither 2.0 or 3.0 USB Flash drives even come close to their advertised speed; however, it does summarize that USB 3.0 reliably comes in at speeds nearly three times as fast as USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 speed: real and imagined | PCWorld
--- If that is true, my experiment shouldn't have shown the same time to do the same job: if my math is correct the 3.0 should have taken about 40 minutes.
--- Any ideas why their performances don't match up with their relative expectations?

:)

 

HP Printer Deskjet 1055 Port compatibility issue

Hi,

USB Port 3.0 has different traits from USB Port 2.0. Below are some of the differences of each ports:

• Transfer speed. (480 Mbps for USB 2.0 vs. 4.68 Gbps for USB 3.0)
• Actual data throughput. (280 Mbps vs. 3.2 Gbps)
• Data transferring method. (half-duplex vs. full duplex)
• Cable length and wires. (maximum of 5 meters vs. max of 5 meters)
• Compatibility. (USB 2.0 can connect to USB 1.0 and 2.0 as USB 3.0 can connect to USB 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0)
• Power consumption. USB 2.0 has a maximum current of 500 mA as USB 3.0 has a maximum current of 900 mA)

We suggest trying to use a different cable that is compatible to USB port 3.0 to help resolve the issue as this kind of incompatibility might cause your system to shut down unexpectedly.

Should you need further assistance, feel free to post your query anytime.

 

In Windows 10, device connect/disconnect sound plays over and over when monitor powers down (sleep)

Yup, it can definitely be the cable!

For me, it was a USB 3.0 cable I was using for my portable Hard Drive that I use as a backup. Changed that cable and no more disconnect sounds.

If it is a USB for you, try also try a different USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0 port. Some peripherals are finicky about the type of USB it gets plugged into

 

Performance will depend on the flash drive - what is the brand/model?

From USB UserBenchmarks - 639 USB Flash Drives Compared you can see cheap USB 3.0 flash drives with write speeds of 8MB/s (well under USB 2.0 speeds) and high end drives with write speeds of 230MB/s.

You can also run USB Tree View (USB Device Tree Viewer) and see if your drive is properly detected as USB 3.0 (S on the icon indicates Superspeed 3.0, H on the icon indicates High speed 2.0).

 

I have a number of USB 3 flash drives. Some of them are no faster than USB 2 drives, others are much faster.

The manufacturers are not required to certify transfer rates.

 

Are you using USB 3.x cables ?

 

The flash drive I used is
SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 16GB.SDCZ48-016G. BL160725494B. KCC-REM-TAD-SDCZ48, D33724.
--- I included all of the information on the flash drive in case any one of them means anything that counts.
Now I have to get back to PolarNettles benchmark recommendation.
I can't control whether or not I'll be buying USB 3.0 (3.X nowadays) that's supposed to be performing better than a USB 2.0 but "whatever".

EDIT: PolarNettles benchmark recommendation is excellent. It looks like determining better performance USB flash drives is possible after all resulting in buying flash drives with expected performance.

 

Test results from my 3 SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 32 GB key drives:
#1 Write 19.5 MBytes/s, Read 107 MBytes/s.
#2 Write 46.1 MBytes/s, Read 111 MBytes/s.
#3 Write 12.4 MBytes/s, Read 87.4 MBytes/s.
Similar Kingston ones:
#1 Write 23.6 MBytes/s, Read 32.9 MBytes/s.
Same test of random content 1 GB size files, they would be slower with smaller files.
As you can see quite a variation in the same drive. It costs more to get anything guaranteed to be faster.

 

So true. To me though, the issue was there wasn't any variation in using a USB 3.0 flash drive between using a USB 2.0 port vs. a USB 3.0 port and that's what raised my curiosity of what's going on. On the cost, I'm more interested in performance: thanks to the information posted in this thread, now I can determine which flash drives perform better than others.
As I mentioned I was working on a friends computer and 2 hours is a lot of time to help them out when I'm expecting less time than that. I'm not in the computer business but I'm a volunteer at our senior center and am willing to help those in need but I really don't want to give my time away. On my home computer, it took me only about 30 minutes to create my USB Recovery Drive when I had gotten my Win10 computer: little did I know I had a much better performance USB 3.0 flash drive. That also was factor in raising my curiosity of what's going on.

 

Hi folks.

if you have any spare SSD's that's the best way to make recovery disks etc. With a sata-->USB 3 connector this will simply BLOW any USB stick out of the water with regard to speed -- you won't get anything like the theoretical maximum which is anything up to 3 Gb/s for older type SATA but you'll certainly get speeds of 2 - 300 Mb/s easily.

If you do a lot of this stuff and value your time buying say a really cheap 120 GB SSD (probably only a few dollars more than a fast sandisk usb 3 stick) will pay humungous dividends in saving you time.

Cheers
jimbo