USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0

FYI…I ran some simple backup time tests. I backed up 127Gb of data from an internal 7200 RPM SATA drive using standard compression. My goal was to gauge backup times between USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0. 

 

Backup to: USB 2.0 (7200 RPM Iomega eGO) = 48 minutes

Backup to: Internal SATA drive (7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda) = 38 Minutes

Backup to: USB 3.0 (7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda) = 24 minutes

Backup to: RAID 0 (7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda eSATA x 4) = 24 minutes



Andy,

Was the SATA drive that was used as a destination a seperate drive then the source?

Or were you going from one partition to another partition on the same drive?

 

Dave

FYI…I ran some simple backup time tests. I backed up 127Gb of data from an internal 7200 RPM SATA drive using standard compression. My goal was to gauge backup times between USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0. 

 

Backup to: USB 2.0 (7200 RPM Iomega eGO) = 48 minutes

Backup to: Internal SATA drive (7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda) = 38 Minutes

Backup to: USB 3.0 (7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda) = 24 minutes

Backup to: RAID 0 (7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda eSATA x 4) = 24 minutes




andreash_utah wrote:

I backed up 127Gb of data from an internal 7200 RPM SATA drive using standard compression.





Andy,

 

Good information. What size was the backup image?

DELETE

Out of interest I did similar tests comparing USB 2.0 and eSATA .  I used the same hard drive (Western Digitral MyBook Studio II with RAID 1) for both tests.  Turned out eSATA was about twice as fast as USB 2.0, similar to your results.  I like to see a test done with one of the very commonly available NAS drives, such as Buffalo, Iomega, LaCie. NETGEAR, QNAP, Seagate, etc.


boolean wrote:

 I like to see a test done with one of the very commonly available NAS drives, such as Buffalo, Iomega, LaCie. NETGEAR, QNAP, Seagate, etc.


Same here. I expect they are slow. Probably one third the rate of USB 2.

I would have thought a gigabit NAS server would be faster than USB 2.0.

Yes, I was thinking of a 100 MBit/sec NAS. But I'd be interested in hearing the speed of a gigabit NAS too.

Ok, my source used in these tests is a internal 350Gb SATA  drive, 127Gb of data. Backing up to Buffalo Terastation Pro with Gigabit NIC, switch and LAN segment: Total time to complete was 81 minutes. We've got a busy network, so as you can imagine, there are many factors that affect network backup speeds.

 

 


andreash_utah wrote:

 Total time to complete was 81 minutes.  We've got a busy network, so as you can imagine, there are many factors that affect network backup speeds.


Andy,

 

Thanks again for this very helpful information. So in your setup, USB 2 was nearly twice as fast as imaging over a gigabit network.

Yes, but again, this is in my lab where network traffic is usually high.

 

For a true test, I would likey need to set up a cross-over cable to the NAS, or create an isolated network for a true test.

According to a variety of reviews the Buffalo Terastation Pro is a terribly slow device.  Perhaps it's something to do with the poor performance of the CPU they use.  For example, there are reports that it's 5-10 times slower than say the Netgear Readynas.  Whether such reports are true or not I would not know.   I'd be very cautious of buying any NAS without an exhaustive review of the products.

 

boolean,

 

What sort of speed do you get out of a gigabit network? My experience is limited to my 4 computer gigabit network. I only get a speed of 25 MB/sec when transferring a large file from one of the kid's computer to my computer. But if I get their computers to transfer the files simultaneously I can receive at 70 MB/sec.

 

 


Brian_K wrote:

What sort of speed do you get out of a gigabit network?  


I don't have a NAS as yet.  I do have a Gigabit switch and PC but I'm still using cat5 cabling so I will have to replace the cabling with either cat5e or cat6 before I buy one.

I had the house wired with Cat 6 cables last year. We had to run wires for fire alarms so it didn't cost much extra to add network cables. I'm very pleased as I had Wireless G at the time and the wireless transfer rate for large files was only 1 MB/sec.

A little trick to increase network performance when saving an image to a network location can be found here:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH125631.

 

Warning: This was written for BESR, but if you unzip the attachment and view the registry changes in the AltPerformance1-x64.reg file, you should be able to find the same registry settings for Ghost in your x64 system registry.

Here's a guy -- a regular over on Compuserve PCHardware -- who really knows a lot about benchmarks and who is extremely helpful.

 

http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/ 

 

I gather you can get differences in transmission speeds due to overheads and also to the size of caches on drives and a host of unexpected factors.