USB 2 HD case verry slow in 2000

[harmmeijer]

I've bought a target usb case with a 120 Gig harddisk and formatted it to NTFS, gave everyone full control on all the partitions (4 in total).
When connecting to any 2000 machine from P2 to P4 it takas a minimum of 40 minutes to transfer 1 gig.

I took the disk to a friend who has got XP and it took about 120 seconds to transfer 1 gig.

Does anyone know why it is such a big difference?
I would use XP but there are some thins realy realy wrong with it (like the file search not turning up any results when searching for files containing text ...)



Greetings, Harm Meijer

 

[Philly44]

The problem could be with the external HD, we have gone through several where I work and although each were USB2 and had nice claims of max transfers rates tehy all transfered at different speeds with most of them being quite slow. I think its a problem in the drivers for W2K. We never really found a solution other then using the faster cases.

 

[harmmeijer]

Thank you Philly,

I did use the same HD and case on several 2000 machine (no driver needed) and the same HD and case on one XP machine (no driver needed).

The XP machine was 20 times faster.



Greetings, Harm Meijer

 

[Dillinger99]

At the risk of sounding foolish, do all of the machines you're using have USB 2 ports? I bet at least the P2 machines have USB 1.1.

 

[harmmeijer]

According to the specs the P4 has no USB 1(hp d530c/pp2.8).
According to my friend who had the XP machiine 120 seconds should be normal for USB 2, he is used to firewire on a Mac and that is not much faster than USB 2.
The 40 minutes should be out of the ordinary.

I tried it on a laptop with USB 1 and that is slower than the USB 2 but not much.



Greetings, Harm Meijer

 

[cdogg]

OK, let's clear up a couple facts:

1) Firewire (400Mbps) is not faster than USB 2.0 (480Mbps)
2) USB 1.1 (12Mbps) is 40 times slower than USB 2.0


I highly suspect that your problem is using the USB 2.0 hard drive on a USB 1.1 connection. Transferring a GB in 40 minutes is like transferring 450KB every second which is about 4Mbps. Now that seems a little slow, even for USB 1.1.

But USB 1.1 uses some overhead, so that's part of the reason. Also, there could be other USB devices (mouse, keyboard, etc) attached?

I think you need to verify what we're working with. Also, are you transferring data from external to internal hard drives, or is it going over a network as well? I don't think the version of Windows has anything to do with it. The XP PC just has newer hardware, probably including USB 2.0.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[harmmeijer]

Hello,

I installed xp next to 2000, booted with xp and copied a file from local hd to usb and fice versa. The file was 800MB and it took 30 seconds (hd to usb: 30 sec, usb to hd: 30 sec).

Rebooted in 2000 and did the same thing with the same file with the same discs. When copying the file from hd to usb indication says 14 minutes and it took 15 minutes. The other way arround was the same.

Since all hardware is the same it must be some setting or the OS.
I tried it with a workmate's laptop (same file) and the file took 60 seconds (from usb to hd 60 sec). He had win 2000 installed on it and it had a 1.8 gig processor instead of my 2.8 gig processor in the desktop.



Greetings, Harm Meijer

 

[cdogg]

Yeah, at this point it does seem to be a software/OS related issue. If the USB port is built-into the motherboard, go out to the manufacturer's website and look for a BIOS upgrade. Flash to the latest revision.

If you're using an add-in USB 2.0 card, then grab the latest drivers for it as well.

Also make sure you have SP4 installed for Win 2000. USB 2.0 support was first included with it. This site also has some good information on USB in general:

http://www.usbman.com/Win2000.htm

~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884