USB 2 Exterbal Harddrive Enclosure

[ssss25]

Hi,

I'm wondering if any of you had this problem. I have USB 2 and I can see the controller in my Device MAnager and the drive that is 5.0026... so I think I Am fine driver wise.

I have an external HD enclosure and When I copy a 93MB file, it takes around 35 secs! That is USB 1.1 speed! XP says it detected a high speed device when I plug it in.

What could I be doing wrong?

Thanks for any help.

[LooseChippings]

It is probably the speed of your actual Hard Drive that is deternining the speed.

Don't forget that speeds quoted for USB or any other connection are for the speed of data transfer and not the speed of the device at the end of the line.

[ssss25]

yeah! but I mean the device is 2.0 and they brag about the speed of USB 2. So I would assume the device should use that speed!! or heck what's the use if it's usb 2 compatible and it's slow as 1.1

[LooseChippings]

Post back the make and model of your USB drive.

[ssss25]

Thanks for trying.

I think the maker is:

http://bytecc.com/

The model is: ME-720U2

Unfortunatly, I would have tried but their site is in chinese

Thanks.

[LooseChippings]

The ME-720U2 you have purchase is a hard drive enclosure with a USB to IDE converter.

This set up will only be as fast as the slowest component.

The hard drive will be the same as all your other hard drives, it will need looking after with clearouts and a defrag every now and again.

Fragmentation is the major cause of slow hard drives.

[ssss25]

Yeah, I understand...

but the harddisk cannot be as slow as 15 - 20 Mbit/sec no matter how fragmentted it is!

Anyways. I am testing this on a 13GB Maxtor HD which is formatted....

Transferring a 100MB file takes 40 secs which tells me the speed is 1.1 ... and it seems to me the USB is the slow factor here...

I got exactly the same result from a system which has USB 1.1 and where Windows told me I plugged a high speed USB into a non high speed USB.

Did you find any site info on this product other than the chinese one?

[LooseChippings]

I have put a link in my posting above, although it is only an ad.

Transfer speed is also dependant on other factors in your system ...

Amount of Free RAM.

Fragmentation of the drive being read.

Speed of the drive being read. (CD is much slower than HD)

The ATA rating on your external HD.

The ATA rating on your internal HD.

Speeds quoted for USB and any other I/O connections are always the MAXIMUM speed gained in laboritory tests using as close to perfect conditions as possible.

[curtybob]

don't forget the most important and most overlooked part: the cable. don't use any old USB cable. must be 2.0 compliant.