Any decent USB3 cards available for non USB3 mobos

jimbo45

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Hi there
Has anybody found any USB3 cards yet that actually give anything like proper USB3 speed on a Mobo that didn't originally have any USB3 cards.

Most of the stupid PCI-e cards have transfer speeds little better than decent USB2 devices. Comparing a decent USB3 external HDD transfer speed on a laptop equipped with USB3 ports the speed was much faster than the same data being transferred using the same HDD connected to the USB3 card on the Mobo.

Both machines running W8 x-64 enterprise on identical Samsung 840 SSD's -- laptop CPU is average Intel i3 (not even an i5). Laptop had 8GB RAM, Desktop 16 GB RAM, Desktop CPU AMD PHENOM QUAD. Data transfer was an 8GB file to the INTERNAL SSD in both cases -- so the speed should have been similar or even faster on the Desktop rather than the laptop.

I have to conclude from this that USB3 expansion cards are just a 100% TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY if you have an older MOBO -- but would be interested if anybody else has better experiences. You used to be able to get full size cards for SERVERS but these just don't seem available any more. The stupid Pci-e one's are all that I can find.

If the Mobo has native USB3 ports then the card might be OK but standard Pci-e at 4X or 16X is just TOO SLOW.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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Hi Jimbo,

Just curious; which PCI-e standard does your older motherboard support and have you verified what speed your expansion card is actually running at (x4, x8, or x16). The only reason I'm asking is because it seems like a PCI-e 2.0 (x16) capable expansion card should give you better results than you are reporting; however, if it is running at PCI-e 2.0 x4, then I wouldn't even bother looking for a different expansion card. Just my two cents.
 

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I have a Dell USB 2 motherboard. I bought 3 USB 3 cards before I ever got one to work. The only one that worked was a Plugable PCI Express to SuperSpeed USB 3.0 2-Port Expansion Card for Desktops (Latest Renesas µPD720202 xHCI 1.0 chipset). Here are the speed test.

My WD external USB 3 HD test

Drive G new card 2.JPG



This is from my WD USB 3 external HD to internal HD.

G-D3.JPG

"USB 3.0 has transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s, which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) before taking into account that USB 3.0 is full duplex whereas USB 2.0 is half duplex, giving USB 3.0 the potential total bandwidth if utilized both ways to 20 times that of USB 2.0. "

I don't think in real life any one of them will go that fast. JMO.

Hope this helps some one.

Clint
 

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To add to what Jimbo and Clint have already provided, you need to do comparative testing to determine if your USB 3.0 device is running at max. To do this, you need to know the manufacturer's specs so here are my test results for my 16GB Sandisk Extreme Flash Drive. The manufacturer reported specs are 190MB/s Read and 60MB/s Write when running on USB 3.0:

View attachment 24096

View attachment 24097

So, in this particular test case, my 16GB Sandisk Extreme has met the manufacturer's reported USB 3.0 speeds and I know that my USB 3.0 ports are (at least) capable of these speeds; however, to really do a max test, I would need something like an SSD in an external enclosure. One should also be aware that the USB 3.0 specs overlap the high-speed USB 2.0 standard as well as the super-speed USB 3.0 standard so beware of those manufacturer's that try to sell you a USB device that is capable of only high-speed data transfer and only report their devices as USB 3.0 compatible.
 

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As far as I know USB3 only comes in PCIe, regular PCI does not have the bandwidth.

I have a PCIe USB3 add-on card for my dual core motherboard, and let me tell you, its as fast as my esata.

In fact its pretty close to my harddrive transfer speed which is only 3gbps unfortunately.. Old outdated MB..

USB3 flash drives are not all the same, some are much faster.
 

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I have a PCIe USB3 add-on card for my dual core motherboard, and let me tell you, its as fast as my esata

I'm seriously considering a USB 3.0 add-on card !

:)
 

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