Slow USB 3 Transfer Speed In WD My Passport

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi. I Have A WD My Passport 1TB Black Portable Hard Drive. I Was Connecting It To USB 2 Before Updating My Motherboard And Buy A New One. I Was Getting 28 MB/SEC On USB 2. And When I Bought A New USB 3 Motherboard Which Is Gigabyte Z77. The Speed Is 38 MB/SEC When Connected To USB 3. I See That This Speed IS SLOW. Because It Should Reach 100MB/SEC ) I Think. I Have A New Motherboard With A New Fresh Windows 7 Installed  With All Drivers Installed And Updated. What’s The Problem With The Speed ?

I Know That USB 3 Should Reach More Than 100MB / SEC ?

2

I think 38 MB/SEC is about what many people are actually getting with USB 3. The theoretical spec are just that.

Joe

1 Like
3

The drive in the My Passport is not terribly fast. I have gotten higher benchmarks on a USB 3.0 enclosure, but that has an RE 4 Enterprise drive in it.

4

Here are some numbers I got in Crystal Disk Mark, with a 1 TB My Passport Ultra, on a USB 3.0 port.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
My Book Passport Ultra, 1 GB, 0% Full,  USB 3.0

* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   115.279 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   113.976 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :    42.604 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    63.136 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.560 MB/s [   136.7 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     1.669 MB/s [   407.4 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     0.609 MB/s [   148.6 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     1.620 MB/s [   395.5 IOPS]

  Test : 500 MB [I: 0.1% (0.6/931.5 GB)] (x3)
  Date : 2013/08/24 17:40:37
    OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

For comparison, here are the results from a RE4, 4 TB drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure, hooked up to a USB 3.0 port.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
RE4, 4 TB, 0% full, USB 3.0, SATA 6G

* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   174.918 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   170.778 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :    62.210 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   113.583 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     0.797 MB/s [   194.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     2.720 MB/s [   664.1 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     0.823 MB/s [   201.0 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     2.642 MB/s [   645.0 IOPS]

  Test : 500 MB [O: 0.0% (0.2/3725.9 GB)] (x3)
  Date : 2013/08/24 17:05:45
    OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

I suggest you make sure you have good installs of the latest drivers for your USB 3.0. I had a lot of trouble at first with reliability on 3.0. Uninstall the old drivers and reboot, then try a clean installation of the latest drivers. I think you could probably get better performance, depending on the particular model of Passport you have.

Make sure you have a good cable, and use only as long a cable as you need. Connect to a ‘rear of the motherboard’ USB 3.0 port. This should avoid power  problems as much as possible.