Help: External USB HDD...It's too darn slow!

I'm just trying to get a little extra bandwidth out of these hard drives, and realized that they are running pretty slow for external drives. Here is a snapshot of one of them under a HD Tune test...clearly the bandwidth is too little.

Both drives are 3.5" 5400RPM external drives in enclosures, and both are hooked up to a USB hub. One is a Western Digital 160GB, the other a 200GB Seagate.

Is the hub the reason for the slow down, or am I missing something else here? I really want to increase the speed of my Norton Ghost backups as well as transfer speed for all my files...

 

What happens when you attach them to separate ports?

 

I'm trying that out now...but I've got to get a port open so I'm moving cables around. I'm starting to wonder if these hubs don't provide the full bandwidth as promised, or if my enclosures are the cause here. With any luck, I'll know more about the port issue shortly.

Right now my notebook's internal drive is running at 4.5x the speed of these external ones...that's a little disappointing.

I've got the same speed results with my HDD attached to a single unused port on my nc8430...what's going on here?

FYI, here is the external enclosure I'm using: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...osure&lp=6&type=product&cp=1&id=1099392683637

USB2.0's theoretical max is 60MBps...I'm not even getting a quarter of that right now...

 

I have three extenal drives, I will run HD Tune on them tommorow, with and without hubs to provide a reference point for you, but I need to sleep and study for finals until then.

 

my only guess is that it's because it's a internal HD converted to an external....then again I haven't heard such reports before.
To answer you question about usb hubs....yes the bandwith is shared amoung the devices connected. In other words, the bandwidth of one port is devided amongst the ports on the hub. Since you are still experiencing slow speeds when plugged directly to the laptop then something is definitly wrong.....are you positive that you're not useing a firewire (AKA 1.0) cable....I've seen some firewires that look like 2.0 usb and some 2.0 usb that look like firewire....if you're using a fire wire then you would benifit to switch to a 2.0.
I have a feeling that's not the case...but you never know...it happened to me once....I had a firewire disguised as a 2.0usb. Once last possibiliy....is your internal HD 5400rpm or 7200rpm....I'm shure you wouldn't have overlooked that...I'm just trying to toss in every possible thing I can think of here.
If none of the previously stated is deterimine to be the problem then perhaps you could try another enclosure....who knows maybe the fault lies with it.

 

Okay: a little more info...
1) Both drives are 7200RPM, but I'll double check. At least one is.
2) Even on a hub, I should be getting almost 15MB/s. Direct, close to 60MB/s I'd hope!
3) I don't own any firewire cables (that I know of), but I'll try a different USB cable just in case. I'm currently testing speeds using a gold plated 6' USB cable.
4) One of my drives is an Iomega External drive (Western Digital drive inside), so I do have two different enclosures. Both are getting about the same speeds...this makes me think something is up with the laptop or XP.

 

Night, I just finished my tests, if you see this give me 10 minutes to type up and post, I have some stuff that might help out.

 

OK, I tested 4 different hard drives:

100 GB, 5400 RPM - This is the internal drive in my computer, use it as a reference point. It is running windows.
80 GB, 5400 RPM - In an enclosure, 2.5". Enclosure
80 GB, 5500 RPM - In an enclosure, 2.5". Enclosure
160 GB, 7200 RPM - In an enclosure, 3.5". The enclosure is an HP Media Drive (its stock, just nothing special, a Seagate 3.5" with the HP logo, and overpriced).

I ran the tests on all of the drives twice. The first time there was a USB mouse plugged into my computer, otherwise nothing special. Each drive was attached alone, and directly to the computer. Nothing hooked up when I ran the internal drive. The second time all three drives were hooked up to a USB Hub, only one being used. The internal was tested while they were hooked up, but not in use. No extra programs running, just background operations and HD Tune. The tests were from a V6j, 2GB RAM, 667 Mhz, Dual Channel, 1.66Ghz Core Duo...

The names of the pictures will show you which drive is which, and what conditions the tests were under.

The basic results are this:

The processing power increased when the drives were on the USB hub. The internal drive was not affected. This could matter if you processor is being run heavily while you are using your hard drive. On a Core Duo that is sitting mostly idle, this will not affect the results.

The access times were mostly unaffected. They won't significantly affect your read/write times, and they will vary every time you run a test, even under the same conditions.

The burst rate of all of the drives, excluding the internal drive, were approximately halved when they when the drives were run through the USB hub. I am pretty sure the USB hub is supposed to give full speed, and there was only one device running, which means that it might be an indication that using a USB hub is just bad news for a hard drive.


The average transfer rate was also approximately halved on all drives, excluding the internal drive. This means that file transfers should take twice as long. Once again, the Hub is supposed to deliver full USB 2.0 speed, which means that either using a hub means you don't get full speed on a hard drive no matter what hub you use, or that this hub doesn't work as advertised.

The transfer rate for the drives connected directly to the computer is below 20 MBps, which means that you aren't going to use the full speed of a USB 2.0 port. The hard drives just aren't using that kind of speed, and even the internal drive on a "normal" connection is running only slightly faster than this. This shows that your speed aren't unusual, and I doubt there is something wrong with your computer.

 

This is just the last three thumbnails.