Testing flash drives: how to find out the real speed and volume. Testing flash drives: how to find out the real speed and volume Determine which usb 2.0 or 3.0

USB 3.0 technology appeared in 2008. Nowadays, all new computers or laptops come with USB 3.0 support. But how much more profitable is this technology? How much faster? Can I see an improvement in speed when using USB 3.0-enabled media?

USB 3.0 devices are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports. They will function normally, but only at the maximum USB 2.0 speed. The only drawback is that they are more expensive. In this article, we will look at the difference between usb 2.0 and usb 3.0. And also why the latest technology is so much better.

USB is a standard, and it defines the maximum signaling rate for a port. The USB 2.0 standard provides a theoretical maximum signal transfer rate of 480 megabits per second. While USB 3.0 allows you to transfer data at a speed of 5 gigabits per second. In theory, USB 3.0 is ten times faster than USB 2.0.

If that were all, then the issue of upgrading could be considered closed: who would not want a USB drive to be 10 times faster than it is now? But not everything is so simple. The standard only defines the maximum data rate. Different devices may have other bottlenecks, for example, for many drives, the data transfer time will depend on the speed of the flash memory.

Real speed indicators

Theory is good, but let's see how USB 3.0 flash drives actually work. Everything here will depend very much on the drive. We took the test done by tomshardware.com. The test also includes USB 2.0 drives, they are at the bottom of the diagram. And we can see a really interesting result.

USB 2.0 drives are capable of write speeds from 7.9 to 9.5 Mb/s, while USB 3.0 drives from 11.9 Mb/s up to 286.2 Mb/s. We see that the worst USB 3.0 drive is faster than all USB 2.0 drives, but not by much. And the best one is more than 28 times faster.

The slowest drives were the cheapest, while the faster ones were the most expensive. The fastest media achieves this speed thanks to quad-channel flash memory, which requires some investment from the manufacturer.

Technical features

Despite the fact that USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0 standards are compatible with each other, they have some differences in structure. To support older devices, USB 3.0 still has the same four pins. One pair for receiving and transmitting data, and the second for power. But here begins the difference between USB 2.0 and 3.0. To organize high speed operation, fast charging and other advantages, four more contacts were added, which are designed to operate with a current of up to 1 ampere.

Because of this, two more twisted pairs were added. Now the cord itself has become thicker, and its maximum length from five meters has been reduced to three. Thanks to the increase in current, it is now possible to quickly charge smartphones and connect more devices to a single USB connector. In addition, protection against magnetic fields has been added to the cable.

What is the difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 externally? First, it is the number of contacts. Secondly, manufacturers release USB 3.0 ports in blue or in some cases red. Therefore, it will not be difficult to determine which connector is in front of you.

Device price

Price is still a very important factor. Many USB 2.0 flash drives can be obtained very cheaply. For example, you can find an 8 GB flash drive for no more than $ 10, and for 4 GB, even for $ 5.

To see a significant speed boost with USB 3.0, you'll have to spend over $40. Ask yourself how much you are willing to spend and what you will use the drive for. Do you just need a small, cheap tool to move documents around? Then USB 2.0 is perfect. On the other hand, if speed is more important, especially for transferring heavy files, you'll probably need USB 3.0.

USB 3.0 Drive Selection

USB 3.0 allows higher speeds. But before you buy the right device, pay attention to other parameters that will be crucial, such as the speed of flash memory.

If you're looking for a good, fast USB drive for transferring large files, five dollars won't be enough. You need to look at various tests and determine in advance how fast the selected carrier of a particular brand will work. This can play an important role when choosing USB 2.0 or USB 3.0.

conclusions

In this article, we looked at the difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. As you can see, there are a lot of differences, but everywhere there are nuances. Now you know how to tell USB 2.0 from USB 3.0. Please note that not all devices will be faster just because they use USB 3.0.

If you have a USB keyboard or mouse, then naturally you won't notice any speed changes when you upgrade to USB 3.0. Of course, sooner or later all devices will switch to this standard. There is nothing wrong. But it makes no sense to pay more for them now either. You can connect a USB 2.0 device to a USB 3.0 port as they are fully compatible.

So how do you tell the difference between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0? Well, the fact that usb 3.0 is faster, everyone already knows, but few people know how to distinguish a fake from a real one or how they differ in general.

First, let's look at our first USB, the so-called 1.0 usb, they are used even in new mice, webcams, all those devices for which the first usb is enough in full:

As you can see, they have 4 contacts inside and the plastic under them is white. This is an easy way to tell if it's the 1st usb.

Now let's look at the 2nd one:

Here, of course, it is difficult to see and understand that there are 4 contacts and black plastic under them - this is a clear sign of usb 2.0. As we already know, 2.0 and 1.0 are compatible, the difference is only in speed: 2.0 is faster in speed, but it’s not the flash drive that reads faster, but the controller through which communication takes place works faster. Of course, usb 2.0 is usually indicated that this is the 2nd usb, but there are all sorts of cases.

Let's see what the usb 2.0 connector looks like:

As you can see, it is also black, although manufacturers in rare cases change this color intentionally (design), but the correct color should be black for 2.0 usb.

And now, finally, look at 3.0:

This is the best photo I've ever taken, there are nine pins on usb 3.0: 4 in front and 5 in the back (they are slightly raised higher):

And as you can see, the plastic under the blue contacts is a clear sign of 3.0: after all, they should make it blue everywhere.

Here is the usb 3.0 connector:

The inscription SS says that there the controller is made for Super Speed, that is, the maximum possible speed. This can be seen on external hard drives 3.0.
If both external SS and connector SS, then there will be a maximum data transfer rate.

So, the problem is how to distinguish if the design, for example, is blue, like this:

Here the plastic is blue, but it is usb 2.0. So how to distinguish? - according to contacts, I said that the third nine contacts, and the second has four:

Here it is in analysis, and here it is already clearly visible that there are only 4 contacts.

Usb 3.0 is compatible with 2.0 and 1.0, so both 2.0 and 1.0 can be plugged into 3.0 connectors. If you insert into the third usb connector 2.0, then there will be a speed of 2.0, if 1.0, then the speed will be 1.0. So don't be afraid to put others in it too. Just when you need speed and you have a 3.0 device, put it in 3.0. USB 3.0 has an internal connector that supports transfer rates up to 5 Gbps.

Recently, the so-called USB 3.1 entered the market, it is designated as SS (Super Speed) for each of the connectors. It is faster than usb 3.0 and has compatibility with second and first usb. USB 3.1 is either black or blue (as in my case the colors) and 3.0 only blue.

If the USB device and platform support data transfer in USB3.0 mode at a speed of 5 Gb / s, then, it would seem, nothing prevents you from seeing it with your own eyes. There are many utilities for this, and our research contributed to the search for an answer to this question. In addition, if the drive demonstrates a speed significantly exceeding 50-60 MB / s, then we can say that this is the super speed , since in USB 2.0 mode such a speed is physically unattainable, and there are no "intermediate" options. But not everything is so simple...

Why is everything so difficult

For various reasons, full support for the new Universal Serial Bus modes in the system information utilities is somewhat delayed. As a result, we often see only differentiation between USB1 and USB2 and recognition of a USB3 connection as USB2. In addition, the information received from the device descriptors declares its potential capabilities, and not the current speed mode, which is purely hardware-selected. According to the USB specification, the contents of the descriptors should depend on the set speed, but device developers do not always follow this rule. In the end, no matter what result (USB2 or USB3) we see, there is reason to doubt.

Taking into account the constant improvement of read-ahead and lazy write technologies, drawing conclusions based solely on the speed of copying files on a hard disk will be methodologically incorrect, although with large file sizes (a few gigabytes), such a criterion has the right to life. But there is a more radical, and therefore more reliable way - to get information directly from the registers of the USB 3.0 xHCI controller by writing a small UEFI application in assembler for this.

Experiment conditions and system objects

Platform - laptop ASUS N750JK, and the connected USB 3.0 device is a hard drive Transcend StoreJet 35T3. The target will be the USB3.0 xHCI controller register fields indicating the connection type. Note that depending on the speed mode (USB2 or USB3), the controller "sees" the device through one of two groups of registers.

Rice.1 . bits registerPort N Status and Control USB2indicate type connections: Low-Speed, Full-Speedorhigh-speed

Rice.2 . bits registerPort N Status and Control USB3indicate type connections: Super Speed

CheckUSB Utility

Source texts are prepared in Flat Assembler 1.71.17 format. The CheckUSB utility is designed to run in an x64 UEFI environment. The current version only supports Intel 8 Series system logic, USB 3.0 mode must be enabled in CMOS Setup. Such a binding is associated, firstly, with the support of a wide range of registers specific to this system logic and not provided for by the xHCI controller specification, and secondly, in order to simplify, the calculation of address offsets and dimensions of a number of register fields, as well as setting the number of ports, is implemented for particular case, namely the given system logic. Detailed information is contained in the document:

Intel 8 Series / C220 Series Chipset Family Platform Controller Hub (PCH).datasheet. June 2013

For enthusiasts who want to expand the functionality of our simplest example and implement support for various sets of system logic, we recommend the document:

Extensible Host Controller Interface for Universal Serial Bus (xHCI).revision 1.1

In addition, it is recommended to replace direct access to the PCI configuration space and memory-mapped I / O with calls to the corresponding UEFI protocols.

Analyzing the results

So, the utility worked, the report was generated.

Rice. 3

Let's pay attention to the list of connections to the ports of the USB controller. First, there are three devices that are part of the laptop, and the fourth is our desired external hard drive Transcend StoreJet 35T3. SuperSpeed mode is on. A detailed analysis of the contents of the register fields is given.

Summary

A low-level study performed at the level of physical access to the USB3.0 xHCI controller registers in the UEFI firmware environment clearly indicates that Super Speed mode is enabled. However, the serviceability of the equipment is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for its correct operation in an operating system session. The cause of problems can be, for example, the xHCI controller driver or the OS itself. Therefore, a logical continuation would be to conduct a similar experiment in an OS session, for example, Windows. This task is more difficult, since the controller registers are a privileged system resource that requires writing your own driver to access. In addition, during an operating system session, its regular driver interacts with the USB controller, you need to take care of conflict-free.

Universal Serial Bus is a serial universal bus. It was developed as an alternative to the parallel and serial communication protocols. In January 1996, the 1.0 standard came into effect. A lot of time passed before the release of the USB 2.0 standard.

What is the usb speed

In general, four different types of data rates are assumed for the universal bus. They are not to be confused with versions of USB itself. Improved data transfer rates have been introduced with each subsequent version of the USB standard, of course, with support for all previous ones. It must be taken into account that Universal Serial Bus version 2.0 devices do not always provide data transfer at High-Speed speeds. Full-Speed is a level where the maximum speed remains only for some devices. The next version of the USB standard is 3.0. It supports not only SuperSpeed, but also the previous three types of speeds. It also refers to version 2.0 rather than replacing it. High-Speed cannot be defined as a version of the 3.0 standard because devices such as Full-Speed, Low-Speed, and High-Speed are USB 2.0 but not USB 3.0.

How to determine which usb

USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum) has developed a special logo for each type of speed. With it, you can determine the correspondence between the device and the standard.

Windows Device Manager is a Device Manager. It will help us to know if a device of a certain speed supports any particular USB device. In general, it is considered that this is not the most suitable solution to the problem. We will need to try different USB root hubs to find the correct device. But how do you know which usb?

First, open the "Device Manager". To do this, hover the mouse over the "My Computer" menu. Right-click on the line "Properties" - "Hardware" and "Device Manager". Next, we need to expand the Universal Serial Bus Controllers node and open the USB root hub properties window. To make it convenient for us to work, let's start from the lowest. The next step is to go to the tab "Power" or Power.

If our device is connected to this hub, then we will be able to notice that it will appear in the "Connected devices" or Attached Devices section. Also note that the root USB has exactly six ports. One of them is used by the device.

To find out the speed of the Universal Serial Bus, we need to open the Advanced or Advanced tab. Root hubs can run at multiple speeds at the same time.

Surely, every computer user has heard of such concepts as USB ports version 2.0 and 3.0. But not everyone understands exactly what it is. In this article, I will tell you about USB 2.0 and 3.0: differences, interface compatibility, and what it is all about.

Logically, USB 3.0 is newer than 2.0 and therefore better. Let's figure out why it is better, and start with the question of where it all came from.

USB and its versions

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus, and translates into Russian as Universal Serial Bus. Universal - it means that you can connect anything, any device to it. USB come in different versions, the main difference of which is in the speed of work.

Manufacturers went to the property of universality for a long time. As many people remember, at first the computer had a lot of different ports, some of which have remained to this day, for example, bulky COM with thick cables, PS / 2 with fragile contacts, and others. Now printers, keyboards, mice and other equipment can be connected via USB.

The first USB began to appear in 1994. In 1996, version 1.0 was released, which worked at a meager speed of 1.5 Mbps. Then in 2000, version 2.0 came out with a speed of 480 Mbps. This is quite an acceptable speed, which made it possible to connect different equipment to the port. In 2008, USB 3.0 was released, theoretically operating at a speed of 5 Gb / s.

The development of USB 3.0 was funded by many global computer brands that were interested in standardizing connectors and improving hardware performance.

USB 2.0 and 3.0: Differences

Finally, let's look at USB 2.0 and 3.0: the differences between these ports from each other and compare them. Here are the signs by which they differ:

It is very easy to visually distinguish USB 2.0 from 3.0 - 3.0 connectors are painted blue.

The second difference, which is easily felt in practice, is the transmission speed. In version 3.0 it is much higher. It may be inferior to the declared theoretical speed (5 Gb / s), but still remains higher than version 2.0.
The difference between USB 2.0 and 3.0 is in the current strength. In the early version, it was 500 mA, in the new it reaches 900 mA. Thus, the new USB can power more powerful devices.
The old version of USB had 4 wires, the new version has 4 more. Thus, another difference between USB0 and 3.0 is that the second one has a thicker cable. It also limited the maximum length of the 3.0 cable to 5 meters and made it more expensive.
Windows XP does not support USB 3.0, even if the computer hardware is physically capable of it, it will work as 2.0. Only older versions of Windows are able to work with 3.0 fully.

A reliable and high-quality SMM site https://doctorsmm.com / will help you buy promotion on more than 9 social networks profitably and inexpensively. Here you will find a wide range of services with great discounts and performance guarantees. So, for example, you can buy likes or followers on Instagram and other resources on the most popular social sites on the Internet.

USB 2.0 and 3.0 compatible

If you plug a USB 2.0 device into a 3.0 port, it will work at the 2.0 level. If you connect a USB 3.0 device to a 2.0 connector, then it will also work at the 2.0 level. Thus, if these interfaces are compatible, the smaller version determines the quality of work.

Devices are capable of running on other versions of USB, but they may become less efficient.

So, let me summarize. USB 2.0 and 3.0: the difference is primarily in the quality of work - the newer version is better, although a little more expensive. Modern equipment is produced with interface 3.0, so it is advisable to purchase a computer with this version as well. Devices of different versions are compatible with each other and work acceptable, although their performance drops.