External Hard Drive Speed

[Guest]

I use an external hard drive (Maxtor 250GB) to backup my hard drive. The
backups seem to be taking a really long time (~9 hrs for 95GB), so I was
wondering if there was any way to trouble shoot the connection. For example,
I remember in the past having some way of confirming that a USB connection
was actually running at 2.0 speed, but I can't remember how to do this.

Also, is this affected by USB cable or the use of an external USB hub? I
expect the answer is yes, but wanted to confirm.

Thanks,
Todd

 

[Guest]

Try opening device mgr,usb,R.click on the controller(s),select update
drivers.You
might do the same with system components.Also,most external drives run
with thier own software from the mfg,is all installed....

 

[Peter]

The key phrase in the Device manager is 'enhanced' USB....If you have that
you are good for USB 2.0.. Are you certain the external enclosure is USB
2.0? Some older models may not be. There are Disk speed utilities, usually
free, that will tell you wha the transfer rate is on that device.. do a
search for HD speed utility. I have used external USB drives and they rarely
transfer data at a rate anywhere near what the manufacturers say they will,
but then, I have never tried to back-up 95gigs of stuff on mine either....

 

[Guest]

Where would I find the "enhanced" label? I don't see it, but I'm not sure if
I'm looking in the right location.

Thanks,
Todd

 

[Guest]

Sorry, Curt, I couldn't find anything. It sounded like you might have
attached or imbedded something, but I didn't see anything.