USB Bandwidth

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Sworder
  • Start date Start date
D

David Sworder

Hi,

I have two external harddrives, each of which is plugged into a
different USB port on the same computer. Both USB ports are on the same USB
card. Transferring large files between these drives is slow. I'm wondering
if I added a new USB card and split the drives between the two cards if
large file copies would be faster.

In other words: Is the total bandwidth rating of USB "per card" or "per
port"?

David
 
David said:
I have two external harddrives, each of which is plugged into a
different USB port on the same computer. Both USB ports are on the same USB
card. Transferring large files between these drives is slow. I'm wondering
if I added a new USB card and split the drives between the two cards if
large file copies would be faster.

In other words: Is the total bandwidth rating of USB "per card" or "per
port"?
Click to expand...

It is not possible to be certain. The answer is 'per controller'. Such
a card is quite likely to have one controller, supporting a 'root hub' ,
shared between the ports. But there is a Belkin 'Quadrabus' card (USB
1.1 though and you presumably are using USB 2.0) which has a separate
controller for each of its four ports - with full bandwidth and power to
each..

Check in Device manager - USB controllers and count the number of 'Root
Hubs' that show up, and on their Power page what devices are attached.
If two devices are sharing a Hub they are sharing bandwidth
 
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