USB2 cable and speed of transfer

[cpliu]

I noticed that the cables sold now has USB2 on it. I have old ones
(and new ones) and they work fine. I wonder is a difference in
transfer speed between old and new cables. If so, is there a way to
identify the whether a cable is USB1 or USB2?

Thanks,

 

[Arno]

I noticed that the cables sold now has USB2 on it. I have old ones
(and new ones) and they work fine. I wonder is a difference in
transfer speed between old and new cables. If so, is there a way to
identify the whether a cable is USB1 or USB2?

No difference. The only thin is that old cables not meeting
the spec are more likely to cause problems at USB2 speeds.

Arno

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I noticed that the cables sold now has USB2 on it. I have old ones
(and new ones) and they work fine. I wonder is a difference in
transfer speed between old and new cables. If so, is there a way to
identify the whether a cable is USB1 or USB2?

Just marketing at work. The thing that matters is whether you're getting
the full speed of 480 Mbps on the connection. The way to tell that is to
see that your device is connected to an "Standard Enhanced Host
Controller" rather than an "Standard OpenHCD Host Controller", in
Windows' Device Manager.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Rod Speed]

I noticed that the cables sold now has USB2 on it. I have old ones
(and new ones) and they work fine. I wonder is a difference in
transfer speed between old and new cables. If so, is there a way to
identify the whether a cable is USB1 or USB2?

There is no spec on the USB1/USB2 cables except in the sense
of the spec that specifys a cable that is suitable for both.

So there is no way to work out whether it will work fine on USB2 except by trying it.

 

[Lynn McGuire]

I noticed that the cables sold now has USB2 on it. I have old ones

There is no spec on the USB1/USB2 cables except in the sense
of the spec that specifys a cable that is suitable for both.

Looks like USB3 cables are different than USB1/2 cables:
http://www.usb3.com/
http://www.everythingusb.com/superspeed-usb.html

Lynn

 

[mm]

Just marketing at work. The thing that matters is whether you're getting
the full speed of 480 Mbps on the connection. The way to tell that is to
see that your device is connected to an "Standard Enhanced Host
Controller" rather than an "Standard OpenHCD Host Controller", in
Windows' Device Manager.

Yousuf Khan

For people who don't have USB1 or 1.1 port anymore, you may not know
that XPSP3 will tell you, when you put in something fast like a flash
drive, that you are using a slow port and ought to use a fast one.

Not only that, when I got a USB2 card but I still use the 1.1 ports on
the front sometimes, a bubble comes up and tells me I have faster
ports and tells me which ones they are, and since there are foour
ports on what it not surprisingly calls a hub, and says which of the
four ports are available.

Strangely, I've had the impression things aren't that much faster with
USB2. Copying from a flashdrive to a USB external hard drive, for
example. It took 30 or 40 minutes to do 700 Megs. Is that so fast?

 

[Rod Speed]

mm wrote

For people who don't have USB1 or 1.1 port anymore, you may not know
that XPSP3 will tell you, when you put in something fast like a flash
drive, that you are using a slow port and ought to use a fast one.

Not only that, when I got a USB2 card but I still use the 1.1 ports on
the front sometimes, a bubble comes up and tells me I have faster
ports and tells me which ones they are, and since there are foour
ports on what it not surprisingly calls a hub, and says which of the
four ports are available.

Strangely, I've had the impression things aren't that much faster with
USB2. Copying from a flashdrive to a USB external hard drive, for
example. It took 30 or 40 minutes to do 700 Megs. Is that so fast?

Thats an entirely different matter, the speed of the flashdrive, not the interface.

 

[mm]

mm wrote




Thats an entirely different matter, the speed of the flashdrive, not the interface.

Thanks.

 

[David Brown]

ISTR there was a slight tightening of the specs when USB2 came out, but
they are otherwise identical. You would certainly have to try quite
hard to find a cable that worked at USB1 speeds but not USB2.

Looks like USB3 cables are different than USB1/2 cables:
http://www.usb3.com/
http://www.everythingusb.com/superspeed-usb.html

Yes, USB3 needs 8 wires instead of just 4. It's designed for backwards
compatibility - you can mix USB2 hosts, devices and cables with USB3
hosts, devices and cables. Of course it will only go at USB2 speeds
unless all three parts are USB3.

 

[Peter Knutsen]

Just marketing at work. The thing that matters is whether you're getting
the full speed of 480 Mbps on the connection. The way to tell that is to
see that your device is connected to an "Standard Enhanced Host
Controller" rather than an "Standard OpenHCD Host Controller", in
Windows' Device Manager.

Could it be government or international regulations that require cables
to be marked as USB2, to indicate clearly that they are *not* USB3?

 

[Arno]

Could it be government or international regulations that require cables
to be marked as USB2, to indicate clearly that they are *not* USB3?

Normally these requirements come from treaties and are standardized
by ISO (the treaty then states "marked accroting to ISO <number>).
Sometimes local laws are also made, but they almost allways follow
ISO and are redundant. In some cases you get other standards bodies
like IEC, the ITU or the USB consortium in our case here. They will
publish meta-standards that in some places refer to ISO or IEC and
other base standards.

For USB3 this is not really necessary, as the device side connector is
rather different. Still, USB 3.0 connectors have different markings.
The marking is defined on page 5-44 of the USB 3.0 Standard. Instead
of a circle at the basis of the "trident" it has the letters "SS"
for Super Speed.(Which is a bit unfortunate for german speakers,
here "SS" refers to the "Sturm Staffel" and it is one of the
letter combinations from the 3rd Reich that are routinely avoided).

By the same way, USB 2.0 cables are already clearly marked, namely
with the trident with circle.

USB 3.0 spec:
http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/usb_30_spec_060910.zip


Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

Peter Knutsen wrote

Yousuf Khan wrote

Could it be government or international regulations that require cables to be marked as USB2, to indicate clearly that
they are *not* USB3?

Nope, there are no such regulations.

 

[cpliu]

Thank you all for the information.

 

[Ed Light]

Strangely, I've had the impression things aren't that much faster with
USB2. Copying from a flashdrive to a USB external hard drive, for
example. It took 30 or 40 minutes to do 700 Megs. Is that so fast?

Some drives are very slow for large groups of small files.
--
Ed Light

Better World News TV Channel:
http://realnews.com

Iraq Veterans Against the War and Related:
http://ivaw.org
http://couragetoresist.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.

 

[Arno]

On 9/30/2010 3:35 PM, mm wrote:

Some drives are very slow for large groups of small files.

Practically all are, including Flash drives. With small files,
it is quite possible to bring a modern disk donw to 100kB/sec
transfer rate, i.e. 1/1000 of large file speed.

Arno

 

[Ed Light]

Practically all are, including Flash drives. With small files,
it is quite possible to bring a modern disk donw to 100kB/sec
transfer rate, i.e. 1/1000 of large file speed.

Arno

I have one flash drive that will do a few small files per second, and
another that will do the same unless you use 64k sectors, which wastes
alot of space. So I backup to it using a program that makes large zip
files; that runs nicely.
--
Ed Light

Better World News TV Channel:
http://realnews.com

Iraq Veterans Against the War and Related:
http://ivaw.org
http://couragetoresist.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.

 

[William Brown]

Yes, you can make things go very slowly with small enough files -
that is why I asked the Original Poster how many files were involved.
10000 files would take around 8 minutes on my circa 2004 hardware,
so 30 to 40 minutes is excessive if optimization for speed rather
then removal is used for the output device. My previous post asked
the OP if "large groups of files" meant 5000 or 100000 files.
The original poster ("mm") said the OUTPUT device was a hard drive,
I assume he means a rotating memory drive not a solid state device,
therefore flash output performance is not an issue.

Check the Rated speed of your USB sick, some are dead slow, I have one
fast one and it beets the none rated ones by 5 times..

You get what you pay for.

 

[GMAN]

Check the Rated speed of your USB sick, some are dead slow, I have one
fast one and it beets the none rated ones by 5 times..

I like beets with butter and a little bit of salt~!

 

[John Turco]

Arno wrote:

Still, USB 3.0 connectors have different markings. The marking is
defined on page 5-44 of the USB 3.0 Standard. Instead of a circle
at the basis of the "trident" it has the letters "SS" for Super
Speed. (Which is a bit unfortunate for german speakers, here
"SS" refers to the "Sturm Staffel" and it is one of the letter
combinations from the 3rd Reich that are routinely avoided).

<edited>

Here in the USA, "SS" has sometimes enjoyed a rather less
sinister connotation: "Super Sport" (i.e., certain models
of Chevrolet's "muscle cars").

 

[Rod Speed]

Timothy Daniels wrote

John Turco wrote

And I suspect that "SS" was adopted as a model designation
BECAUSE of its sinister (i.e. "bad") connotation

Nope, most yanks really are that pig ignorant.

One of the car models means 'wanker' in some wog language.

For some odd reason that car doesnt actually sell that well in countrys that use that language.

- just as many Corvette and Harley Davidson owners like their ride's "kickass" image.

Hardly any want to be associated with the original SS tho.