read and write speeds on external drives

[sauniq]

I am hoping someone could lead me to figuring out why my WD 3 TB my book has a very low read and write speed.  I am using a late 2009 mac mini that I have upgraded with an internal  120 GB SATA Solid State hard drive and upgraded the RAM to 2 x4 GB.  It has performed very well however I am encountering very low read a write speeds on my external drive. I have looked into the system reports and can not see anything out of sorts. It looks like the USB ports are high speed bus, should be suitable for at least 480 MB/SEC.  I checked my current read write speed for the external drive and its about 30 MB/SEC while my SSD is over 300MB/SEC.

 

I am in the process of setting up Pure Music as my music software however with that super low read speed I will be dead before it can process all my music files, mostly DSD and FLAC.

 

Can anyone help me figure out the low speed please!!!  below is all my system info that might be needed.

 

 

Model Name: Mac mini

  Model Identifier: Macmini3,1

  Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

  Processor Speed: 2.26 GHz

  Number of Processors: 1

  Total Number of Cores: 2

  L2 Cache: 3 MB

  Memory: 8 GB

  Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

  Boot ROM Version: MM31.00AD.B00

  SMC Version (system): 1.35f1

  Serial Number (system): YM0057TU9G5

  Hardware UUID: 88068663-EDCE-5DD9-856C-080F

 

ECC: Disabled

  Upgradeable Memory: Yes

 

BANK 0/DIMM0:

 

  Size: 4 GB

  Type: DDR3

  Speed: 1067 MHz

  Status: OK

  Manufacturer: 0x0000

  Part Number: -

  Serial Number: -

 

BANK 1/DIMM0:

 

  Size: 4 GB

  Type: DDR3

  Speed: 1067 MHz

  Status: OK

  Manufacturer: 0x0000

  Part Number: -

  Serial Number: -

 

 

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

 

  Vendor: NVidia

  Product: MCP79 AHCI

  Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

  Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

  Physical Interconnect: SATA

  Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

 

OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD:

 

  Capacity: 120.03 GB (120,034,123,776 bytes)

  Model: OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD              

  Revision: 609ABBF0

  Serial Number: OW1607141002036F8   

  Native Command Queuing: Yes

  Queue Depth: 32

  Removable Media: No

  Detachable Drive: No

  BSD Name: disk0

  Medium Type: Solid State

  TRIM Support: No

  Bay Name: Lower

  Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)

  S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

[wwaldmanfan]

You are confusing the theoretical maximum 480 megabitper second signaing speed with true megabytes per second throughput.

USB 2.0 supports 480 Mb/s signaling speed. On the Wikipedia page, it says effective throughput is up to 35 MB/s. There is a disparity because bits aren't usually transmitted between devices in the same way that they are represented internally.

Plus, you are not going to set any processing speed records with a Core 2 Duo.

if you want a faster option that won't tie up the USB or SATA busses, you can still buy a 3TB FireWire 800 drive from MacSales for about $200, and keep the USB drive as a backup. FireWire works great, too bad they killed it.

[sauniq]

I am glad I asked the question.  I spent most of my day reading old threads about the same issue, thank you so much for the information.  I am going to go look at the MacSales sight again, I didnt find what I was looking for when I first set out doing this.   based on what you sent for info, by upgrading to firewire I will almost triple the speed to 80-90MB?

[wwaldmanfan]

11 minutes ago, sauniq said:

I am glad I asked the question.  I spent most of my day reading old threads about the same issue, thank you so much for the information.  I am going to go look at the MacSales sight again, I didnt find what I was looking for when I first set out doing this.   based on what you sent for info, by upgrading to firewire I will almost triple the speed to 80-90MB?

 

I can't confirm those numbers, but I've got numerous FireWire 800, USB3, and USB2 drives shared amongst my five Mac computers. I often copy files between the drives, and the USB 2 drives seem extremely slow, for both reading and writing, especially large files. I only use them now for archival backups.

[kumakuma]

19 minutes ago, sauniq said:

I am glad I asked the question.  I spent most of my day reading old threads about the same issue, thank you so much for the information.  I am going to go look at the MacSales sight again, I didnt find what I was looking for when I first set out doing this.   based on what you sent for info, by upgrading to firewire I will almost triple the speed to 80-90MB?

 

If you decide to go Firewire, I suggest taking the drive from your current enclosure and putting it in one of these:

 

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ME3QHKIT0GB/

 

 

[wrat]

usb is slow even usb 3.0