USB 3 and Thunderbolt

This article is about USB 3.0.

USB 3.0 is capable of speeds of up to 5GBPS. This article challenges the speed of USB 3.0 and compares it to other interfaces.

Shaun K. Mitchell

Reference: http://www.macworld.com/article/2039427/how-fast-is-usb-3-0-really-.html

USB 3.0 has become the pinnacle of data transfer rates. It can currently process bandwidth rates of up to 5 Gigabits per second. This can translate to an average transfer of 640MBps, which is ten times faster than USB 2.0 which transfers at 64MBps.

Intel’s Thunderbolt platform (new Firewire) allows transfer rates of up to 10GBps, twice that of USB 3.0.

The comparison lies in the difference of transfer speeds between Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.

A few tests were carried out to determine if Intel’s Thunderbolt technology was in fact faster than a USB 3.0 connection.

Data transfer rates between two different types of hard drives were recorded. Data transfer rates were compared using a regular hard drive and they were also recorded separately using a Solid State hard drive. A regular hard drive works off platters and an actuator arm while a SSD works solely of memory. A solid state drive is harder to break than a regular hard drive but is conversely more expensive.

The tests were carried out using a StarTech USB hub and a Belkin USB hub to test data transfer rates and  involved a 2.5 inch Hitachi external hard drive and a MacBook pro. A 10 GB file was transferred to each hard drive through the below noted medium.  (Macworld)

Regular Hard Drive
It was found throughout the testing procedure that all of the tests were in the 112MBps to 115 MBps range. Transfer through the Belkin hub was at 106MBps and transfer through the Startech hub the test score was 102MBps.

When results were recorded using a USB 2.0 hard drive, the results were consistent at 41MBps. This is slower as expected due to the architecture of the interface.

In Firewire 800 the transfer was just about half as fast. The write scores were at 55 and 60MBps and the read scores were marginally higher.

The thunderbolt scores, the test found were consistent with the USB 3 scores which is surprising because the thunderbolt interface is supposed to be faster than USB 3.

http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/05/usb3_table_hitachi-100038864-large.png

SSD

In a separate test, an OWC mercury extreme pro 6G SSD was used. An SSD has different architecture and typically doesn’t take as long to record information to the drive as it would with a regular hard drive. The tests remained the same at 40MBps with USB 2.0 and the bottleneck appeared to be the USB 2.0 drive/interface architecture.

USB 3.0 proved inevitably faster, at 200MBps. (macworld)

USB 3.0 in conclusion is fast, about three times faster on a regular hard drive, and about three to five times faster with a Solid State Hard Drive. It is faster than USB 2.0 but comparable to thunderbolt.

In summary, both USB 3.0 and thunderbolt appear to have upsides and downsides. Both are good in their own ways and are comparable to each other.

http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/05/usb3_table_mercury-100038865-large.png