SOLVED slow usb drives

[Jean]

Hello,
There are lots of threads about this issue. I get average of 3 megabyte / sec on my 2 usb drives, whereas in windows it's around 16 mB/s.

Commonly two 'solutions' are mentioned.

- add to kernel options: pci=routeirq elevator=as
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...80#post8822080
- Add ehci_hcd to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
This does not seem to work well because it does not show up in lsmod.

I tried both with no success.

I have these if I type dmesg:

1.091354] usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[  1.290546] usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  1.290938] scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[  1.291080] usb-storage: device found at 3
[  1.291082] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[  1.681313] usb 5-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[  1.860748] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  2.140035] usb 5-2: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3

I don't have that much experience in linux but I can see where it says 'low speed usb device'.

Any help much appreciated, I'd hate to abandon ubuntu for this issue.

[dibl]

Re: slow usb drives

If you are letting it auto-mount, it is probably setting a "sync" mount option, which cuts the speed about in half:

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/g...sfer-rate.html

If it's a big deal to have it work as fast as possible, then you should manually mount it, or else set it up in /etc/fstab and have it connected when you boot.

[Jean]

Re: slow usb drives

Hey Dibl, good to see you still around. I was on these forums for a while back in 2008 or such. But I missed ubuntu (amazing how much I still remember from the cli) so I tried my luck again.

Unfortunately I have tried everything to remedy this bug, various ways of mounting by hand etc too.

I tried different versions, hardy does not have the bug but that one is a little bit to old to install.

For now I'm sorry to say I went back to windows because I invested in those drives.. Learning another distro would take me too much time and I really like (k)ubuntu.

I will be looking hopefully to the next kubuntu updates though.

Sad

[dibl]

Re: slow usb drives

Yah, I remember that little space cadet avatar!

Not to be pedantic, but USB is really not the transfer method of choice, if you have lots of data to move around and time is an issue. Firewire or e-SATA would be far better. I don't know whether your investment was for commercial packaging (finished external drives) or whether you bought SATA drives and put them in a USB enclosure, like I did. If it is the latter, it wouldn't cost a lot to get a different enclosure and mount the drive in it.

Just brainstorming .... I use a 1.5T Samsung that I put in a USB enclosure -- I start the data backup at night, and don't look again until the next day.

[Jean]

Re: slow usb drives

Your avatar though has changed a little bit if I recall correctly. It looks like his brother.

I used to be a big fan of usb drives, the finished external ones yes, but I'm not anymore. They make a pc slower to boot / shutdown, be it linux or windows. I have 4 of them and I now only have 2 attached. Those two are 4 TB together and I do want to keep them.
But I have ordered me a nice big sata of 2 TB and that's gonna be my preferred choice from now on.

I also have been looking at other things like a usb > ethernet switch but it's too much hassle and extra investment. I just hope 11.04 will give me a better figure when running hdparm -t on a usb drive.

[dibl]

Re: slow usb drives

My avatar is getting older.

Of course, all this costs money ...

Having gotten that out the way, for a fast backup system, you could put your 2T SATA drive in one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817347017

Then, you need a PCI bus adapter in your computer (assuming a desktop): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815126001

So, $60 plus shipping and the cost of a cable, and you can have IEEE 1394A Firewire speed.

EDIT: Further googling reveals that IEEE 1494A is no faster than USB 2.0: http://www.lyberty.com/tech/terms/usb.html

So never mind the Firewire suggestion. Looks like e-SATA or USB 3.0 is the way to go for external drive connection, but those connectors aren't commonly found on a standard off-the-shelf computer. So an interface card is required, and again, I don't know about Linux support.

Don't ask about Linux support -- I dunno, you can do that research. This quick Google result looks positive: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Firewire

[Jean]

Re: slow usb drives

My avatar is getting older.

About the rest, that sata drive will be internal dibl. My use for the (usb) drives is not so much a backup system, more the idea of constantly accessible data. I always liked usb drives for that (past tense).

About this bug, go to launchpad and enter 'slow usb', you get

1 → 20 of 4070 pages matching "usb slow"

and each thread has numerous messages, ranging from today to somewhere in 2006. I'll check 11.04 when it comes out but this doesn't promise too much.

Anyway dibl, thanks again for your phenomenal helpfulness.

Edit: Solved! Man am I glad. The solution was to go the the second hand computer shop and buy a PCI Usb 2.0 card for 2 euro and fifty cents. Even boots faster now. The problem was the new chipset (ICH 7) not having linux drivers yet.
I'm baaaack.