[ubuntu-za] File transfer speed

[Matthew French]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 6:15 AM, Jan Greeff <jan at verslank.net> wrote:

> When I transfer files and folders to my external hard drive from my Ubuntu
> system, the transfer rate runs at between 26 to 28 MBps.
> When I transfer from the Windoze 7 installation on the same machine to the
> same drive, the transfer rate is less than 1 MBps.
>
> Why the massive difference in transfer rates?
>

Because Windows, obviously! :-)

Now I have that out my system: 1MBps is roughly the speed limit for USB1.0
while you need USB3.0 to get up to 26MBps. Modern hard drives can usually
sustain around 30MBps so I don't think the disk is the issue.

My suspicion is that Windows is using the default USB drivers which don't
know how to enable USB2.0/3.0 on your chipset?.

Unfortunately there is not simple solution. Normally the USB drivers are
installed by the motherboard software - along with a bunch of other crud.
But they may have written the software for Windows XP and it no longer
functions in Windows 7.

The way I have solved this in the past is to do an 'lspci' on Linux. That
will tell me which chipset is being used and can lead me to the
manufacturers default drivers, which are often way better than the bundled
drivers. You can also google for your motherboard model and that should
take you to the Windows 7 version of the drivers.

All assuming it is a driver issue, of course.

Hope this helps.

- Matthew
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