USB 2 port speed

Why is the Mac USB 2 port speed so much slower than PC?
Transferring the same data from USB drives is up to 3 times slower, is this a MAC thing, or is there a bias to Firewire support?

The speed is a function of all the devices on the bus. Each port starts out as a high speed bus when it is empty. If you plug in any device which is USB 1.1, it will slow down the rest of the bus. Check what's plugged in where, and who has the high speed bus, by selecting USB in the System Profiler foun in Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info.

Similar Messages

Measure USB port speed?

I have a new USB hub (Dlink) that supports USB 1 and USB 2. Unfortunately, plugging in a USB 1 device along with a USB 2 device MAY (their words) cause ALL plugged in devices into the hub, be they USB 2 or USB 1, to run at the slower USB 1 speed.
I would like to KNOW HOW I can tell if my particular hub is doing this slow-down ie will my USB 2 device still run at full speed even though a USB 1 device is plugged in.
Basically, just HOW do I measure the SPEED of the USB port on the hub (which is of course plugged into my Intel iMac 24inch).
Thank you for your consideration in helping me solve this problem...
MacBook, iMac 24" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I am a USB hardware developer if this helps... USB is reasonably complicated concept and is often misunderstood.
USB 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 are nothing more than specification versions and do not define device speed. Current version is USB 2.0 and previous ones are obsolete.
USB 2.0 compliant device can be low-speed 1.5Mbps device, full-speed 12Mb device or high-speed 480Mb. All modern devices are supposed to be built to USB 2.0 spec and should proudly carry USB 2.0 logo, even if they are simplest dumbest low-speed devices.
Just plugging a low-speed device won't slow the system down
but if there is a lot of traffic between it and the host, this might block other devices from using the shared USB host resource. This is a hub, not a switch so it does not store and forward packets like a switch on Ethernet network.
USB has some protocol overheads so don't expect your actual DATA transfer rates to be equal to bus signalling rates. E.g. maximum theoretical throughput for low-speed (1.5Mbps) device is only 48 KBytes/sec, 1.2 MBytes/sec for full-speed (12Mbps) and 53MBytes/sec for high-speed (480Mbps.) Very few devices actually achieve this as it needs highest degrees of coordination between device and the host.
Out of curiosity you might want to look at basic USB 2.0 spec in http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/usb2005122006.zip
It does not include device classes (HID, storage, comms, etc)

USB Port Speed/Throughput?

I have an Intel iMac 2.8 Ghz Intel i7 w/ 16 GB Ram.
I have video recorded in FinalCut Pro in Apple 722 Pro Res HD saved as .mov files on an external USB drive.
Video plays fine on the 2nd and 4th USB port, but is jittery on the 1st and 3rd ports, whereas on my macbook pro it plays fine on both ports.
Is this normal or am I having problems on 2 of my USB ports on my iMac?
Thx.

OK I will consider using FW, but back to the matter at hand.
The iMac has 4 USB ports.
If only one device a USB hard drive is plugged in at a time to the USB bus, and a performance test is done on this is the result on Ports 1 & 3:
Results 24.76
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.4 (10F569)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model iMac11,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG MP0804H
Disk Test 24.76
Sequential 28.30
Uncached Write 28.97 17.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 29.52 16.70 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 20.87 6.11 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 40.00 20.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 22.01
Uncached Write 7.92 0.84 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 54.12 17.33 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 53.47 0.38 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 54.78 10.17 MB/sec [256K blocks]
And, this is these are the results for Ports 2 & 4,
Results 29.00
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.4 (10F569)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model iMac11,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG MP0804H
Disk Test 29.00
Sequential 39.41
Uncached Write 37.46 23.00 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 52.54 29.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 25.57 7.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 60.00 30.15 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 22.94
Uncached Write 7.91 0.84 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 62.82 20.11 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 53.36 0.38 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 75.83 14.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Why are Ports 2 & 4 performing better than Ports 1 & 3, when nothing else is utilizing the USB bus?
Is there something wrong with my iMac or is this normal behavior?

K9A2 Platinum -- ALL USB ports max at 12MB/sec

I recently rebuilt my computer using the K9A2 Plat mobo with a Phenom 9850 and 4 gigs of ram. Easy installation, by and large, and everything seems to work, EXCEPT the USB ports are all slow. (Also, the second Firewire port doesn't seem to function.) Using several disk benchmarking programs, they verified that regardless of size, brand or port, I can't get above 12 or 13MB/sec for read speeds with any of ten different external hard drives I own. Very bad if you're a photographer dealing with very large digital files.
I've read the comments dating back to a 2004 post regarding pin #10 -- this should not be an issue with ports built into the back of the MB. Is this a hardware issue (bad motherboard) or perhaps a driver issue (AMD)? Has anyone else had this problem with their USB ports? I never had this problem with any of my past three ASUS boards. I mention the AMD drivers because I briefly owned an Acer Ferrari 5000 notebook, which I subsequently sold, because of the same USB port speed limitation, which Acer continually insisted was "up to spec".
As a side issue, perhaps related to replacing the board, what is the difference between my model board and the Platinum v2? I have found ZERO information regarding this on the MSI web site. Oh, last note, I run Vista 32 Business.
Thanks for the help.

Thanks for all the suggestions.
All the correct drivers are installed. I double checked that everything I have is the most recent, and it appears to be so (BIOS included). I understand the comment about Vista vs. XP when copying. I've seen a slight difference as well, however, I have an ASUS notebook that uses a dual-core Intel chip, running Vista Business as well, and the benchmarks are where they should be.
I talked with MSI tech support yesterday. At first, they didn't believe me. I said, no, I've been building computers for 20-years, I think I know how to put them together, how to change from one motherboard to another, how to transfer drivers over. Then they said they'd never had this happen, so they had no idea, other than to send the board in for testing. About two or three weeks later, I'd get it back. Just great. I use the computer everyday, especially when I have heavy digital imaging to do. Thier last suggestion was to unplug all the USB hubs. I asked why, since the computer set up is identical to what I had before, with the exception of new MB, RAM and CPU. Otherwise, all peripherals are the same. There should be no reason for something on one hub to slow down a direct connect HD elsewhere on the system. If it does, then the USB substructure has been poorly designed and implemented. I keep thinking its an AMD SB600 design and driver issue -- i.e. - joiny hardware software glitch -- but I could easily be wrong.
I have half a mind to buy the new MSI nVidia/Phenom board, except there have been major issue with nVidia and Vist -- one of the reasons I decided to rebuild my computer. Of course, there's the thought of going back to ASUS. . .
Thanks for the continued help.

High speed usb port?

I have a older laptop. 5 or 6 years old.
When I plug my ipod into the usb port a message pops up saying that this devise could preform faster, if I had a high speed usb port on my computer.
Could this be the problem why I cant put songs from itunes onto the ipod?
I get this message "The ipod "its name here" cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to.

You have a different problem. The iPod can work with the slower USB1 ports but data transfer is painfully slow. It seems that your iPod needs to be restored back to factory settings.

USB port running on 1.1 speed instead of 2.0 on T42

Hi Everyone,
Is these someone who can help me to update my USB port's speed from 1.1 to 2.0? I had ungrade my Bios and Embedded Controller, but no luck. My laptop is running Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 and your help will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

This is a common issue on T4x machines, your Southbridge chip is failing.
More on the subject matter here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70955
Cheers,
George
In daily use: R60F, R500F, T61, T410
Collecting dust: T60
Enjoying retirement: A31p, T42p,
Non-ThinkPads: Panasonic CF-31 & CF-52, HP 8760W
Starting Thursday, 08/14/2014 I'll be away from the forums until further notice. Please do NOT send private messages since I won't be able to read them. Thank you.

No high-speed USB ports?

When my I-Pod Shuffle is plugged into either of the two USB ports in the back of my computer's modem, my computer states that there is a "High Speed USB Device attached to a non high-speed hub" and that "There are no high-speed USB host controllers installed on this computer". So I take it I'm going to have to buy some sort of high-speed USB device to fit the I-Pod, but I have no earthly idea where I would buy one!

No - you dont need a high speed port it will work fine with a 1.1 (low speed) port. It will just take a lot longer to load songs on your shuffle.
As long as it charges (high powered port is needed - you can have high powered port which is low speed) you shoud be OK.
If you dont like the transfer speed you can probably take out the USB card that you have and replace it with a 2.0 card - a fairly easy and relatively cheap procedure, but if you dont feel comforatble doing it ask a freind who is a bit more tech savvy.

USB 3.0 port speeds not much faster?

Is it just me or is the USB 3.0 speeds really not that much faster than the regular USB 2.0? I tried transferring about 9 gigs of music using a USB 3.0 flash drive via my USB 3.0 port on my ThinkPad vs the 2.0 USB port and I didn't notice that much of a difference in download/upload speeds. I thought USB 3.0 was supposed to be soOo much faster?? What gives?

@shahanmi,
- Ensure that you have all the drivers installed.
- Try a different USB 3.0 flashdrive or HDD on both the ports
I previously had the Y500 transferring about 20GB worth of data on the USB 3.0 external HDD, its blazing fast.
*Non Lenovo employee*
I have a Y2P (i5) ... Feel free to ping me if you want me to test some applications with your Y2P if you have the same model. I don't mind keep doing recovery on it if needed .... =)

Speed of USB port?

Is there a program around that will measure the speed of a USB port? I have been doing back up to a USB drive and it is taking for ever.
Thanks
Jim

Yep. 480MB/8=60MB. That where I got it.
I don't know of any software that will monitor the USB port in real time and give an accurate reading of the transfer rate. After you install the card, System Profiler will tell you which of your connected devices are capable of full rate and which are not. It will not, however, tell you the real throughput of any device.
Most devices are incapable of saturating the USB bus when it's running at 480 Mb/s. Usually other factors limit the speed. With the exception of the highest speed hard drives, the disk read/write speed limits the throughput rather than the USB connection.
It's easy to calculate the approximate transfer rate from a hard drive or other storage device even though you can't monitor the speed in real time. Just copy a good sized file to/from the external drive and time it. Then divide the file size by the time it took.
I think you'll notice the increased speed over USB 1.1 even when you don't measure it. I've only recently had a computer with USB 2.0 ports, but I have had a USB 2.0 scanner running on a USB 1.1 port for years. Now that it's connected to a USB 2.0 port, the speed increase is really noticeable even though I haven't measured it.

High Speed USB Ports

Every time I plug my iTouch into my PC, I get a notice that I should use a high speed USB. Yet, there are only three USB ports on the laptop and all of them trigger the same alert. What am I missing? Are the high speed USB ports attached to the Docking Station?

What kind of Thinkpad do you got (for example T61, Type/model: 4236-3EG) and what OS do you use?
Did you always have this problem or something that started recently? Did you also try other USB devices that give the same error?
-gan

Must I have a high speed USB port?

Every time i connect my brand new 60 gig ipod to my computer a bubble pops up saying "A high speed device is plugged into a non-high speed USB port" Ive seen this before with other devices and its never been a problem, however with this ipod plugged in my computer freezes up, i can still click stuff and all but nothing happens, and then when i disconnect the ipod everything pops up and its like it was never frozen....very wierd, like the screen freezes when the ipod is plugged in. Anyone have any advice for me?

No, you do not have to have a high speed usb port to use the pod or iTunes. It really does make it much faster though, but it is not necessary.
I get the same bubble at home where I have the older 1.1 usb ports. It takes about 3 to 4 minutes to read my Pod and associate it with my PC. This happens everytime. The more you put on it, the longer it is going to take.
On my new laptop which has 2.0, it takes 25 seconds to register everything. That's 3500 pics and 16 gigs of music; Hence you can see why 2.0 is on my christmas list for the desktop lol.
Try giving it at least 5 minutes to fully register. The first time you do it, it always takes a long time. Also do you have any other USB things hooked up that may be conflicting with the pod?

Location of high speed USB port on Envy 17D

I'm sure this is a dumb question and the answer must be very obvious to everyone but me, but which of the USB ports on my HP is the high speed (3.0) port? If someone can direct me to a 'photo' or 'diagram' or just tell me whether it is on the left or right and the front or back one, I'd sure appreciate it.
Thank you!

Hi,
The manual is very old, I can not find a new one.
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02160120.pdf
But based on this, it has 3 USB3 ports and ONLY one USB2 port therefore it's much easy to find out. 75% chance you will get the right ports.
Regards.
BH
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Determining speed of USB ports - MacBook

I have heard that one USB port in my MacBook could be faster than the other.
I've had a look in System Information > Hardware > USB but don't understand the USB Device Tree (image below). How do I tell what applies to each USB port?

If you have a 2012 model then your USB ports support both 2.0 and 3.0. Otherwise, your USB ports are all 2.0.
Your model information should be in your user manual. If you don't have one you can download one from support.apple.com/manuals/.

My USB port (closest to the screen) is not working? And what is an IR Receiver in my USB port?

Hi everyone,
     I recently found out that my USB port, closest to my screen, is not working. Before I called Apple Care for help, I performed a PRAM and a SMC RESET, which unfortunately did not work. I called Apple Care and they help me troubleshoot simple resets such as, shutdowns and restarts. The representative I spoke with conluded that the physical hardware has an issue and must be brought to the Apple Store for a diagnosis. I called the Apple Store to at least budget the fee for getting a USB port fixed and it's about $300.00. I never dropped my macbook or had any sort tactile encounterment with hard surfaces by dropping or hitting. I don't understand how my macbook pro would be physically damaged. I then thought maybe my software was out of date (right now I am running 10.9 Mavericks) or I forgot to do the minor software updates, but I was at a lost again because my macbook is up-to-date. I searched for further help and found a way to monitor what's plugged into my usb ports. (I read in the apple forums that a girl had nothing in her usb ports, but upon looking at the System Information> Hardware> USB, that the macbook recognizes that there are drives in the ports) I looked at my ports; one is being used by wirless mouse (the port that works) and the other (the port that doesnt work) is being used by an "IR RECEIVER". Now, is the IR Receiver actually using that port and that's why my macbook cannot recognize other devices inserted into that port? Or is the IR RECEIVER suppose to be in that port and that the hardware for that port is simply damaged (which would mean I need $300.00 to get that fixed)? I know this is a lot, but someone help me?
(PORT THAT WORKS)
USB Hi-Speed Bus:
Host Controller Location:          Built-in USB
Host Controller Driver:          AppleUSBEHCI
PCI Device ID:          0x1c2d
PCI Revision ID:          0x0005
PCI Vendor ID:          0x8086
Bus Number:          0xfa
FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in):
Product ID:          0x8509
Vendor ID:          0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version:           5.16
Serial Number:          DJHBAJ06VRDH7FL0
Speed:          Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          Apple Inc.
Location ID:          0xfa200000 / 3
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          500
Hub:
Product ID:          0x2513
Vendor ID:          0x0424 (SMSC)
Version:           b.b3
Speed:          Up to 480 Mb/sec
Location ID:          0xfa100000 / 2
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          2
Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v2.0:
Product ID:          0x0745
Vendor ID:          0x045e (Microsoft Corporation)
Version:           6.34
Speed:          Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          Microsoft
Location ID:          0xfa130000 / 6
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          100
Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad:
Product ID:          0x0252
Vendor ID:          0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version:           1.18
Speed:          Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          Apple Inc.
Location ID:          0xfa120000 / 5
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          40
BRCM2070 Hub:
Product ID:          0x4500
Vendor ID:          0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.)
Version:           1.00
Speed:          Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          Apple Inc.
Location ID:          0xfa110000 / 4
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          94
Bluetooth USB Host Controller:
Product ID:          0x821a
Vendor ID:          0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version:           0.42
Speed:          Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          Apple Inc.
Location ID:          0xfa113000 / 8
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          0
(PORT THAT DOESN'T WORK)
USB Hi-Speed Bus:
Host Controller Location:          Built-in USB
Host Controller Driver:          AppleUSBEHCI
PCI Device ID:          0x1c26
PCI Revision ID:          0x0005
PCI Vendor ID:          0x8086
Bus Number:          0xfd
Hub:
Product ID:          0x2513
Vendor ID:          0x0424 (SMSC)
Version:           b.b3
Speed:          Up to 480 Mb/sec
Location ID:          0xfd100000 / 2
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          2
IR Receiver:
Product ID:          0x8242
Vendor ID:          0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version:           0.16
Speed:          Up to 1.5 Mb/sec
Manufacturer:          Apple Computer, Inc.
Location ID:          0xfd110000 / 3
Current Available (mA):          500
Current Required (mA):          100

I can help with the "IR Receiver" part of your question. That's the piece of hardware inside older MacBook Pros (MBPs) that lets them work with the Apple Remote. "IR" is the standard abbreviation for "infrared," the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum used by remotes for many common devices (stereos, cable boxes, Apple TVs, etc.). The remote sends a coded stream of IR pulses; a corresponding receiver in the target device "sees" the infrared light and decodes it. The MBP's internal IR Receiver sends the received signals to the processor via USB through an internal hub.
The most recent MacBook Pros have dropped the IR receiver and no longer work with the Apple Remote.

Problems with USB port and song transferring;

Hi! I just got an iPod and I am having problems with it. My computer doesn't have a Hi-Speed USB port, even if it's 9 months old. Some of my friends don't have it either but they still are able to transfer songs onto their iPod. For mine, it keeps saying "Do Not Disconnect." I waited for 5 hours last time I got it and it still isn't working.
I also updated my iPod software today and the iPod icon isn't appearing on the bar to the left in iTunes. I'd really appreciate any help on this! As well as if I really need to do something about the ports or if it could function like this normally.

Quote from: Svet on 08-December-10, 00:48:07
Install chipset drivers from MSI web:
http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=2427&i=0
+
NEC USB 3.0 Drivers:
http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=11189&i=0
are these the same driver provided with the disc driver? as i already installed both of these..

USB 2 port speed

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