Flush USB 3.0 Expresscard Adapter

[83bj60]

thanks for your feedback. let me get this straight, the firmware from stationdriver flashed your laptop's firmware instead of the usb3 expresscard's firmware? that seems a bit odd, or did i understand u wrongly. im guessing what you meant to say is, the NEC firmware from stationdriver flashed the existing original firmware of the usb3 expresscard, right? because it is not possible for NEC to write the firmware of your laptop directly.
so right now, your expresscard has the latest firmware and no matter in which laptop u plugged into, the firmware stays the same, which is the latest and it affects the max speed. correct me if im wrong. thanks

OK, some news: I used the Renesas utility and it does tell the firmware and driver version of the expresscard adapter. On the card that was flashed, it ssays so correctly.

Apart from that, the odd behaviour with the Iomega eGO continues. I'm at a loss explaining what is happening. For some reason, I cannot get the high speeds I first got before I flashed the card. Now it is a steady 55MB/s almost all the way to the end, where it drops to 35MB/s. Before, it started at 100, dropped to 75, then down to 35 at the end. And it does that wether i use the old flashed card or the one I did not touch. It's not registry related, I replaced it with one from prior to my flashing job. It is not driver related, I rolled the driver back as well and not firmware related. And now, on my HP8730w, the drive makes terrible 'zing' noises with massive errors in same HDTune tests that ran fine (but stalled after a random 5, 10 or 20 minutes). No problem on the Toshiba laptop, but totally different speeds, speed response (flat) and reliability (works without any problmes on the old laptop, but terrible on the HP).

If I can't get to run properly tomorrow, it's going back to Dell Canada. Enough futzin' around, I have other things to do.

[alexnvidia]

OK, some news: I used the Renesas utility and it does tell the firmware and driver version of the expresscard adapter. On the card that was flashed, it ssays so correctly.

Apart from that, the odd behaviour with the Iomega eGO continues. I'm at a loss explaining what is happening. For some reason, I cannot get the high speeds I first got before I flashed the card. Now it is a steady 55MB/s almost all the way to the end, where it drops to 35MB/s. Before, it started at 100, dropped to 75, then down to 35 at the end. And it does that wether i use the old flashed card or the one I did not touch. It's not registry related, I replaced it with one from prior to my flashing job. It is not driver related, I rolled the driver back as well and not firmware related. And now, on my HP8730w, the drive makes terrible 'zing' noises with massive errors in same HDTune tests that ran fine (but stalled after a random 5, 10 or 20 minutes). No problem on the Toshiba laptop, but totally different speeds, speed response (flat) and reliability (works without any problmes on the old laptop, but terrible on the HP).

If I can't get to run properly tomorrow, it's going back to Dell Canada. Enough futzin' around, I have other things to do.

so the firmware is confirmed flashed to the usb3 expresscard, not the laptop right? u got me worried there for a second. lol. if that's the case, the problem is with your iomega external case then. do u have any other usb3 device to test with the expresscard to see if there's a difference between new and original old firmware.

[83bj60]

so the firmware is confirmed flashed to the usb3 expresscard, not the laptop right?

Affirmative.

u got me worried there for a second. lol. if that's the case, the problem is with your iomega external case then. do u have any other usb3 device to test with the expresscard to see if there's a difference between new and original old firmware.

Unfortunately I don't have another USB 3.0 device to test it with. What puzzles me is the vastly different behaviour on my 4 year old Toshiba Satellite P205 laptop (a steady 55MB/s when I would get at most 25 on USB 2.0) than on my HP Elitebook 8730w (100->75-35 with massive problems)

That being said, all the tests were conducted using HDTunePro, which is otherwise considered to be a top notch hard drive testing utility. I am starting to wonder if that is not the source of my problems. I will make a complete hard drive backup tomorrow (about 160GB) to see whether this behaviour continues using normal file transfer operations.

It could also be caused by the card design (both of my cards, whether flashed to 2.0.32 or 2.0.26, behave the same): it may not be able, in its present implementation, hardware, firmware or driver, to sustain high speeds (greater than 75MB/s) reliably: I am wondering if heat could be problematic, as they get very hot. I'll messure surface temps while in use on my Toshiba laptop, and in my HP laptop, when I continue my tests tomorrow. Or should I say, later today, got to take some zzzs now

I'll keep you posted...

[alexnvidia]

Affirmative.


Unfortunately I don't have another USB 3.0 device to test it with. What puzzles me is the vastly different behaviour on my 4 year old Toshiba Satellite P205 laptop (a steady 55MB/s when I would get at most 25 on USB 2.0) than on my HP Elitebook 8730w (100->75-35 with massive problems)

That being said, all the tests were conducted using HDTunePro, which is otherwise considered to be a top notch hard drive testing utility. I am starting to wonder if that is not the source of my problems. I will make a complete hard drive backup tomorrow (about 160GB) to see whether this behaviour continues using normal file transfer operations.

It could also be caused by the card design (both of my cards, whether flashed to 2.0.32 or 2.0.26, behave the same): it may not be able, in its present implementation, hardware, firmware or driver, to sustain high speeds (greater than 75MB/s) reliably: I am wondering if heat could be problematic, as they get very hot. I'll messure surface temps while in use on my Toshiba laptop, and in my HP laptop, when I continue my tests tomorrow. Or should I say, later today, got to take some zzzs now

I'll keep you posted...

THanks for the tests and confirmation. im not sure if this is helpful, based on my previous experience with eSATA express card, they never seem to maintain high speed for a long time. when i started file transfer, it will begin at about 60-70MB/s then drop to a steady 30-40MB/s. that's like 50% drop in a matter of less than a minute. also note that i was using 320GB 5400RPM HDD. the newer 1.5TB seagate goflex i have now gives me 80-90MB/s start before slowing down to 40-50MB/s stable transfer. still not quite the amazing speed i hoped for. i noticed that you are using 160GB HDD, could it be older drives are not capable of maintaining high sustained speed? hope to see some good results from you soon. would rep u again for the effort but the system wont allow me.

[83bj60]

I noticed that you are using 160GB HDD, could it be older drives are not capable of maintaining high sustained speed?/

I'm going to test both laptops with that a sizable chunk of data. The Toshiba has a 160GB Fujitsu MHY2160BH hard drive running from 50 to 36MB/s, the HP, a 320GB Seagate Momentus running at 80 to 50 MB/s.

[83bj60]

INTRODUCTION:


Here are the result of the real-life file transfer (write) tests I conducted yesterday with my HP 8730w laptop, which was giving me problems in tests with HDTune 4.6.

Basically, I took three folders on my hard drive with varied file sizes representing typical use and copied them onto the external hard drives through the computer's on-board USB 2.0 port and the AKE USB 3.0 54mm Expresscard Adapter.

I have included pictures of baseline comparison tests done with HDTune and CrystalDiskmark. Do take these with a grain of salt as I have found these apps to be a bit unreliable during extensive testing.

Sorry, I don't seem to be able to put them inline with the text for better organization.



************



TEST PARAMETERS:


Name: HP EliteBook 8730w model FM875UT#ABA.
CPU: Intel T9800 Core 2 Duo @2.93GHz.
Memory: 2 Micron 2GB DDR2 800
HDD: Seagate ST930421AS 320GB HDD (actual size: 298.02GB)
OS: Vista Business SP2

Capacity Units Used in the Calculations: old style conventional notation
1KB= 1,024 Bytes
1MB= 1,048,576 Bytes
1GB= 1,073,741,824 Bytes

Operation: Copy three folders to the external hard drives and count the time it took for the transfer.

File sizes: Folders were selected for the variety of file sizes, hopefully representing real world usage:
- Movies, large files. 84 files 28.5GB
- Downloads, small files. 25,805 files 39.4 GB
- Pictures, medium files. 6,457 files 20.0GB

Total Files: 32,921
Total Size: 94,742,163,456 bytes (88.23GB or 90353MB)

Ambient temp: 18C



***********



TESTS:


Test 1: Iomega eGO 1TB via AKE USB 3.0 54mm Expresscard Adapter:

Duration: 1992s
Speed: 45.36MB/s
Card temp: ~30C
HDD temp: ~30C


Test 2: Iomega Prestige 2TB via on-board USB 2.0 port:

Duration: ~4350s (gone a few min during the test - error +/-150s)
Speed: ~20.77MB/s


Test 3: Iomega eGO 1TB via on-board USB 2.0 port:

Duration: 3740s
Speed: 24.15MB/s


Test 4: Iomega Prestige 2TB via AKE USB 3.0 54mm Expresscard Adapter:

Duration: 3577s
Speed: 25.26MB/s



*************



CONCLUSIONS:


1) The Iomega eGO USB USB 3.0 is very fast on the AKE Adapter, and appears even faster than the internal hard drive. No disconnects and lockups in actual use with latest drivers and firmware, and card temperatures were actually reasonable in real world tests (the card felt very hot doing the flaky error scans in HD tune). Speed wise, it is almost twice as fast on the AKE USB 3.0 card as on the on-board USB 2.0 port.

2) The AKE USB 3.0 card is actually a bit faster in USB mode than the on-board USB 2.0 port, so it would seem to give a slight speed advantage compared to the on-board USB 2.0 port.

3) Apart from the slight speed differences, all drives pretty much flat-line in USB 2.0 mode.

4) From limited testing on my 4 year old laptop, tests indicate similar advantages using the AKE card although speeds are lower. As this is my work machine, I don't have much time to devote to tests on it. If you want me to conduct further tests, let me know, I'll see what I can do.

It took quite a bit of time to do this, hope this helps.

[hamzie]

Okey its NO more loose...

mine comes soon hopefully. did you just press down on it with your thumb?

[83bj60]

mine comes soon hopefully. did you just press down on it with your thumb?

I did, and it works well enough like that, without damaging it (should you need to return it for warranty service). If it still works in a month, it's unlikely I will need to return it so I'll do the same thing oneabove did.

Although in any case, for $20, it would be no big loss should it fail with the mod done.

[hamzie]

What exactly did he do
pinch down with a screw driver or such?

[debaucher]

What exactly did he do
pinch down with a screw driver or such?

Yep, I took a small phillips screw driver and just pressed down over both usb ports to slim it down (I did this on both sides for a total of 8 small indents).

This makes my usb plugs not as loose (although I did not push down as hard as maybe I should have since they are still not as tight as I wanted)

D.