New external ssd making games stutter

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Lukasx46

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Jun 10, 2020
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I recently bought the barracuda external ssd 1tb and transferred a couple of games into it on steam. The strange thing is is that when the ssd is plugged into USB hub there is no game stuttering but loading screens take very long, but when ssd is directly plugged into my gaming laptop I get stuttering with no fps drops which is strange but fast loading. How can I fix this?
 
It sounds like plugging into the USB hub is causing reduced speeds. I assume that the SSD is inside a USB 3.0 (or newer) enclosure, but maybe going through the hub is forcing it to operate at USB 2.0 speeds. It might be a USB issue where the SSD is so fast that it's overwhelming the USB controller on the motherboard, or the USB adapter inside the external enclosure, when operating at USB 3.0+ speeds. A fast SSD is about the highest bandwidth thing that a USB port would ever have to deal with in most cases, pushing certain components to their limits that aren't usually pushed to their limits. Obviously when reduced to USB 2.0 speeds it would no longer be pushing anything to it's limits, but data transfer rates would be considerably slower.

How many USB ports do you have on the laptop? Have you tried every port? Are they all USB 3.0+ ports?

For starters, I would try downloading CrystalDiskMark, and doing some tests with the SSD plugged directly into the Laptop vs plugged into the hub.

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
 
GotNoRice said:
It sounds like plugging into the USB hub is causing reduced speeds. I assume that the SSD is inside a USB 3.0 (or newer) enclosure, but maybe going through the hub is forcing it to operate at USB 2.0 speeds. It might be a USB issue where the SSD is so fast that it's overwhelming the USB controller on the motherboard, or the USB adapter inside the external enclosure, when operating at USB 3.0+ speeds. A fast SSD is about the highest bandwidth thing that a USB port would ever have to deal with in most cases, pushing certain components to their limits that aren't usually pushed to their limits. Obviously when reduced to USB 2.0 speeds it would no longer be pushing anything to it's limits, but data transfer rates would be considerably slower.

How many USB ports do you have on the laptop? Have you tried every port? Are they all USB 3.0+ ports?

For starters, I would try downloading CrystalDiskMark, and doing some tests with the SSD plugged directly into the Laptop vs plugged into the hub.

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/
Click to expand...
I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and on two of them I'm getting fast speeds but game stuttering with no fps drops and on 1 I get no stuttering with slower speeds.
 
Lukasx46 said:
I have 3 USB ports on my laptop and on two of them I'm getting fast speeds but game stuttering with no fps drops and on 1 I get no stuttering with slower speeds.
Click to expand...

Are they colored at all? Usually USB 3.0+ ports are blue, while USB 2.0 ports are black.
 
I think I figured it out?. The ssd came with a 3.0 gen 1 USB cable. This is not powerful enough to support the ssd itself and needs a gen 2 cable
 
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