USB 3.0 Card Reader Very Slow

[deadman_uk]

I have a Transcend All in One USB 3.0 card reader connected to my USB 3.0 port at the back of my PC. I'm trying to send video files (around 1GB each) to my class 10 microSD card via the card reader and I'm getting a maximum speed of 7mb/second which often continues to fall down to under 1mb/second. I've updated the firmware for the card reader, and using Etron USB 3 Drivers (0.115). There is also suppose to be a Genesys USB Mass Storage Device driver which I found but when I attempt to install, it says please plug in your device but it's already plugged in as I can browse my microSD card.

I have an Asrock z64 Xtreme4 motherboard and USB 3.0 is enabled in my BIOS. There is a legacy USB 3.0 mode too which I have enabled and disabled without any noticeable effect. I have a USB 2.0 card reader in my floppy drive bay which doesn't reach speeds of over 7MB/sec with this card either. I see a USB 3.0 host controller and hub in device manager:

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Any ideas?

 

[larrymoencurly]

What kind of speed do you get with the USB 3.0 card reader plugged into one of the USB 2.0-only ports?

USB.org has some diagnostics that may help. One of them showed that some of my USB 3.0 ports worked only in USB 2.0 mode, which was odd because all my USB 3.0 ports used the same model NEC controller chip. OTOH they used different brands of USB 3.0 port sockets, and the ones that ran slower had sockets with wider plastic ridges than the others, and that prevented the 5 extra USB 3.0 pins in the cable plugs from making contact. This problem was solved by making those ridges slightly narrower by trimming them with an X-acto knife.

 

[E4g1e]

Guess what? It is your "Class 10" microSD card itself that's limiting the reader's performance. You see, the SD Card Association artificially limits the maximum read/write speed of non-UHS SD cards to only 20 MB/s, which is well within the capability of USB 2.0. In this case, USB 3.0 will not make transfers faster because the card itself is limiting the speed.

Now, if you're getting only 7 MB/s maximum out of a supposedly "Class 10" card, it's likely that either you had gotten a no-name or an unknown brand card from some shady vendor/reseller, or a counterfeit SanDisk-branded card. (Yes, counterfeit SanDisk cards are quite common, especially on some auction sites.) Although I do own a couple of legitimate SanDisk cards that barely surpass their class write speed ratings.

 

[Alai]

Guess what? It is your "Class 10" microSD card itself that's limiting the reader's performance. You see, the SD Card Association artificially limits the maximum read/write speed of non-UHS SD cards to only 20 MB/s, which is well within the capability of USB 2.0. In this case, USB 3.0 will not make transfers faster because the card itself is limiting the speed.

Now, if you're getting only 7 MB/s maximum out of a supposedly "Class 10" card, it's likely that either you had gotten a no-name or an unknown brand card from some shady vendor/reseller, or a counterfeit SanDisk-branded card. (Yes, counterfeit SanDisk cards are quite common, especially on some auction sites.) Although I do own a couple of legitimate SanDisk cards that barely surpass their class write speed ratings.

This was my immediate thought from even just reading the thread title. It's almost always the card's speed that is the limiting factor.

 

[deadman_uk]

E4g1e, I think you're right, I think this Class 10 card is a fake. I inserted a standard class 10 SD card and I am getting over 40MB/sec speed but with this MicroSD, only 7MB/sec maximum. Damn too late now to get a replacement, this has been in my phone for over a year!

 

[tran1981]

There's a lot of fakes memory cards out there. I usually do benchmarks after I've received mine to determine fakes.

 

[x509]

There's a lot of fakes memory cards out there. I usually do benchmarks after I've received mine to determine fakes.

And what do you do if you discover that the memory card you just bought is a fake?