Introduction

Beginning of may in a test we have the dock Sharkoon QuickPort taken duo USB 3.0 scrutinized and investigated is how much the theoretically up to 5 GB / s bandwidth of USB 3.0 in practice available. Although the performance represented significant progress compared to USB 2.0, on a SATA or eSATA connection she not handed approach but still.

Now over a half a year has passed and alongside new drivers for the USB 3.0 controllers from NEC, there is now also a UAS driver the Sharkoon attaches the latest versions of his QuickPort models for USB 3.0. We want to clarify what the driver in everyday life brings on the next pages.

SATA QuickportUSB 3.0

Compared to the QuickPort, Duo USB 3.0 (computer base test) is the single version technically virtually identical, except that everything in a simple version is available. As usual takes the slot a SATA hard drive in the 2.5 or 3, 5-inch to. Includes also an external power supply in addition to the USB 3.0 cable. Inside the case, a “USB300″ works-Bridge chip of company LucidPort, which is designed specifically for external devices and is responsible for communication between SATA-(3-Gbit/s)-Laufwerk and USB interface.

Test system

Test system:

• Processor
  • AMD Phenom II X 2 550 Black Edition
• Motherboard
  • Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H, socket AM3, 890GX + SB850 (AHCI mode)
• Memory
  • 2 x 1024 MB G.skill DDR3-1600 (7-7-7-18) @ 1,333 MHz
  • 2 x 1024 MB Patriot DDR3-1600 (7-7-7-18) @ 1,333 MHz
• Graphics card
  • Radeon HD 4290, IGP, Sideport 128 MB + 512 MB shared
• Power supply
  • Corsair HX620W
• System Board
  • Western Digital VelociRaptor, 300 GB
• Drives
  • Super talent Ultradrive GX2 (micron), 128 GB
  • Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB
• Operating system
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• USB 3.0 controller
  • Driver: 2.0.26.0
  • Firmware: 3.0.2.5
  • UASP-filter driver: 1.0.01.0
• Benchmarks
  • ATTO disk benchmark v2. 46
  • Futuremark PCMark Vantage Professional 1.0.2
  • HD tach RW
  • Iometer 2008.06.18-RC2
  • SiSoftware Sandra engineer standard 2010 SP1a (final 16.36)

Benchmarks

Daily test

In most cases, a docking station should be used for connecting conventional hard disks. Therefore, we start our test with a SpinPoint F3 from Samsung and examine the raw performance with the disk benchmark HD tach RW. The program measures also the sequential read and write rates, as well as the time for random access in addition to the burst rate of the interface. This as close as possible to measure the hardware attempts to and exclude software influences as possible.

SATA is still faster than a USB connection, the UAS driver even slower than the normal BOT driver reading. When writing the picture however changes, the best value is achieved with UAS driver and also the access time is the lowest in this configuration.

The HDD test suite of PCMark Vantage simulated everyday tasks such as for example the import of images, games and video editing and measures the transfer rates, which reached a selected partition this.

If you look at only the score, one could assume that it is superior to the UAS driver which BOT driver sue in all. However, a look at the results of each test reveals a different picture. The BOT driver provides a better result in almost every test, the UAS driver can put clearly in the lead only in the Media Center test and exceeds also the SATA interface. May be this can be on the UAS protocol stream support due. We have seen a similar break in this test the PCMark Vantage a few months ago at the Barracuda XT, which with SATA 6 GB/s, which also includes improvements in the streaming was significantly faster than with SATA 3 Gbit/s.

How it looks now in practice, when files are transferred? To do this, we have initially measured how long it takes to different files on the disk were written.

The differences are rather marginal, only when writing of JPEG files, the UAS driver brought an advantage of eight percent. Otherwise, BOT-and UAS drivers were roughly the same fast and significantly slower than the SATA interface.

In a next step, we have attracted the requirements a bit and the disk by copying files within the partition at the same time faced with read and write accesses.

The UAS driver has a noticeable advantage of 15 percent compared to the BOT driver only on the copy of the ISO files. In the two other tests, it lands while also front, the gap is in practice but to neglect.

SSD

As we have seen the advantage of the UAS driver with a normal hard drive very in borders adheres. How it looks now, if we solid state drive confront the docking station with one, reached much higher transfer rates? In this case, we limit ourselves to the PCMark Vantage and a copy test.

In the total result, SATA has still the nose front, in four of the eight tests, a better result is achieved via USB 3.0 with UAS drivers however. When a high basic potential of the drive so quite impressive results to achieve with the UAS driver. And how it looks when copying within the partition?

When copying the ISO files, the combination of USB 3.0 and UAS drivers very close to SATA’s turn, the distance is increasingly growing in smaller files and rises to almost 50 percent.

Conclusion

Initially, we asked the question of whether the UAS driver for Sharkoons SATA QuickPort USB 3.0 in conjunction with the latest drivers for the controller in everyday life – this is called an edge with a conventional hard drive – means. Looking at now the test results, the tendency towards rather a “no”: with a normal HDD advantages can be certainly identified, they are however marginal. Simple transfer of data on a hard drive in the docking station transfer cost seven percent less time in the worst with UAS driver at best – the ISO files – only one percent. On a SATA connection the combination of USB 3.0 and UAS driver not approaches also.

The result, which was achieved with UAS-driver in the PCMark Vantage is extremely curious. A better overall result compared to the standard drivers results solely from a significantly better result in a single unit test while it is always a little worse than the drivers in the other seven tests. When copying files within the partition, a noticeable difference of 15% is measurable only in the large ISOs.

Take a quick state drive instead of a hard now solid-state disk drive, is greater than the distance between UAS-and standard driver. In the HDD suite of PCMark Vantage, the gap is only three percent whopping 15 percent and the residue on the SATA connection. The combination of USB 3.0 and UAS driver in the half of the tests is also the fastest. When copying to save 20 percent time with UAS driver at best, can be the difference but also in the field of negligible adverse combination of files. It has real performance benefits only when the drive in the docking station provides very high performance. But even above all applications benefit from the UAS driver, file transfers are only partly accelerated and not the level of a SATA connection.

Keeping up all’ this, it is quite can Sharkoon to resolve only the latest product batches the UAS driver and may provide no download for licensing reasons, the delivered after a firmware upgrade with earlier versions of the product could be used in mind. In trade, now largely the latest delivery should be in stock, which is delivered including driver CD. After all: The latest firmware can be requested from the support, she alone should change but not significantly in performance. If the own computer has an eSATA interface, we would due to the higher data transfer rates of transfer and still more to buy the eSATA/USB 2.0 products from Sharkoons advise QuickPort series of still lower prices.