USB3.0 16Gb stick

[MikeHicks]

Hi,
I've just bought a USB3.0 16Gb USB stick from Tesco supermarket.
Its a Sandisk one.
I have 3 USB ports on my laptop, two are black, one has a blue inner bit - I'm led to believe the blue one might be USB3.0.

Does Mint Cinnamon 18.1 support USB3.0 ports?
When I use this pendrive on the USB3.0 port and try to copy a folder-ful of MP3 music to it it goes really slow.
Its supposed to be 130Mb/second.
It ends up stalling.
It seems to work ok in the USB2 ports though (the black ones).

What do I need to do to enable USB3? anything?

Thanks
Mike

[Flemur]

Linux has supported USB 3 since kernel 2.6-something or so.

Type

Code: Select all

lsusb

and see if you get line(s) with “3.0 root hub”

[MikeHicks]

Yep...

mike@Aspire-ES1-531 ~ $ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129 Card Reader Controller
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f2:b47f Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
mike@Aspire-ES1-531 ~ $

I shall reboot into Windows 10 and see if it behaves any better in there.

[MikeHicks]

This is what I get if I do lsusb with the device plugged into the blue port.

mike@Aspire-ES1-531 ~ $ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0781:5591 SanDisk Corp.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129 Card Reader Controller
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f2:b47f Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
mike@Aspire-ES1-531 ~ $

There it is - the SanDisk entry.
Goes immensely slow though. Will see what Win10 makes of it.

[MikeHicks]

I've tried it in Windows 10 and the device works equally well whether plugged into a USB2 or USB3 port.
Its no faster in the USB3 port.
On the packet (when I bought the pen drive) it said USB3 130Mb/sec.
Windows managed to get 7.8 Mb/sec out of it.

This was tested by doing a bulk copy of 6 albums-worth of MP3 music from hard drive My Music to the USB drive.
It did copy everything asked, but no faster than if USB2.

Now I'm back in Linux, I've put the device into the USB3 slot and run the same test, copying 109 MP3 files.
It got stuck on the ninth file of 109 files 16.9Gb into the copy operation, and just sat there, hung like the proverbial donkey!
Presumably there's something about USB3 that Mint doesn't do properly

[supertuxkart]

I'm not sure, but i believe it's the generic usb driver that make it slow.
I remember in Windows XP a 16GB Lexar USB 2 was extremely fast, but in Windows 7-10 and Mint 17-17.1-2-3 and 18 no way, just 2-2,5 MB/s or less.
That's for others as Verbatim's USB 3, Transcend or Kingston.

[MikeHicks]

It works perfectly well in a USB2 port.
I've formatted it as a LUKS+EXT4 encrypted pendrive.
Its now useless in Windows 10 but thats ok - im finding less and less excuses to boot into win 10 these days.

Chalked down to experience - don't bother with USB3