Might this be a good time to look at finding a more modern mobo? You might be able to find a used one with usb 3.0 for not much more than a usb 3 card
On July 6, 2015 8:17:03 PM MST, Mark C <pdml-m...@charter.net> wrote: >I'm fixing to upgrade my circa 2009 PC with a USB 3.0 card. Knowing >that >there are many people here who understand this stuff better than I do - > >a few off topic questions... (since the USB card will be used to >support >drives that will store photos taken with my Pentax gear, it's not >completely off topic...) > >It seems that you need at least a PCIe 2.0 slot with 5 GBps throughput >to get full USB 3.0 speed. My PC only has two free PCIe 2.0 x1 slots >@2.5 GBps each. The sole PCIe 2.0 x16 slot is occupied by the video >card. There are also a couple free legacy PCI slots - I think they are >32 bit PCI slots. (The mother board manual simply calls them "PCI >slots"). > >Adding a USB 3.0 card to one of the free PCIe x1 slots seems to be the >obvious route to go. With PCIe x1 I will only get 50% of the possible >maximum throughput. Based on what I read - that will still be a good >bit >faster than USB 2.0... If USB 3.0 is theoretically 10x faster than USB > >2.0, then my theoretical increase will be 5x.... is that right? > >Would there be any point in even considering adding a USB 3.0 card to a > >legacy PCI slot? As best I can tell PCI has a maximum of 133MB/s or >roughly 1 GBps so USB 3.0 on a PCI bus could be about twice as fast as >USB 2.0??? I assume far short of the increase expected from using a >PCIe >x1 slot... > >As I understand it, each USB controller splits the bandwidth between >all >active devices connected to it. So if I am copying files between two >USB >drives hooked up to a single USB controller the bandwidth would be >split >between them. That makes me wonder - if I add two USB 3.0 cards to my >PC - one in each of the free PCIe x1 slots - and put one drive on each >card, will that result in each controller running at full speed when >copying from drive to drive? That would be as fast as copying between >two drives on a single controller running off a full speed PCIe 2.0 >slot. Is my thinking right on that point? Since the USB cards are >about $20 each, I'd give that a try if it would speed things up. > >Lastly - is there anything in particular - e.g. desirable chip sets or >features or brands to avoid - in USB cards and hubs? (I plan to add at >least one card and one external hub.) > >Thanks! > >--- >This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. >http://www.avast.com -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
