USB-C woes

Hi there
@GracieAllen

until there are HDD's out there that can really out do SSD's in speed there's no advantage in USB-C for HDD data transfer - those small USB3 self powered 4TB external drives are great for loads of things but not really mega fast for data transfer.

personally for things like backups etc I find using a 500GB or 1 TB SSD as an external device connected to the computer via a SATA-->USB3 connector faster than any external spinner even when connected via e-sata.

With a lot of modern hardware you really have to know what you want to do with it. Personally the only reason I like USB-C is that you can't put the plug in the wrong way round which saves a lot of fiddling when the USB ports are in awkward places.

Think of it like this -- a full bathtub can only empty at the fastest rate the outlet can handle -- HDD's are by nature compared to the rest of the system slow devices -- there isn't any gain in using USB-C to improve throughput.

Even if the HDD could transfer data at USB-C speeds (which is highly unlikely) it's very probable that the actual data bus on the motherboard whether laptop or "classical" computer couldn't handle the speed anyway.

Current e-sata can theoretically deliver 6Gb/s according to the specs but I have yet to see any consumer grade HDD that can deliver anything like that throughput in real applications. (Some very expensive fibre optic / SAS channel type drives used in commercial servers for mission critical applications can - but that's another order of magnitude in expense and grossly over the top for any sort of home computing).

Incidentally the fastest way of using say 3 external HDD's is to set them up as a RAID 0 array (or in Windows set them up as a storage space). Note though if 1 HDD becomes defective you lose the lot so you will need backup -- but HDD's these days are pretty reliable so provided you have some backup you'll get max throughput using HDD's this way -- and of course your directory / folder sizes aren't limited to size of 1 HDD -- good way for very large music / video storage.

Cheers
jimbo

how about forgetting your USB C port altogether, since we have determined that USB 3.0 hub is going to give you as much speed as you can get anyway. I personally use a 4 Port powered by Anker these are no longer available but I found the Saberent 7 port https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Indiv...sb+hub+powered that supplies 4 amp of power and has switches so that you can shut off any ports you are not using. This should be good for any ext USB powered hard drives and 3.5" hard drives ext-all have to be self-powered anyway. Personally, I've had great luck with WD Passports 4 TB is the largest I use I have had no issues using 2 of these on the same hub transferring from notebook to hard drive or ext hard drive to ext hard drive.

The issue with notebooks and USB 3.0 port is that the motherboards have a problem supplying the 500amps required for each port. With our Asus Notebooks, we have found that its impossible to run Ext hard drives reliable on our left side ports they will drop out on you. Individual notebooks will work for some people but basically, the issue is that these left side ports are on a daughter board separate from the Motherboard and for some reason they just can't get enough power to them. Our right side ports have no issues, for the most part, this has been true for several generations of Asus Gaming notebooks. We just work around this by using the right-hand port. In fact, the front right port on our notebooks supplies up to 1 Amp since its intended use is to charge your smartphone or tablet. So I just have a Right angle USB 3.0 adapter cable hooked up to my 4 port hub. the same side has my LAN also a right hand cable and my PQI fingerprint reader and power supply I'm left handed but I use a Bluetooth mouse on the right-hand side