Faster transfer, USB stick or NvME drive in enclosure

I have a NvME drive enclosure and a couple of non used NvME 256GB drives, but thinking of getting a 500GB drive for external backup of some folders.
Which has better throughput a USB stick 512GB at 150 Mb/s or a external drive enclosure, with a 512 GB NvME SSD in side. I have the enclosure already, and has 2 different short cables. USB C to USB C and the other is USB C to USB A 3.0 blue connector.
My Hp-15-dy2132wm computer has 2 Superspeed 3.0 ports on the left and 1 USB-C Superspeed port on the right side.
The enclosure has a USB-C port on it.

Is the speed limited by the USB 3.0 and so speed is moot, or is one actually able to transfer data faster than the other? Would I be better off looking at getting a 512GB external SSD that uses USB 3.0? Was thinking that the external drive might have a bit of an edge due to read/write buffer in it.

USB 3.0 has transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s or 5000 Mbit/s, about ten times faster than USB 2.0 (0.48 Gbit/s) even without considering that USB 3.0 is full duplex whereas USB 2.0 is half duplex. This gives USB 3.0 a potential total bidirectional bandwidth twenty times greater than USB 2.0.

Thanks for the answers. In short the USB drive (stick) even at 150 Mb/S is slower than the port and the NvME drive will do a better job of transferring files over from my laptop to a portable drive.
Just thought maybe a SSD complete HD that is portable might be better. I have one of those I transfer videos from my HP Laptop onto and then plug into my one Blu-Ray DVD player connected to the TV.

Gibbs said:

Thanks for the answers. In short the USB drive (stick) even at 150 Mb/S is slower than the port and the NvME drive will do a better job of transferring files over from my laptop to a portable drive.
Just thought maybe a SSD complete HD that is portable might be better. I have one of those I transfer videos from my HP Laptop onto and then plug into my one Blu-Ray DVD player connected to the TV.

Anibor said:

Use the NVMe SSD enclosure with the 500 GB drive. USB 3.0 will limit the speed, but in any case it will be faster than a USB stick (UFD). USB Superspeed is equivalent to USB 3.0, 5 Gbits/s theoretical limit. The NVMe should operate at about 450 MB/s in sequential read or write operations operations.

Real world speed are always much lower than theoretical speeds. An nvme will be quicker than a fast usb drive. There is a more compellibg reason to buy an nvme drive in an envlosure.

USB flash drives simply have much lower reliabilty than a nvme drive.

I do not really see point of you post as you have pretty much answered you own question.

Any mid range NVMe has 3GB/s or 3000MB/s or 24000Mb/s

SuperSpeed USB (based on SuperSpeed-architecture and -protocols):

USB 3.2 Gen 1(x1) – newly marketed as SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps (replaces SuperSpeed or SS), 5 Gbit/s signaling rate over 1 lane using 8b/10b encoding (nominal data rate: 500 MB/s); replaces USB 3.1 Gen 1, or USB 3.0, respectively.

SuperSpeedPlus USB (based on SuperSpeedPlus-architecture and -protocols):

USB 3.2 Gen 1×2 – new, 10 Gbit/s signaling rate over 2 lanes using 8b/10b encoding (nominal data rate: 1000 MB/s).
USB 3.2 Gen 2(x1) – newly marketed as SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps (replaces SuperSpeed+ or SS+),[59] 10 Gbit/s signaling rate over 1 lane using 128b/132b encoding (nominal data rate: 1212 MB/s); replaces USB 3.1 Gen 2.
USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 – new, marketed as SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps, 20 Gbit/s signaling rate over 2 lanes using 128b/132b encoding (nominal data rate: 2424 MB/s).

As you can see, the bottle neck is the USB (case (transmitter) and USB type on the computer (receiver ))

cereberus said:

.
I do not really see point of you post as you have pretty much answered you own question.

I was wondering more on the bottleneck at the USB Superspeed port USB 3.0 if that might negate any speed difference between the NvME and the USB Flash drive. I thought perhaps, a NvMe SSD or a external SSD drive might perform better due to buffering within their own hardware.

Benchmarks don't always reflect real world use but they do show what to expect in general terms.

Benchmarks for flash drives

The Sandisk Cruzer Glide USB 2.0 flash drives sometimes even do worse when plugged into USB 3.0.

The Sandisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash drives show faster sequential speeds with USB 3.0 compared to USB 2.0.
However, they show a marginal random increase in speeds with USB 3.0 compared to USB 2.0.



Benchmarks for external SSDs

SATA SSDs are a little faster when connected to USB 3.1 (10Gbps) compared to USB 3.0 (5Gbps) for sequential read/write.

NVMe SSDs are twice as fast when connected to USB 3.1 (10Gbps) compared to USB 3.0 (5Gbps) for sequential read/write.

However, both SATA & NVMe SSDs show about the same random read/write speeds for both USB 3.0 and USB 3.1.

Checking the specs. for my HP 15-dy2132wm it appears it only has a 5Gb/s transfer speed for all 3 ports. The one on the right is a type C Super Speed and the 2 on the left are normal Super speed ports type A. 5 GB per second is that right?

From HP website: External ports

1 SuperSpeed USB Type-C® 5Gbps signaling rate; 2 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate; 1 HDMI 1.4b; 1 AC smart pin; 1 headphone/microphone combo

So, regardless of the speed of the NvME SSD the top speed would be then 5000 mb/s correct?
It it was a USB 3.1 port on the right ( C ) then it would be a bit faster at 10 Gbps .

Gibbs said:

Checking the specs. for my HP 15-dy2132wm it appears it only has a 5Gb/s transfer speed for all 3 ports. The one on the right is a type C Super Speed and the 2 on the left are normal Super speed ports type A. 5 GB per second is that right?

From HP website: External ports

1 SuperSpeed USB Type-C® 5Gbps signaling rate; 2 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate; 1 HDMI 1.4b; 1 AC smart pin; 1 headphone/microphone combo

So, regardless of the speed of the NvME SSD the top speed would be then 5000 mb/s correct?
It it was a USB 3.1 port on the right ( C ) then it would be a bit faster at 10 Gbps .

Three points:

• The speeds are given in Gb/s while test results are MB/s. See table.
• The rates speeds are maximum theoretical. Real world speeds might be 80-90% of that.
• The rates 5Gb/s speed is for the USB controller. It might be shared among multiple USB ports.

SATA and NVMe SSDs internally are faster. Externally in enclosures their speeds are limited by the USB interface.
The NVMe external SSD is faster with USB 3.1 but is still not as fast as it would be internally

The following show internal SSD speeds

ADATA SU800 M.2 SATA SSD (1TB)



ADATA SX8200PNP M.2 NVMe SSD (2TB)