Gigabit LAN to USB adapter

Hi,
I am looking to buy a Gigabit LAN to USB adapter and I have seen that all of them are USB3.0, but my PC has only USB 2.0.
The question is, due the USB 2.0 limitation, the adapter will work only as 10/100Mbps LAN, 1GBps is not possible on USB 2.0.
It that right?

What's the make/model of this adapter? Do you have a link for it?

Plankton said:

What's the make/model of this adapter? Do you have a link for it?

USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter - TP-Link

There are many of such adapters around, I have been reading the specifications, but of course, they are not saying that for to use 1000Mbps LAN I need to have USB3.0 connection and I am quite sure it is necessary.

Hi there

Do the maths --simple enough

Max USB 2 speed - even if you COULD get it is 480 Mb/s (Mega BITS / sec) . Your Mobo probably won't be able to handle the max USB 2 Bus speed so your LAN adapter will give you around 100 Mb/s. You won't get anywhere near the 1 Gb/s range !!! - not on USB 2.

For Internet and general use this should be adequate enough -- don't though even THINK of transferring large files over this type of LAN connection.

100Mb/s will give you around 9 MB/s (mega BYTES /sec) data transfer speed. Router throughput will also play a role here - domestic grade routers don't perform anywhere near the theoretical maximum (around 1.3 Gb/s for 5 GHZ wifi on ac standard).

Afraid you can't break the Laws of Physics -- only solution is to get a laptop with a decent LAN adapter in it or a USB3 port --incidentally 5 GHZ wifi band on a normal domestic grade router in practice can only cope with a max wifi speed of around 633 Mb/s -- about half the theoretical maximum given cheap components, small antennae and often dodgy signals.

USB 3.0 can transfer data up-to 5gbps (640MBps) so it should work with a 1Gb/s LAN connection connected directly to LAN.

100Mb/s LAN will be enough to stream full 1080p HD content - but don't even DREAM of attempting to stream 4K or 8K video to those new 4K TV sets with that type of gear -- you'll be HUGELY frustrated with "buffering" etc and a lot of thumb twiddling !!!.

@Adalwar - Yes you can use about 99% of those USB 3 --> Lan adpters on USB 2 -- I haven't actually see any marked "Not compatible with USB2" - but you'll only get USB 2 performance from them.

A good one is the ANKER aluminium one -- has 3 tiny LED's too -- works on USB 2 with no problem.

Cheers
jimbo

@jimbo45,
Thank you
I was doing the "maths" before and precisely based on USB speeds I am sure 1000Mbps will not be possible on USB2.0.
If I connect such Adapter in USB 2.0 port I will only get 100Mbps , not more.
About buying a "decent" PC with USB 3.0, the funny thing is that the Motherboard has USB 3.0, Drivers have been automatically fully installed, but guess what: The USB connectors are USB 2.0! What a shame on LENOVO 100s, if I knew that before I would have not bought the PC. I have dismantle the Laptop to see if I could exchange the connectors, but no chance.

EDIT: As a reference to USB 2.0 speeds, I have an external SSD and its Transfer speed does not go over 16MB/s, on USB2.0, while in USB3.0 it is over 200MB/s , droping after a while to 96MB/s I think because of HDD Speed.

Adalwar said:

@jimbo45,
Thank you
I was doing the "maths" before and precisely based on USB speeds I am sure 1000Mbps will not be possible on USB2.0.
If I connect such Adapter in USB 2.0 port I will only get 100Mbps , not more.
About buying a "decent" PC with USB 3.0, the funny thing is that the Motherboard has USB 3.0, Drivers have been automatically fully installed, but guess what: The USB connectors are USB 2.0! What a shame on LENOVO 100s, if I knew that before I would have not bought the PC. I have dismantle the Laptop to see if I could exchange the connectors, but no chance.

EDIT: As a reference to USB 2.0 speeds, I have an external SSD and its Transfer speed does not go over 16MB/s, on USB2.0, while in USB3.0 it is over 200MB/s , droping after a while to 96MB/s I think because of HDD Speed.

Hi there

@Adalwar

slightly OT but the drop in SSD transfer speed on USB 3 for a "reasonably sized" file is probably due to the file transfer program (in this case probably File / Windows explorer) reading less than optimum block sizes from the data and the Mobo bus I/O controller having insufficient or no cache.

A decentish SSD on a USB 3 port connected via a SATA-->USB3 adapter will probably average around 150 - 200 MB/s with a good Mobo.

I have to admit though that it's strange that a computer has USB 3 ports but no connections available. !!!! I can understand the USB 2 ports being connected but the USB 3 ports should have some connectability somewhere.

Another possibility is to use a pci-e USB 3 card but if the mobo bus speed isn't sufficient you'll be wasting your money !!!. A laptop usually has very limited expansion possibilities -- some though do have space for a small size pci-e card.

Cheers
jimbo

[QUOTE=jimbo45;844961Another possibility is to use a pci-e USB 3 card but if the mobo bus speed isn't sufficient you'll be wasting your money !!!. A laptop usually has very limited expansion possibilities -- some though do have space for a small size pci-e card.[/QUOTE]
I have 2 Custom Desktop computers with Win10, one with USB 3.0 on the motherboard and the other with an Add-in PCIe X1 USB 3.0 card with 4 USB 3.0 ports. The file transfer rates seem to be about the same in comparison. I don't know if the same could be said about using such a card in an older PCI slot.

Berton said:

I have 2 Custom Desktop computers with Win10, one with USB 3.0 on the motherboard and the other with an Add-in PCIe X1 USB 3.0 card with 4 USB 3.0 ports. The file transfer rates seem to be about the same in comparison. I don't know if the same could be said about using such a card in an older PCI slot.

Hi there

The fact that the Mobo already has built in USB 3 capability probably means the Bus speed is fast enough so your Pci-e card should be fine (although some of the cheaper ones only work at about 75% of true USB 3 speed --still a whole lot better than USB 2).

If the initial Mobo didn't have USB 3 capability then it's a question of luck --might work at decent speed or might give you small improvement like 55 - 60 MB/s instead of around 35 MB/s (max) for USB 2.

Incidentally also OT but some old laptop HDD 2.5 inch spinners often perform surprisingly well when connected to USB 2 or USB 3 slots via the appropriate SATA-->USB connector. So don't throw them away if you upgrade to SSD's - useful for backups etc. !!! and can be used attached to desktop computers too via same adapter cables.

Cheers
jimbo

@jimbo45,
Hi there,
About the Laptop, yes Hardware supports USB3.0 but all case connectors are USB2.0! Next time, the China people will not f*k me so easy. Next time, I will not trust anybody and open my eyes very wide. But that is not the only f*k, the SD-Card reader only accepts max 32GB, do want you want.
And I can do nothing, no Cards, no exchange connectors.
Concerning USB3.0 speed there are several "bottlenecks" to consider:
- USB3.0 will be max (generous "maths") 175 MB/s.
- My HDD is a Hybrid one with also SSD incorporated, and Windows Test says write speed is around that 96MB/s.
- I was copy a 4GB file from SSD to HDD, it was so quick that I even could not "Think" so quick, but 50% of time was 200MB/s then it droped to 96MB/s.
Probably the HDD speed was the Bottleneck or/and USB3.0 slow down, becaus it could not handle the "handshakes"

EDIT : It is a "Chinese Revenge" to be looking all the time to Device Manager and see all the USB 3.0 Drivers there, but you can not use it!