Aja and file-read test results were a little slower-167 MBps-while reading a folder with 10GB of smaller files took just about 160 MBps. We saw similar results with Aja System Test’s write tests. When writing the 10GB file, the USB 3.0 connection hit nearly 200 MBps. USB 3.0 speeds, on the other hand, definitely benefited from the faster performance of the SSD. In this case, USB 2.0 was the bottleneck. We saw the same 40-MBps scores across all tests, with or without the hub. Again, USB 2.0 results were slow and consistent. To try and remove the spinning-hard-drive bottleneck, we ran the same tests, but with an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD as the external drive. We didn’t see any performance differences with the USB 2.0 peripherals attached, so I didn’t include the results in the charts.) (We also ran the tests again with the USB 3.0 drive connected to the hubs along with a USB 2.0 keyboard and mouse attached to the hub to see if that would affect performance.
The Aja System Test Write scores were a little slower with the Hitachi drive connected directly to a USB 3.0 port on the MacBook Pro-107.2 MBps through the Belkin hub, the score was 106.1 MBps, and with the StarTech hub, the score was 102.5 MBps. Regardless of which test we ran or how we connected the drive, all of our USB 3.0 results were in the range of 112 MBps to 115 MBps range. Our USB 3.0 tests were pretty consistent. We used the 2GB File setting with 1920 by 1080, 10-bit, RGB frame sizes.
Finally, we ran Aja Video Systems’ Aja System Test, a free benchmark that’s meant to see how fast your system is and how it would perform under different video-editing circumstances. We ran a similar test with 10GB worth of smaller files and folders. Our tests included timing how long it took to copy a 10GB file to the external drive (in other words, to write the file) and then to copy that file back to the internal drive (read the file). (We used StarTech’s $61 6 Port USB 3.0 / USB 2.0 Combo Hub with 2A Charging Port with two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and a seventh USB port used for charging devices and Belkin’s $50 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 4-Port Hub.) We then ran the tests with the drive connected over FireWire 800 and via Thunderbolt with different enclosures. We ran the same tests again, but with the USB drive attached to each of two hubs.
Hard-drive testsįor our first test, we used a bus-powered, 2.5-inch Hitachi 750GB, 7200-rpm hard drive and ran a series of tests with it connected over USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 directly to our MacBook Pro. We also tested USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 speeds for comparison. To give the tests the best chance of success, we connected the USB 3.0 drives to a 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a speedy internal SSD drive installed.
So we ran a slew of tests using both spinning and solid-state drives that had a variety of interfaces and were plugged in both directly to a computer and through a USB 3.0 hub. We wanted to see if USB 3.0 lives up to its hype, and if Thunderbolt is in fact a faster alternative. On paper, that’s twice as fast as USB 3.0, but how fast is Thunderbolt really? Also, you’ll currently you pay quite a premium for Thunderbolt (often an extra $100 or more for a drive of the same capacity) and USB 3.0 ports offer backward compatibility with USB 2.0 devices. By comparison, Intel’s Thunderbolt technology allows theoretical data-transfer speeds of up to 10 gbps on each of its bi-directional channels.