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The successor to USB 2.0 has reached the market and – on paper – the improvements lined up are massive. With USB 3.0, you can expect up to 10 times faster transfer rates, boosting of your old USB 2.0 devices and the possibility of more power-intensive products running directly via the USB port.
Buffalo is a worldwide maker of network and storage solutions for the home and office, with everything from wireless networks and storage devices to multimedia products. They have grown since 1975 to become one of the strongest players on the market.

This time around Buffalo has sent us two new products, allowing us to explore the new technology. Read on as we try them out and take a look at the technology behind it. There will also be a couple of recommendations regarding possible problems you might encounter before you invest in USB 3.0.



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The long-awaited successor to USB 2.0, namely USB 3.0, has raised the ceiling for transfer rates by 10, a ceiling that has long limited external hard drives from reaching their full potential. In addition there are a number of innovations that ensure the devices should use less power in standby, as well as get more power as required. As such, you will not need an extra power source when you connect a USB hub or the like.  However, larger devices like 3.5” external hard drives will still need an extra power source. USB 3.0 is also fully backwards-compatible with USB 2.0, so do not be afraid of upgrading.
We will be testing a number of things to see how large an improvement you get by upgrading to USB 3.0, as well as by how much your old USB 2.0 can be boosted if put in a USB 3.0 port.
The next section is for those who would like to learn a little more of the technology behind USB 3.0 – if this does not interest you, simply skip right past it.

The product was kindly lent to us by Buffalo.com

The technology behind USB 3.0


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The USB 3.0 cable has two new, different connectors.


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A connector (the end of the cable that goes into the computer) looks very similar to the USB 2.0 connector and fits in the same ports, but also contains Superspeed pins which are separate from the old pins in USB 2.0. This ensures the backwards-compatibility.

B connector (the end that goes into a device) looks different though. It has two pins for power and ground contact, two pins for non-SuperSpeed data and four pins for SuperSpeed data – as well as shield. The connector itself has been enlarged to make room for the four new pins, and the shape is different (see the pictures), which means you can easily connect a new USB 3.0 device to a USB 2.0 port in your computer, but not a USB 2.0 cable to a USB 3.0 device.

The changes should ensure increased power saving as well as a tenfold increase in transfer rates.

A quick list of what USB 3.0 promises

- Greater transfer rate
- Increased limit of power transmission
- New ways to control power consumption
- Full duplex data transfer and new transfer options
- New "connectors" and cables to ensure the greater transfer rate and backwards-compatibility.
All of these features will be available with USB 3.0, which is already featured on many newer motherboards.

Specifications


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Category
USB 3.0 is still for the discerning user; whether the objective is to squeeze the most out of old USB 2.0 products or invest in the lightning-quick USB 3.0 products, this is the way to go.

Buffalo DriveStation USB 3.0

Supported standards
USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 and 1.1 compatible)

Connector
USB 3.0 (Type B)

Rate
Max 130 MB/s

Dimensions
45mm x 156mm x 175mm

Capacity
1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB – we are testing the 1TB model.

System requirements
Your computer must have a USB 3.0, 2.0 or 1.1 port.

Operating system
Windows® 7, Windows®  Vista™, Windows®XP, MAC OS X® 10.4 (Only Intel)

Warranty
Two years.

Price
Around £96


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Buffalo USB 3.0 PCI-e interface card

Interface
PCI Express 2.0 1x

Connection
USB 3.0, 2.0 and 1.1

Connector type
USB 3.0, 2.0 and 1.1 Type A

Ports
2

AC connection
1 floppy power cable

Transfer rate
Up to 5Gbps (USB 3.0 mode)
Up to 480Mbps (USB 2.0 mode)

Operating system
Windows® 7, Windows®  Vista™ and Windows® XP

Warranty
Two years

Price
£40


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What the package contains

We will take a look at the two packages and see what is tucked away inside before testing the products.

Buffalo DriveStation USB 3.0

List of package contents:

- Manual
- Warranty certificate
- USB cable
- Power adapter
- External hard drive (incl. software)


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In terms of build, this drive looks 90% like earlier external drives from Buffalo of the same name. They managed to shrink the size of this by up to 25% though, which is quite impressive. It reflects quality and still manages a handsome design, two things you do not normally associate with each other in the world of computers.


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Though the design is similar to the previous one there are a few changes, such as the removal of two feet which were apparently unnecessary.


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At the top is a small fan that ensures the hard drive always has sufficient cooling, even when strained. However, the fan will rarely power up and you will probably never notice it unless you are sitting in the Sahara summer sun.


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Even at the rear you cannot see that we are actually dealing with a USB 3.0 product, for the ports are backwards-compatible and so you can only see the difference if you inspect them closely. The handsome design is featured here as well, and soft curves have been used to make it look even more elegant in this cabinet of glossy black.


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Manual and warranty certificate along with an adaptor that works for both UK and EU outlets, and a USB 3.0 cable. That is what Buffalo has opted to include in terms of accessories, and I cannot think of anything they might have missed.

Buffalo USB 3.0 PCI-e interface card

List of package contents:

- PCI-e interface card
- Driver/Manual CD
- Alternative low profile bracket for PCI Express
- Quick setup guide
- Warranty certificate
- Floppy drive power cable to SATA power


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Very simple box that gives you the necessary information. Be advised that the card is for PCI-e – the same interface that some new sound cards use – and is not found on all older motherboards.


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The card is centred around a controller chip that takes care of data transfer. There is space at the right to connect power and the two “legs” on the left are where you put it into the PCI-e port on your computer.


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At the rear are two USB 3.0 ports. The two screws are there in case you need to change bracket so you can use it in all cabinets.


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The manual and CD combine to provide a light guide that should be easy to follow. There is also a power cable that should be very useful in newer computers where it can be hard to find the floppy connector. Last but not least we have a bracket to mount the card in low profile cabinets.

Software

You can also install two additional programs, Eco Manager and Memeobackup, via the installation program that automatically starts up when you connect the external drive.
Eco Manager makes it possible to put the drive to “sleep” according to a pre-defined schedule.


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A very simple program that just works. It may not be attractive to all that many people, but it does exactly what it needs to. It works without a hitch in both Windows XP 32 bit and Windows 7 64 bit, which we tested it in.
Memeobackup is, as the name so finely indicates, a backup program that makes it easy to back up your data.


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A simple design and very easy to use program.


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There is a guide that helps you create a back up, put it on an automatic backup schedule and such. So, you can pretty much be guided through all functions.


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It is also possible to pay and use their online backup service so all the data is still there in case of theft, fire and the like.
Competition is intense in this market though, and if you look at other backup solutions you will quickly realise there is a heap of them.

Read more here

Test setup

If you want to learn a bit more about the programs employed and the setup used for the test you can read about it here.

Motherboard
MSI P6N SLI

CPU
Pentium 2.1 GHz Dual Core

Graphics
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

RAM
3 GB Kingston value RAM

OS
Windows XP Home 32bit

External hard drive

- Buffalo DriveStation USB 3.0 Hard Drive, 1.0TB
- USB 3.0 interface
- PCI Express USB 3.0 Interface Card

Test programs employed:

HD Tune Pro v. 3.5
An expanded edition of HD Tune that contains many functions like a write-benchmark, AAM-settings, commando prompt-parameters and file-benchmark.

ATTO v. 2.34
One of the oldest hard drive benchmarks still in use, The program measures raw transfer rates for both reading and writing, and places data in easily to interpret graphs. The test was run with a standard rate from 0.5KB through 8192KB file sizes with a total length of 256MB.

Crystal Disc Mark v. 2.2
A quick test program that measures sequential as well as random reading and writing, it gives a nice and quick overview. We ran 10 tests, each of a total length of 1000MB.

Test - MB/s

Before we examine the results there are a few things we need to look at.

The difference between bit and byte
The manufacturers usually state their speeds in bit, but people (and our test results) generally talk about bytes. As such you have to be aware that 1 byte is the same as 8 bit, so there is a pretty big difference you ought to note.

Why USB cannot reach the theoretical maximum performance
There has always been the problem of making USB backwards-compatible, and since it can only work one unit at a time, that means the slowest unit can be a bottleneck. Think of it like a highway with fast and slow cars; if there are too many cars, there is no advantage to driving a fast car because you cannot reach your maximum speed due to congestion.
There is also a small overhead that means USB 2.0 is rarely observed performing greater than 30 MB/s in the real world.
We ran a test in which we took a Kingston SSDNow V+ G2 and put it in an external cabinet. Connected via USB 2.0, the average rate achieved in Crystal Diskmark was 29.4 MB/s. Connected via USB 3.0, we reached a rate of 38.7 MB/s. That is a whopping 30% rate increase without us having to invest in new cabinets for the hard drive.

Crystal Diskmark - USB 2.0


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The drive performs quite well, but not exceptionally so for a USB 2.0 external drive. There is a 3.5” drive within the cabinet that ensures high performance and capacity.

Crystal Diskmark - USB 3.0


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We start to see some exciting results; the drive tops around 120MB/s, which is what you can expect of a 3.5” drive. I believe the drive is the bottleneck here, not USB 3.0.
4K read is not improved from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0, as that is also a limitation of the drive.

HD Tune Read


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Once again the results from Crystal Diskmark are confirmed, with the average rate over the entire drive reaching almost 100 MB/s, which is about 4 times faster than with the USB 2.0 drives we have previously tested.
We also see the large differences in rates when we compare with connecting via USB 2.0.

HD Tune Write


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Read and write are quite similar when it comes to HDD – it is only with SSD and other flash-based storage you see large differences in read and write speeds.

Test - IOPS

HD Tune - Random Read - USB 2.0


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HD Tune - Random Read - USB 3.0


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Here are more interesting results. The upper limit falls from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0, while the lower limit seems to have gone up.

There is no real logical answer to this as the results should be similar since the drive is the same, but there must have been some improvements regarding optimisation of 1 MB files, and the effect on the upper limit might be connected to them focusing on a new location.

HD Tune - Random Write - USB 2.0


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HD Tune - Random Write - USB 2.0


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Again the same results as on read.

Conclusion

USB 3.0 has definitely come to stay, and as consumers upgrade their computers and get the new USB ports, there is bound to be a wealth of new products. Less demanding units in terms of bandwidth like mice and USB sound cards would still benefit from the new standard with regards to power consumption.
Of course we are still in the infancy stages, so the prices of devices supporting the new format will cost a little extra than the standard USB 2.0 drives, but if you are tired of sitting around and waiting for transfers to finish, the investment is a good one.
The largest difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 is thus a tenfold increase of the theoretical ceiling, but our ”slow” hard drives only enjoy about a fourfold increase. That means there is also space for the development of products to go with the new technology.

Buffalo USB 3.0 PCI-e interface card
A boost for your old devices or an investment that ensures compatibility with future products.



Pros:
Rate
Easy to install

Cons:
None

Innovation:	5 / 5
Performance:	5 / 5
Price:	3,5 / 5
Overall:	4 / 5

Buffalo DriveStation USB 3.0
A new and smaller design spiced up with exciting new technology

Pros:
Compact design
Rate
Included software

Cons:
Slightly more expensive than USB 2.0

Design:	4,5 / 5
Accessories:	3 / 5
Price:	3 / 5
Connectionspeed:	5 / 5
Innovation:	5 / 5
Software:	4 / 5
Construction:	4 / 5
Overall:	4 / 5