[TriLUG] external USB drive is slow

[Alan Porter]

To answer the previous few questions...

I am using ext3 filesystem.

The PC is a Dell Dimension L550r.
The BIOS has not been changed that I know of.

I do see the bootup messages that you describe,
indicating that the USB 2.0 drivers are loading.



Some more background...  I went into the BIOS, and
there was no way to disable the on-board USB, but there
was an option to ENABLE / DISABLE "legacy USB support".
That option was set to ENABLE, but I changed it to
DISABLE just now.

When I do any activity on the drive (like "find /mountpoint"),
I get a flood of activity for about 2 to 8 seconds, and then
nothing for up to ten seconds.  Burst, then off, then burst,
the off.

I tried "dd if=/dev/zero of=/mountpoint/test bs=1M count=1k",
and it took 150 seconds.  That's 57 Mbps.  Better than USB 1.0,
but not nearly what USB 2.0 can do.

More ideas?


Alan





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