I posted a blog “Fastest USB 3.0 Flash Drive?…” back in January.  I got reader e-mail.

An kindly reader wrote in:

“Look at the Lexar Triton (USB 3.0 Flash Drive)… (It gets USB 3.0 Performance numbers like) 155MB/s read and 150MB/s write … it is “among the fastest”  http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-jumpdrive-triton-usb-30-flash-drive”

(Let’s call this reader Mr. Snarkman.)

On the advice of Mr. Snarkman, I bought one on Amazon, and tested this USB 3.0 Thumb Drive below.

Fastest USB Flash Drive in the Universe?

In the video, you will see USB 3.0 Performance of USB 3.0 Flash Drive:  we get 178 MB/s read and 172MB/s write.

Why did we get 20% faster results at Synopsys?

Is Lexar’s marketing under reporting so their customers can be pleasantly surprised?

You know why.

You know why because you’ve watched the video above at least twice and read the blog, “The Fastest USB 3.0 IP In the Universe?…” 

After you Subscribe, go to the explanation below

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I talked to a gentleman waiting to start his shift at Jamba Juice.  He had a 1/2 hour to wait and an iPhone.  He’s a student.

I asked, “Don’t you have something to study or read?”"

He said, “I’ve read all my Facebook updates, I’ve got nothing left to read”

This leads me to conclude:

1. Facebook is great literature.
2. Nothing compares.
3. Why bother reading anything else?
4. Stop reading this.
5. Go read Facebook.

Why our measured performance is better

The reason we get better performance:

1. We used the Synopsys Host IP on HAPS optimized for performance
2. along with MCCI Win 7 drivers optimized for performance.

Interestingly, it also means the Lexar embedded flash, the NAND flash, is capable of faster speeds than what Lexar advertises.

Final Words

This Triton 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive sells for about $80. Well above the price of a USB 2.0 Flash Drive, but it performs at least 5x faster.

If you’ve bought an Ultrabook (all of these have USB 3.0), then you really want to get one of these drives for backing up your data fast.

Most importantly, the Lexar USB 3.0 plug retracts into the metal casing.  The metal case is sturdy.

(I destroyed a cheaper, $20 USB 3.0 Flash drive I bought months ago.  This happens when you throw the drive in your bag, and the USB plug gets torqued. With a plastic casing, it bends and the electrical connections break.)

If you are buying a USB 3.0 Flash drive, look at the Lexar Triton for this reason AND for the performance.

I bought one for myself to replace the cheap plastic one.

And to show customers, here’s an example of a well designed USB 3.0 product (along with some DisplayLink products).

Thank you Mr. Snarkman for the suggestion to test the Lexar Triton.

Everyone else, suggest more products, maybe we can test it.

PC Chipsets with integrated USB 3.0 (from the Innovator/inventor of USB) started shipping at the beginning of April for reviews.

Here’s a table from Anandtech clearly showing there will be 4 USB 3.0 ports!

They’ve added 4 USB 3.0 ports and to the existing 14 USB 2.0 ports.

If you look at your laptop or desktop, you won’t see that many USB 2.0 ports on the outside because some are used internally.  They connect to a 3G modem or a card reader or ExpressCard slot.

ASUS, HP, Samsung, Toshiba, and others have already announced they will have laptops based on the Ivy Bridge chipset, just Google Ivy Bridge PC and you’ll get all the models

It turns out that AMD has been shipping a motherboard also.

I found this article comparing the performance of the Ivy Bridge and AMD integrated chipsets against NEC, VIA, and ASMedia USB 3.0 Host controllers at http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22775.

Here’s part of the Graphs from that Report.

  From http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22775

As expected, the Ivy Bridge Chipset performs faster, it’s the Blue bar.

I’m going to make you go to the actual article at techreport.com to see what the other chips and integrated chips sets are on the graph because I think the website deserve the hits.

Integrated is Faster

Ivy Bridge is faster because it’s fully integrated:

The stand alone chips used in the NEC, VIA, and ASMedia Hosts can NOT achieve faster speeds because they are limited by their PCIe Gen 1 x1 connection to the motherboard.   PCIe Gen 1 x1 can only go up to 2.5 Gbps, and it’s less in a system where many PCIe peripherals are using the PCIe bus.  Ivy Bridge shouldn’t suffer from this because it is fully integrated into Ivy Bridge and probably has at least a PCIe Gen 1 x2, x4, or even x16 to make sure there is plenty of bandwidth to move the USB 3.0 data in and out of the system. 

For detail on factors that reduce or increase USB 3.0 performance read this blog entry.

I’m going to make you go to the actual article at techreport.com to see what the other chips and integrated chips sets are on the graph because I think the website deserve the hits.

Why the performance isn’t even faster (maybe)

Performance Note: the report does NOT tell us what kind of USB 3.0 Drive they used for testing. I can actually guess which Flash Drive they are using based on the max read speeds that I see, but that will be for a later blog entry.

I think the throughput is limited by the speed of the actual USB 3.0 Hard Drive or USB 3.0 Flash drive being used.

1. If it’s a USB 3.0 Hard Drive, it probably uses a bridge chip from USB 3.0 to a SATA 3 Gigabit/second (Gb/s). This means the maximum Read speed would be near 300 MegaBytes per second (MB/s) or about 3 Gb/s. 
2. If it’s a USB 3.0 Flash Drive, it’s speed will be limited by the quality of the Flash inside the drive.  The fastest flash speeds we’ve ever seen is about 300 Mb/s with a $600 SuperTalent flash drive that arranged 2 banks of flash in a RAID configuration.   At $600, this isn’t a really a consumer product.

   Basically, it was fast because it used the fastest Flash memory, lot of it (128GB), and arranged it in two pieces for simultaneous access to both pieces.  I don’t consider this to be a commercial product, and it didn’t sell that many because it cost more than a Hard Drive, but it gives us an idea of what performance is possible with Flash Memory.

USB 3.0 in Tablets

Apparently Ivy Bridge is also targeted at Tablet PCs with Win 8.   This makes Ivy Bridge the second chipset with integrated support along with TI’s OMAP 5 demonstrated at CES 2012 in January.

This confirms Rahman Ismail’s comments (USB-IF CTO) correctly stated USB 3.0 in tablets and smart phones will be appearing in 2012.

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Reader Mail

Thanks for reading this blog.

Comment below or send me an e-mail. Maybe if it’s insightful or insulting, I’ll post it here.  Either one works.

Reader Mail Below

> From: Name Withheld
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 5:35 PM
> To: Eric Huang

> Subject: Love your blooper on youtube!

> I just KNEW you were human!

My response:
> Was I a nematode before?

His Response:
> Correct

(Nematode = Worm)

Let me know if you know any spam bots.  I’ll send you his e-mail address…

Here you will see demonstrated the fastest USB 3.0 IP in the Universe*.  Or at least the fastest published numbers that isn’t marketing hype.

This demo shows SuperSpeed USB 3.0 effective throughput:

1. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 can really move data.
2. Synopsys USB 3.0 IP can really move data.

The demonstration includes our USB 3.0 xHCI Host Controller, USB 3.0 Device Controller, and USB 3.0 PHYs.

You have to actually watch the video to get see the effective throughput.

The Fastest USB 3.0 IP in the Universe

First, I have to say that that is about the most awesome thumbnail picture of me yet.  Thank you YouTube!

Second, we optimized the PC systems as follows:

1. RAM Drive on the Mass Storage Device side – This is a lot faster than a flash drive, an HDD, or an SSD.  There’s no SATA or PCIe for the data to pass through, so there is zero latency from an additional protocol.  The RAM is right next to the USB controller so there is basically zero read/write latency.
2. Windows 7 with an MCCI USB 3.0 xHCI Host Stack – Somehow MCCI engineered this so it’s faster than stacks we’ve seen packed with off-the-shelf Host cards.
3. Nothing else is running on the USB bus or PCIe bus on the PC.  Very little is running on the PC.
4. Standard PCs built with standard parts with SSDs (which aren’t really necessary but we wanted to make sure)
5. Our IP – Our USB 3.0 PHY IP, Our USB 3.0 Host IP, and Our USB 3.0 Device IP.

Okay, if you know a demo that is faster, send me the link or post the link below.  I haven’t seen a faster demo using a standard benchmarking tool.

Remember

Synopsys USB 3.0 IP can move data really, really fast.

 

Blooper Video

Somehow that Japan IP Team video hit over 330 hits as of the writing of this blog.

I will post it Thursday U.S. Time.

Probably.

 

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*It might not be the fastest USB 3.0 demonstration in the universe.  The title was to get your attention. Still try and find a demo, a real demo that is faster.

**A limit of 10 donuts will be given out.  Offer void where prohibited by law. (This means this offer is no good if it’s illegal where you are. I don’t know why it would be illegal.  Maybe the local authorities don’t like donuts.)

All USB Storage products, Flash Drives, Thumb Drives, Hard Drives, and SSDs use a transfer protocol called “Bulk Only Transfer” or “BOT” protocol.  This works reliably in Windows and Linux and other operating systems. 

In USB, a Bulk Transfers refers to a transfer of data that must be 100% accurate when it arrives. No errors can be allowed.  For example, if you are copying pictures from your camera to your computer, you want every color pixel to be 100% accurate.  The same is true for printing a picture.

It also means the data does not need to arrive at a certain time.  If an error occurs in a Bulk transmission, the system retries until the data accurately moves to the destination. 

BOT is highly reliable, but the hard drive companies knew that with USB 3.0 a new method would be needed.  BOT basically sends a single packet at a time.  This works well for USB 2.0.

USB 3.0 lets you send packets along multiple USB 3.0 “streams.”  To take advantage of this, Storage companies created a new USB Driver Class, a purely software feature, to enable faster USB transfers on USB 3.0. called “USB Attached SCSI Protocol” or “UASP.”  UASP allows you to send packets along multiple streams in parallel, and even burst the data faster.

ASUS published a web page that does a fantastic job illustrating how UASP works with an animation sequence. I recommend you click on the image ASUS website below and take a look at it.

I should point out you need a hard drive or SSD that supports UASP inside the hard drive’s firmware to support this.

In the USB community, we’ve actually debated the usefulness of UASP.  In our lab, we performance increases of 6-10% for early applications.

In a test of the ASUS motherboard with a UASP enabled ASMedia Hard Drive, shows a speed bump of about 33-37Megabytes per second going from about 261 to 293 Megabytes per second, or about a 13% increase in speed.

Today, mass market hard drives today won’t deliver data fast enough because they use SATA 3 Gb/s instead of the faster 6Gb/s. Most hard drives bridge from SATA to USB 3.0.  Since USB 3.0 has a maximum effective throughput of about 4Gb/s, this is faster than existing SATA 3/Gb/s drives.  SATA can be limiting.  Within 2 years, this will change because hard drives will have either SATA 6Gb/s support, or native USB 3.0 support so SATA will not be the bottleneck.

Note:
   3 Gigabits/second = 3Gb/s = 300 MB/s = 300 Megabytes/second
   4 Gb/s = 400 MB/s
   6 Gb/s = 600 MB/s

If you are building a USB 3.0 product today, it means you will deploy in about 12-18 months which means you should plan for UASP support or at least investigate UASP for your application.

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Here’s a awesome video showing our USB 3.0 xHCI Host IP, and USB 3.0 Device IP on our HAPS platform with our USB 3.0 PHY IP Test Chips

We did this demonstration at IDF last fall, and you will see the performance is much faster that all of the published performance by, well pretty much everyone even now, 11 months later.

We optimized the controller, and the PHY, and the drivers to achieve these speeds.

You will notice that our USB 3.0 xHCI Host & PHY running MCCI’s Win 7 drivers and and the USB 3.0 Device & PHY have no problem achieving these speeds.

The HAPS boards with our controller design in FPGA also easily supports USB 3.0.  We use our PCIe controller to connect to the PCIe on the PCs so there is no latency introduced there. 

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Send this URL to your Enemies. and tell them to
Subscribe to this Blog, one option to subscribe is as follows:

• Go into Outlook
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• Click on “Add a new RSS Feed”
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• Click on “Accept” or “Yes” or whatever the dialogue box says.