HTC 10 USB 3.1 Fast File Transfer Speeds Much Lower than 5Gbps

[NessLookAlike]

I've bought three USB 3.1 cables from Amazon, one cable from Startech, one cable from TechMatte, and one cable from FRiEQ. All of these cables are Benson Leung approved.

• Initially I bought the Startech cable because I thought the HTC 10 would support USB 3.1 gen-2 (10Gbps), but after further reading I see that the HTC 10 (probably) only supports USB 3.1 gen-1 (5Gps).
• I bought the other two USB 3.1 gen-1 cables so I could have backup cables for my home/work/travel bag etc.
• Then I wanted to confirm that the phone would actually support transfers at the speeds rated by the cables. It would appear it doesn't.

I tested the HTC 10's transfer speeds by connecting it to the USB 3.1 port on my motherboard (ASUS x99-m WS) and testing file transfer speeds, but even connected to a USB 3.1 port speeds are still definitely not fully USB 3.1 gen-1 5Gps. Here are the results that I found.

• With Fast File Transfer mode enabled, transfers for all three USB 3.1 cables complete at ~130-150MB/s read and ~100MB/s write speeds. These speeds are definitely not USB3.1 gen-1 (5Gbps) speeds.
• I tested this by transferring a 700MB file from PC to phone internal storage (not microSD card), then transferring the same file back to PC.
• The test file was transferred to and from the Samsung 950 Pro m.2 SSD drive, so the SSD drive is not the performance bottleneck.
• Transfers were consistently ~3x slower with "Fast File Transfer" mode disabled.
• It's possible that what HTC meant by the "USB 3.1 Gen 1, Type-C" spec was just that it had a USB Type-C cable connector form, regardless of the speed the port could achieve.

Q: Does anyone have USB 3.1 transfers confirmed working at 5Gbps (ie. ~600MB/s)? And if so, what cable/mobo are you using?

 

[stonew5082]

I thought you needed UBS C on both ends to get the higher speeds, no?

 

[jayplusone]

I thought you needed UBS C on both ends to get the higher speeds, no?

That's what I thought as well.

Sent from my HTC 10

 

[brucethemoose]

You're probably limited by the HTC 10's internal storage. Just because it's flash doesn't mean it can saturate USB 3.1 like your 950 Pro

Those transfer speeds are pretty close to what you see with sequential internal storage benchmarks, and they're among the fastest you'll see in Android phones:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10252/htc-10-battery-storage-results

High-end SD card transfer rates are somewhere in the same ballpark.

 

[Knowbody42]

I thought you needed UBS C on both ends to get the higher speeds, no?

USB Type C is not the same as USB 3.1.
Type C is a connector, USB 3.1 is the protocol version supporting 10gbps speeds.
The USB 3.1 protocol works with type A 3.0/3.1, type B 3.0/3.1, micro B 3.0/3.1, as well as type C connectors.

Type C is even compatible with the USB 2.0 protocol (which is 480mbps half duplex and with more overheads).

Also, your transfer speeds are always going to be limited by the slowest component in the chain. The USB 3.x protocol itself isn't what's limiting you here. The speed of the flash memory probably is.

 

[ChronoReverse]

If you're getting more than 30MB/s then you're already getting better than USB 2 speeds (practically maxes at 30 and theoretically at 60) and must therefore be at USB 3+ speeds which can max out at 640MB/s but you're going to be getting less than that because of overhead and the speed of your flash memory.