USB 3.0 has a theoretical capacity of 5.0gb/s, while SATA 3gb/s is...just that. However, there's no magnetic-based storage that can even come close to 3gb/s, so I suspect whatever you're seeing is as a result of caching or something like that. USB is also far more processor intensive and has a lot more overhead, so all else being equal, if you can't saturate SATA, native SATA will be faster.
> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:hardware- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Anthony Q. Martin > Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2011 9:02 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [H] USB 3.0 faster than SATA 3Gb/s on HD? > > Is that right? I have a 1 TB drive in a usb3.0 enclosure running off my mobo. > Using CrystalDiskMark, I find that the read/write performance is faster to a > usb 3.0 drive than to an internal drive on a SATA port. In some cases almost a > factor of 2, but not generally. > > Is that right? > > How does esata compare? I currently don't have an esata enclosure hooked > up so I can't test.
