USB2.0 to USB3.0 upgrade problem

[KRO]

I have a 320G 2.5" drive formatted to Fat32 that I've been using with a SATA usb2 adapter for storage. I recently installed a USB3 PCIe card and a usb3 adapter. The drive was assigned the letter L and worked fine when I would connect it to transfer files with USB 2.0. Now with the USB3 it shows up as H and needs to be formatted. I tried changing the drive letter in disc management but it still shows up as a 32G active partition and the rest unallocated space. It still works fine when used with the old USB2 connection. I have googled the problem till I gave up and decided to cry for help. HELP 
I'm using XPsp3

[Calum]

Have you checked the driver and firmware versions of your USB3 card?  What make and model is it?

[KRO]

I'm pretty sure that the PCIe card is working properly, as is the adapter. The

reason I believe this is this.. I also have a 1 terabyte 3.5" drive that I used with

the generic IDE/Sata usb2 adapter. When I decided to go USB3, I bought the

PCIe card and a Masscool USB3 external case for it. I had the same problem

with Windows seeing it as a 32G drive with the rest unallocated space. In that

case, I used Easus Partition Master to partition and format the drive after I

copied the ~50G of files to my internal drive. It took over a half-hour to transfer

the files with USB2. I connected the drive back up with the USB3 case and

transfered the files back onto it in under 10 minutes.I suppose I can do the

same with the 320G drive, but there's got to be a simpler way. I guess

Windows sees the hard drive/adapter as a package deal with emphasis on

the adapter. The USB3 ports work with all my flash drives and also with the

generic usb2 adapter at usb2 speed. anyway, this is the card I'm using;
SYBA USB 3.0 PCI-e x1 2.0 Card with 2 External ports and internal 19 Pin

USB 3.0 HeadModel SD-PEX20139. Device Manger shows it as Renesas

Electronics USB 3.0 Host controller. Thanks for any advice.

[patio]

Why is it formatted FAT 32 ? ?

Just curious...

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks for posting.
These kind of things happen and when you try to tell somebody they think you are crazy or you are an idiot.  Well I believe you. I have run into things like that even with just USB 2.0 because how the drive is partitioned.

It is, IMHO, not a USB 3 problem . Because I ran into that with just using the standard USB 2 adapters. It is something about the format and the hardware interface. I suspect doing partitioning again will change things.

BTW: The max speed if USB 2 is not really very slow. Just not very fast.

[Calum]

I agree that the card and enclosure are more than likely absolutely fine - it's just odd issues like this that you can sometimes run into, which a firmware or driver update can often resolve.  Now that Intel do an onboard USB3 controller, I'd be happy to use that, but before that was released Renesas and NEC were the only major players in that market, and personally I always had better experiences with NEC chips - the downside is, they're not all that common.
Syba have "helpfully" provided some very low resolution pictures of the card on their site, and I can't see a mention of what actual chip it sues to guide you to a recent driver or firmware version to try.  Whether or not they solve the problem, with the Renesas chips especially I always recommend to update those to avoid compatibility, performance and reliability issues as much as possible.  Again, I'm not saying the Renesas chips are bad though.

As for the above re: USB2 being slow - yes, it really is.  It's 1/10 the speed of USB3.  In terms of real world transfer speeds though when we're talking about external HDDs which can't take advantage of the full speed, we're still talking around 1/3 the speed of a HDD on USB3.  USB2 has been a pain for years in that respect.

[KRO]

Thanks for the input people. I was hoping for a simple solution to my problem that someone else had figured out already. I'm not a computer savvy guy yet, but I'm getting better all the time. . I formatted the entire disc with Fat32 so my Sony bluray player and my PS3 could read it. I haven't decided whether to format the disc, or to just keep using it with my USB2 adapter. I'll follow this post for awhile and see if anything comes up.

[Computer_Commando]

I agree that the card and enclosure are more than likely absolutely fine - it's just odd issues like this that you can sometimes run into, which a firmware or driver update can often resolve.  Now that Intel do an onboard USB3 controller, I'd be happy to use that, but before that was released Renesas and NEC were the only major players in that market, and personally I always had better experiences with NEC chips - the downside is, they're not all that common.
Syba have "helpfully" provided some very low resolution pictures of the card on their site, and I can't see a mention of what actual chip it sues to guide you to a recent driver or firmware version to try.  Whether or not they solve the problem, with the Renesas chips especially I always recommend to update those to avoid compatibility, performance and reliability issues as much as possible.  Again, I'm not saying the Renesas chips are bad though.

As for the above re: USB2 being slow - yes, it really is.  It's 1/10 the speed of USB3.  In terms of real world transfer speeds though when we're talking about external HDDs which can't take advantage of the full speed, we're still talking around 1/3 the speed of a HDD on USB3.  USB2 has been a pain for years in that respect.

1.  NEC has been rebranded as Renesas.
2.  My laptop has an onboard Renesas chip; my desktop has a PCI-e add-on card.  The onboard USB3.0 is about 50% faster than the PCI-e card with the same WD1TB USB3.0 external HDD.
3.  Real world transfer speed is about 2-3X from 2.0 to 3.0.
4.  On the laptop, transfer speeds to the internal HD & the external USB drive are just about the same.
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/4269-show-us-your-hard-drive-performance-61.html
Resesas Drivers
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=19880

As to the OP's original problem, I suspect the USB3 adapter.  Some of the converter hardware from USB3.0 to SATA adds a lot of overhead.

[Geek-9pm]

My experience was that doing the format again but with a different controller solved the problem. In could never duplicate the issue again. It may be some kind of quirk in the adapter micro code.

[Calum]

1.  NEC has been rebranded as Renesas.

I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the information.  I imagine that my experience of NEC/Renesas chips is of older models then, before they dropped the NEC name entirely.  It would also explain why the NEC branded chips are no longer very common

2.  My laptop has an onboard Renesas chip; my desktop has a PCI-e add-on card.  The onboard USB3.0 is about 50% faster than the PCI-e card with the same WD1TB USB3.0 external HDD.

That's to be expected, as the onboard chip, all things being equal, will have less overhead.

3.  Real world transfer speed is about 2-3X from 2.0 to 3.0.

It depends what you're transferring.  I can pull around 30MB/sec from my USB3 HDD on a USB2 port, and around 95MB/sec on a USB3 port, when transferring large files (sequential read).  The link you've posted below shows a USB3 HDD transferring at over 90MB/sec, which is nearly triple USB2's maximum throughput, not to mention that's close to the limit of the drive itself.  Having a faster drive such as an SSD in a USB3 enclosure will show the true advantage - 250MB/sec or more is achievable (a 7x increase over USB2), and I would imagine that with better optimised enclosures and chipsets that will come closer to USB3's theoretical maximum of 400MB/sec.

Resesas Drivers
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=19880

Is that compatible with all NEC/Renesas chipsets?  I'm just wondering because if it's for the uPD720200/a there are newer versions, and if it's for the uPD720201/2 the driver version doesn't seem to match up with what's available.  I'm not trying to be picky, just trying to establish what hardware the drivers you linked to is for, for future reference.

[Computer_Commando]

...Is that compatible with all NEC/Renesas chipsets?  I'm just wondering because if it's for the uPD720200/a there are newer versions, and if it's for the uPD720201/2 the driver version doesn't seem to match up with what's available.  I'm not trying to be picky, just trying to establish what hardware the drivers you linked to is for, for future reference.

When I got my USB 3.0 add-in card, the supplied CD's drivers did not work at all with WinXP.  I knew it was Resesas because Device Manager identified the card as such.  The link I provided was the one that worked.  There are other places to get this driver but they are all the same.  Resesas has no drivers at all.  I believe all the Renesas USB 3.0 host controllers use the same driver.  It appears that the only difference among the part numbers is the package type.
http://am.renesas.com/applications/key_technology/connectivity/usb/index.jsp

BTW, Win8 has built-in support  for USB 3.0.