USB-C and USB-3...well, it just might matter which port you plug into on the back of your computer

BIF

I found the issue here, so you can file this under "information sharing." I hope one day it helps somebody else.

I have a bunch of Inateck external hard drive enclosures, and I use these for my big 18TB backup drives.

I've been having trouble lately on my main Windows 11 PC where a full backup of the drive that contains my C partition would normally take 15 minutes to complete…was running for almost 2.5 hours.

Something had changed, and it was right after I had pulled the PC out to clean it. That had required that I unplug all of the cables from the back of the unit, open the unit, and blast out the accumulated dust on the inside of the case.

======================Background on Inateck enclosures:

These hard drive enclosures (STILL available going on 10 years I think…on Amazon here) are metal, dressed in a nice black paint, and have a green power status light and blue disk activity light on one corner. They will accept either a 3.5" or 2.5" drive. They have a normal USB 3.0 Drive connection port (the big blocky one, larger than the port on the back of your old Maschine, Kore 2, or Rig Kontrol), and a port for the included power supply. I like these because my big 18TB backup hard drives can be screwed in for stability, and are protected from static electricity when sitting on my desk or in transit going through an airport, etc.

The whole drive enclosure can slide into a Pelikan-like weatherproof case with foam inserts. You can also remove the outer aluminum shell on the external drive enclosure and just use the electronics module to temporarily power and connect an HDD or SSD to transfer data to and from existing bare drives over USB. This makes it easy to format new bare hard drives, prepare old bare drives for destruction (or just to see what's on them), and so on…all without having to get out a screwdriver just to use a drive for a few minutes.

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The Problem:

My backup program is Macrium:Reflect. I'm still on version 8 because their new version, "X", requires a subscription, and I'm seriously allergic to subscriptions.

I've been using Macrium (probably from Version 5) for years; maybe about as long as I have had these Inateck enclosures. Macrium (it's called "Reflect", but I call it Macrium for clarity) was taking 2 hours to transfer 511 GB from my C drive.

Macrium's display was showing a range from 250 to 300 Mbps (Megabits/second), so the math was mathing. But it's not mathing when you realize that USB 3 can support up to 5 Gbs. So that's just too long to back up a half-terabyte. That would mean that my massive VST library partitions (three of which are over 2TB each now!) would take 10 to 12 hours to run!).

Completely unacceptable. I need to (okay, it's just a "want to") be able to have all my backups done before the sun comes up.

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Diagnosis:

1. Figure out if I had a bad Inateck unit. These are not complicated units, but who knows what can happen, so I swapped units, keeping everything else the same. One unit was pulling as much as 450-500 Mbps, but that's still slow.
2. Figure out if I had a bad USB cable. I swapped several USB cables, making sure that the Inateck unit was plugged in with a USB 3 cable (denoted by the blue components in the connectors at each end of the cable). Same poor performance.
3. Figure out if the port on the back of the PC made a difference.
   1. First, I tried a USB 3 port (with a USB-C connector) on the back of the motherboard. The drive wouldn't even connect to the PC.
   2. Next, I tried an open USB 3 port right next to the USB-C port on the back of the PC. Now I'm suddenly getting 1.8 Gbps (Gigabits/second and again, according to Macrium's display).
   3. The C drive backed up in about 20 minutes, and I now have one of my VST partions being backed up. It's 2.6 TB in size, and Macrium reports that I'm getting 1.5 Gb/s. Macrium also says the backup will take 3 hours. This is normal and expected for my system, and for 2.6 TB of data. Under normal operation, that drive gets a full backup on the first Wednesday of every other month, and gets an incremental backup on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Incrementals rarely take more than a minute on any of my VST drives, and even then, it's only if I've added a lot of sample-heavy VST instruments or Kontakt libraries to that partition…which is rare.

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Next Plans:

I have not yet figured out why one port on the back of the PC would work at full speed, while the other would not. Both ports are labeled "SS" and have the lightning bolt icon.

This system was built in 2022, and it has a 12th gen i9 processor. I'm running Windows 11, and other than this issue with data transfer on the one port, I'm not having any issues. With all of the problems I've heard about Intel's 13th and 14th gen CPUs, I'm not in a hurry to upgrade the hardware. In the meantime, I'll just have to keep track of the performance differences between the ports on the back panel.

Particularly when it's time to disconnect all of the cables so I can pull the unit out and service it again. That dodgy port can probably drive a keyboard and mouse just fine, so I just need to not plug a hard drive in there.

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TLDR:

Sometimes it DOES make a difference which port you plug something into on the back of your PC. Keep an open mind on this if you are having issues.

I share this with you just in case you might have need of it.

Have a great day!