Usb 3.0 or Usb 3.1 for external hdd

[rjnkanwal]

Hi
I have an internal Toshiba X300 5tb hdd. I am going to purchase an external caddy/dock so I can use this drive as an external for backups.

I have a Gigabyte Z170x gaming 7 motherboard with usb 3.0 and usb 3.1

I am confused between usb 3.0 and 3.1.
Usb 3.0 is 5Gbps which is 625 megabytes/second maximum transfer rate and Usb 3.1 is 10gbps which is maximum 1250 megabytes/second maximum transfer rate.
The Toshiba X300 can do upto 200 megabytes transfer and I believe most sata III drives will only go upto 200megabytes.

Based on this, I won't be using the full capability of usb 3.0. So is there any point to spend extra money on usb 3.1 caddy/dock at the moment or should I just go for usb 3.0 caddy dock.

Or another option is sata hot plug bay, which is similar price as Usb 3.0
I'll appreciate any advice.
Thanks

 

[D JAY Cva]

if you are planning to backup from HDD to HDD ... 3.0 will be sufficient ... the 3.1 will be more useful for users who backup from ssd to ssd or if you plan to use usb powered external devices .. such as seagate Innov8

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Get a USB 3.0-compatible 3.5-inch hard drive enclosure.

 

[rjnkanwal]

I am going to do backup from ssd to hdd.
I believe usb 3.0 will be good enough even on a sata or m2 ssd to ssd backup as all those are under 600 megabyte transfer rate.
So USB 3.0 enclosure is good enough.
Thanks Phillip Corcoran

 

[ArtPog]

I think you'll be satisfied with using a USB 3.0 external HDD/SSD enclosure as Philip and others have recommended - bearing in mind that your interest (as you have expressed it) is in a USB external device for backups of your internally-connected system.

I would, however, like to relate our experience with utilizing USB 3.1 - not to change your mind - but to give you some insight (based on our experience) as to how this new interface compares with USB 3.0.

We've been using a couple of ASRock Z170 MBs equipped with USB 3.1 capability, similar to your Gigabyte board. For about the past six months or so we've been using a couple of USB 3.1 external enclosures chiefly for the same reason as your interest - backups of our systems. In general we utilize a disk-cloning program (Casper) to undertake comprehensive backups of our systems. Of course we also use these external USB 3.1 devices for "on-the-fly" copy/move data from our internal drives to the USB external drive.

By & large we've been disappointed with the speed of these USB 3.1 devices vis-a-vis USB 3.0 devices. In many cases we experience no overall speed increase in data transfer at all. And when we do it's usually on the order of about a 10% increase.

The two USB 3.1 devices we've been using are a StarTech docking station and a Vantec pocket-sized enclosure designed for 2.5" drives (obviously SSD). Both of them are USB 3.1 Gen 2 capable.

I want to caution you that if by & by you ever do decide to purchase a USB 3.1 external enclosure MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE IT'S SPECIFIED AS HAVING "USB 3.1 Gen 2" CAPABILITY. If it's advertised as only a "USB 3.1" device, that is insufficient. You must ascertain that it possesses "USB 3.1 Gen 2" capability. Otherwise all you'll be purchasing is a USB 3.0 device. Capiche?

 

[rjnkanwal]

ArtPog I had some idea based on the theoretical speeds of ssd and hdd, I just wanted to confirm that I was on the right track.
The bottleneck is the read/write speeds of ssd and hdds. Usb 3.0 has a limit of 625mb/s and it seems no hdd and sata ssds are going to cross that limit as sata ssds maximise around 550mb/s
NVMe ssds surely will benefit from usb 3.1 or thunderbolt, but who is going to use NVMe for backup?

 

[ArtPog]

BTW, you have another "no-cost" option for your backups, a kind that we use nearly daily.
No doubt your Gigabyte MB has sufficient SATA data ports and you could utilize one of the vacant ports for connecting your 5 TB HDD. So you could back up your system internally via that means.

Now of course you wouldn't have the extreme security one would achieve by using an externally-connected backup device of one kind or another so that could be a consideration for you. Actually we've been using these types of internal backup configurations for more than 20 years and experienced virtually no problems re lost/corrupted data by doing so. Obviously if you had absolutely vital data that under no circumstances you could afford to lose, e.g., irreplaceable audio/visual material for example, vital documents of one kind or another, etc., you would have to consider an external backup source (perhaps as a supplement to an internally-connected backup system as I have described). Give it some thought.