USB 2 vs USB 3 compatibility

kanenas · Saturday at 6:30 PM

Hello.

The system is Windows 11 24H2 Build 26100.3775.

I have an external USB 2 disk in a USB 2 enclosure, connected with a USB 2 cable to the USB 3.2 extension bar of my desktop.
With the above setup it works fine but on the slow side.

I wanted to see if there would be any improvement in transfer speed if I plugged the external USB 2 disk into a USB 3 enclosure and used a USB 3 cable to connect to the same extension bar.
I expected the same or hopefully a bit faster speeds.

Instead I got the external USB 2 disk coming up as empty and not knowing if it was NTFS (it is), or something else..

I then disconnected it from the extension bar and connected it directly to the USB 2 port of my laptop.
And it still shows as empty.

I understand it could be a bad USB 3 enclosure (it's brand-new though), or bad USB 3 cable (it came with the USB 3 enclosure) but other than such a problem, is there some incompatibility in the above setups?
I was under the impression that the USB 3 protocol was backwards-compatible to USB 2 and in a mix-up, they'd find some common denominator.

Thank you in advance for any comments.

hsehestedt · Saturday at 6:53 PM

That would be expected. Since the device is a USB 2 device, it will only operate at USB 2 speeds, even when connected to a USB 3.x interface.

EDIT: Just noticed you had more text than what I was responding to but it is black. I didn't see it first time with my color combination on screen. I'll reply back after I read the rest. Sorry if my initial response was off base.

hsehestedt · Saturday at 7:02 PM

Okay, revised response:

You say that the drive shows as empty, right? But the drive is at least seen, is that correct?

Could you clarify for me what you mean by empty? By empty, do you mean that you see the raw drive with no partitions or do you see any partitions but just no data on the partition?

MisterEd · Saturday at 8:29 PM

I don't understand what you mean by "I plugged the external USB 2 disk into a USB 3 enclosure". What kind of disk are you talking about? What is a USB 2 disk?

With HDD=hard disk drive and SSD=solid state drive...

2.5" and 3.5" HDDs have SATA interfaces. You can use them in either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 enclosures. You can also use 2.5" SSDs in the same enclosures.

M.2 SSDs can have either an SATA or NVMe interface. You can use them in USB 3.0 or faster enclosures. The enclosures may support SATA only, NVMe only, or both SATA & NVMe SSDs.

You can buy external HDDs and SSDs. Generally they are like the above but are not meant to be dismantled.

An old HDD with a SATA 1.0 interface works the same in a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 enclosure because SATA 1.0 is not fast enough to take advantage of USB 3.0. However, a HDD with a SATA 3.0 interface is faster in a USB 3.0 than a USB 2.0 enclosure because SATA 3.0 is fast enough to take advantage of USB 3.0.

kanenas · Sunday at 7:00 AM

I see I didn't clarify the setup/situation properly, sorry for that.

The external disk is a single 4TB partition. No OS on it and I just use it for backups.
It is a 6GB SATA plugged in a USB 2 enclosure that connected to a USB 2 port on my computer. It worked fine.

I removed it from the USB 2 enclosure (unplugged its SATA connector and pulled it out), and plugged it to a USB 3 enclosure (I pushed it in place and the disk's SATA connector fitted to the USB 3 enclosure's SATA connector). Then I connected the USB 3 enclosure to the computer using a USB 3 cable.

To verify, I just plugged the USB 3 cable to a laptop's (Win10) USB 2 connector.

The external disk shows now 3 (!!) partitions. A 465GB active primary (G:), a 1582 GB unallocated and a 1678 GB also unallocated.
In the Windows Explorer the G: shows as empty and if I try to open it, it says unrecognized filesystem and do I want to format it...

When I had tried to connect it to the desktop, it was the same problem but the disk had only a single partition (if I remember right).

The different faces of the disk bring to mind another possibility.

The desktop just got a second M.2 SSD which I did bootable with Win 11 (using Rufus). Its first M.2 SSD already has Win 11 Canary. I'm booting the 2nd M.2 now.

Could it be there's a mix-up with Windows assigning/using drive letters?

I'll try and boot with Canary to see how that drive looks like and post back...

kanenas · Sunday at 8:06 AM

Some screen caps to show the problem... Don't miss the last pic.

Switching disk enclosures and/or USB types, doesn't seem to always work, At least out-of-the-box so to speak.

1) Booting the new Win 11 on the 2nd M.2 :

Disk Management shows the same as in the laptop (Win 10).
No warnings unless I try to access the disk (I: in this case). Unrecognized filesystem that needs to be formatted...

2) Booting the Canary Win 11 on the 1st M.2 :

Disk Management shows similar info as in the laptop (Win 10) or Win 11.
Warnings when I try to access the disk (H: in this case). Unrecognized filesystem that needs to be formatted...

2a) And the reason of the problem according to Canary Win 11...
The warning came up soon as the system booted up and before I accessed it.

Where did that come from?
I never wrote to the disk during the process of switching Windows.
And I'm pretty sure I only had a single partition in the problematic disk.

I don't see either how 3 different operating systems would mix up drive definitions because maybe of historical entries in the registry.

I'm a software guy rather than hardware so I'll leave it to your capable minds to resolve, if possible :)

Thank you all for your time and advice.

gunrunnerjohn · Sunday at 8:21 AM

The USB disk enclosure's transfer speed is separate from the SATA disk's transfer speed. Any SATA disk should be a ton faster in a USB 3 enclosure. In the distant past I was shuffling disks around in external enclosures, the USB 2 enclosures were painful to use for anything larger than a text file.

MisterEd · Sunday at 6:51 PM

To illustrate what we have been talking about I ran some speed tests with the same drive in two disk enclosures. One was USB 2.0 while the other was USB 3.0. The enclosures were plugged into the laptops USB 3.0 port.

Computer #1:
ASUS TUF Gaming A15 (2022) Laptop
USB Port: USB-A 3.0

Drive: 1TB WDC Blue (WD10EZEX) 3.5" SATA 3.0

Enclosure #1
X-MEDIA XM-EN3451
Internal: PATA(IDE)/SATA 3.0 (600 MB/s)
External: USB 2.0 (60 MB/s)

Enclosure #2
UGREEN 50423
Internal: SATA 3.0 (600 MB/s)
External: USB 3.0 (625 MB/s)

I ran another set of tests using an old desktop computer. It has USB 2.0 ports. It also has a external SATA (eSATA) port.
Back in 2008 eSATA ports were invented for faster speeds than USB 2.0 for external SATA drives. They became obsolete after a few years after USB 3.0 came out. At the time USB 3.0 was about as fast as eSATA.

Computer #2: Custom Desktop
MBD: M4N82 Deluxe
USB Port: USB-A 2.0

Drive: 1TB WDC Blue (WD10EZEX) 3.5" SATA 3.0

Enclosure #3
MaCally T-S350SU
Internal: SATA 2.0 (300 MB/s)
External: USB 2.0 (60 MB/s)/SATA 2.0 (300 MB/s)

kanenas · Sunday at 7:10 PM

Very nice MisterEd. Something to look forward to.

I was hoping for something similar but I'm still stuck on some hardware hiccup.

PenPusher · 2025-04-22T10:28:05-0400

Ok so I have a StarTech.com USB 2.0 Hard Drive Docking Station. When I plug in a WD Red 4Tb drive in, will split the disk up.
It was a controller limitation in the docking station!

. Tried Windows Disk Management and Disk Genius to see if it was a software problem.
If I plug it in directly to my motherboard Sata ports, it shows as one partition correctly!

I can tell you that there was much head scratching when I removed these disks from my NAS

(Synology formatted) to erase any data that I had on them.
In the picture below the docking station has split the 4Tb disk into 2... disks! pic below disk 5 and 6 is same disk!

The disk above has already been formatted as a single NTFS partition.

gunrunnerjohn · 2025-04-22T10:34:29-0400

Many of the ancient USB docking stations had limits on the drive capacity. At the time they were designed, the designers just couldn't imagine disks that large. :)

PenPusher · 2025-04-22T10:46:31-0400

Ancient ... that's me

hsehestedt · 2025-04-22T12:25:37-0400

I'll bet that those disks were partitioned as MBR rather than GPT. MBR disks have a maximum volume size of 2TB.

gunrunnerjohn · 2025-04-22T12:36:03-0400

hsehestedt said:
I'll bet that those disks were partitioned as MBR rather than GPT. MBR disks have a maximum volume size of 2TB.

Since when he put it into the computer it showed up as a 4TB single drive, I don't think so.

PenPusher said:
The disk above has already been formatted as a single NTFS partition.

PenPusher · 2025-04-22T12:56:06-0400

With the disk in that state

one half was MBR the other GPT!! which really confused me to start with

gunrunnerjohn · 2025-04-22T13:03:36-0400

PenPusher said:
With the disk in that state one half was MBR the other GPT!! which really confused me to start with

Like I said, my guess is the old USB enclosure. The actual USB to SATA conversion hardware in those enclosures had some odd quirks back when disks were just getting larger.

PenPusher · 2025-04-22T13:24:25-0400

MisterEd · 2025-04-22T14:28:11-0400

Is this the StarTech docking station you have?
4 Bay eSATA USB 2.0 to SATA Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5/3.5 HDD

PenPusher · 2025-04-22T15:51:02-0400

2.5/3.5" Single Sata disk USB 2.0 .... probably about 10 yrs old+.

kanenas · 2025-04-22T19:07:25-0400

Some ideas that could have been right but don't fit my experience with that USB disk.

1) The disk is old. I don't remember how many years ago I got it but it should be 7-10. It was formatted with MBR and never had a single problem (the drive is an HGST and its original case a LogiLink UA0082. (I can see the head scratching at the mention of MBR) :) )
2) It is a single 4TB partition with only close to 100GB free.
3) Your comments though, woke up memories. I knew about the MBR 2TB limit and searched until I found a 4TB disk that worked. After just finding another post with the reason for it, it seems is might not be the drive that's different but rather its adaptor. LogiLink's (nothing in its description) or does the drive has its own? No idea.

You understand this stuff way better than I do, so have a look at the following link.

[SOLVED] - GPT disk "not initilized" when moved from USB dock to SATA.

Maybe you see some solution for my case that I missed so far.
The only thing that comes to mind, is to use its old enclosure, and then use something like AOMEI Partition Assistant and convert the disk to GPT (doesn't lose data according to their ads).

I'll plug the disk back to its original enclosure tomorrow and it better work :)

Thanks a bunch for all the help.

USB 2 vs USB 3 compatibility

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