Solved USB-C Male to USB-C Male cable for data transfer

wiganken · Dec 30, 2023

Both my HP desktop and my external drive caddy have female USB-C ports and I was thinking of connecting the two devices using a USB-C Male to USB-C Male cable. Inside the caddy is a SATA interface connected SSD.

The reason for this is that I believe the data transfer rate will be much faster than using the USB-C Male to USB-A Male cable that I currently use. Question 1 - Is this correct?

This cable is for powering the external SSD and for data transfer only but, when I look into these cables they seem to say that they are ‘Charging cables’? Question 2 - Will USB-C Male to USB-C Male cable work for data transfer purposes?

kelper · Dec 30, 2023

Probably not. Data cables are available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-NIMASO-Charge-Macbook-MateBook-Black/dp/B07VCPC8X1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Braided-Delivery-Compatible-MacBook-Space-Grey/dp/B07PLSDPYN

I just searched for usb-c data cable

Ghot · Dec 30, 2023

@wiganken

I use USB-C to USB-C, cable to charge and to transfer data between my desktop computer and my Samsung phone.
I don't know if this helps answer your question?

antspants · Dec 30, 2023

I’ve bought many usb-c cables (male either end) I didn't even know that there was a difference. I don’t discriminate, I use them for both data transfer and charging. I have never read anything to the contrary.

Anibor_11 · Dec 30, 2023

If the SSD installed in the enclosure is a SATA SSD, the speed of the transfer will be the same if you use a USB-C to USB-C data cable, or a USB-C to USB-A data cable.

Don´t use charging cables for data transfers. They operate at USB 2.0 speed, too slow.

antspants · Dec 30, 2023

Take a USB-C hub for example. 4 USB-C inputs and one USB-C output (into the my laptop) the hub doesn’t channel specifically to the laptop, or rather, know what’s being fed through, I have external drives, Ethernet and power to charge the laptop all running through the hub, all running into and through the one hub output cable into the laptop.

BamaInArk · Dec 30, 2023

From Anker:

https://www.anker.com/blogs/cables/data-cable-type

wiganken · Dec 30, 2023

Thanks for all replies. I believe that data transfer cables have 4-wires but charging cables only have 2-wires.

I decided to risk buying an £8 cable, 0.5m long. Not a big deal if it doesn't work but very satisfying if it does. I'll report back in a few days.

antspants · Dec 30, 2023

To get fussy.. or technical (I’ve never worried though)

Types of USB Cables: Not All USB-C Cables are Created Equal

Understanding Variations and Compatibility With the rise of USB-C technology, the demand for compatible cables has also increased. However, not all USB-C cables are created equal. While they may all have the same connector, they have drastically different capabilities, including current/voltage...

acroname.com

BamaInArk · Dec 30, 2023

Supposedly USB-C to USB-C are all data rated. If not they are not Spec. Also remember that you can use USB-C cables for high speed video. I've not experienced with type 4/Thunderbolt cables yet.

hdmi · Dec 30, 2023

Anibor_11 said:
Don´t use charging cables for data transfers. They operate at USB 2.0 speed, too slow.

That's not necessarily always true. Some USB-C male to USB-A male charging cables are fully USB 3.0 compatible such as, for example, the Huawei SuperCharge cable that came bundled with the Huawei P20 Pro and P30 Pro (among several other phone models from Huawei) and that is rated to 5A unlike the more commonly found 3A rated ones which are unsuitable for SuperCharge with these specific phones from Huawei due to 3A being too low for that). Here's a braided replacement cable for it that can these days no longer be found on Amazon Germany, as these phones are getting pretty old now, but I bought this cable from there at the end of February in 2019: https://www.amazon.ae/UGREEN-Cable-Quick-Charge-Huawei/dp/B07F5HD64V

wiganken · Dec 31, 2023

Okay. Final report for those that are interested: -

The photo says it all but the bottom line is that the USB-C cable worked but was no faster than the USB-A cable. Ah well, it was worth a try. Case closed so I'll mark it 'Solved'.

Happy and prosperous 2024 to everyone on the forum.

Ghot · Dec 31, 2023

wiganken said:
the USB-C cable worked but was no faster than the USB-A cable

It was .26 hundredths of a second faster.

If you want your backups/restores to go faster... lessen the amount of data that you're backing up.
Also... remember the "verification" takes about as long as the backup does.
Install large programs and games on your storage drives instead of on your Windows drive.

I have approx. 34GB on my Windows drive... at Macrium's default compression setting (medium)...
backups = 1.5 minutes
restores = 2 minutes.

...and that's backing up an SSD (Windows), onto a hard drive (storage).

Lastly... if you're using the latest version of 8.1 (paid)... you have to set the priority here, rather than in the backup dialog window.

wiganken · Dec 31, 2023

I think I have found the culprit. It is not the cable that is the limiting factor but the 'Write' speed of the SATA connected SSD in the external caddy.

The SSD is a 'Crucial MX500' and the specs for it show "Sequential Read/Write" limits of 560 MB/s and 510 MB/s respectively. As you can see on the photo the maximum achieved 'Write' speed using USB-C cable is 3.4 Gbps, which is 425 MB/s. There is not much difference when using the USB-A cable.

I think the only way to get faster is if the external SSD was an M.2 NVMe SSD but then the speed limitation may only change from the external SSD to the 'Read' speed from the internal NVMe PCIe SSD and I am not going to go down that road. I don't need that expense or the hassle.

Case closed.

barman58 · Dec 31, 2023

What you have to consider is that USB-c is not a cable standard, it is a connector standard I have seen and used multiple rated cables terminated with USB-C connectors, some with these connected at one end only via USB-C, with the other end connected to all types of connector. My Laptop only has USB-C Ports fitted so I have cables to connect these ports to a wide range of connectors to communicate via many different plug specifications.

I use these ports to connect to many hardware types including Data, Charging, both In and Out, and also HDR 4K video and other usages

One thing you have to be careful with is multi adaptors as some of these can be limited to Data only, on some or all ports.
another thing to be aware of is that whereas usb-A and similar older types of connector cables are limited to 5V DC this does not apply to the USB-C specification - for example the power supply for my laptop uses a USB-C connector but this supplies 19V so can cause damage if connected to a lower voltage device fitted with a USB-C connector

I tend to label the start and end ports on my cables and have done this for many years especially with power cables - even the older round power connectors connectors used on older laptops and devices

barman58 · Dec 31, 2023

The phone industry are currently leading the,roll out of intelligent power supplies, which can be a safer alternative to "plug it in and hope" method I come from the industrial automation sector of industry, where a control panel could contain multiple thousands of connections so the use of Labels In tandem with cable colour and other labeling was essential to protect lives in addition to cost

barman58 · Dec 31, 2023

Just in case anyone needs help sleeping the full specification for V2 of the USB-C Cable and connector specification is available for download ...

https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB Type-C Spec R2.0 - August 2019.pdf

all 373 Pages of it

Ghot · Dec 31, 2023

wiganken said:
As you can see on the photo the maximum achieved 'Write' speed using USB-C cable is 3.4 Gbps, which is 425 MB/s.

I got bad new for ya... I get the same 3.x Gb/s when creating a backup from an internal 2.5" Samsung 860 EVO, to a Western Digital Black 4TB internal hard drive. Both are connected... SATA 6 Gb/s

All internal SATA III drives... it took 1 minute 13 seconds to backup C: and the EFI partition. (34GB on C:\)

My I/O Performance was 3.6 Gb/s (read), and 2.1 Gb/s (write)

My point here is... lessen the amount of "used space" on your Windows drive. Turn off the Auto-verify.
You can "manually" verify, after the backup is made.

Either way... the "verify" takes as long as it does to make the backup.
Actually the verify take a bit longer than it does to make the backup.

A whole three seconds longer...

Too long, didn't read version...

If you want to speed up your backups and restores... you'll see the largest improvement, if you're backing up LESS data.

I know this is obvious. But sometimes people get into the details and just plain miss the obvious.
Very few games or programs can actually take advantage of an NVMe's speed.
So they might as well be installed on an "internal" storage drive.

This is all I have installed on the C:\ drive. The rest is installed on a storage hard drive...
And, quite a few of these don't need to be installed on the C:\ drive either.

wiganken · Dec 31, 2023

I decided to use 'CrystalDisk Mark' to test the external SSD speed using both cables. See photo for results, which shows that the USB-C cable is 25% to 29% faster than the USB-A cable. This doesn't explain why Macrium Reflect backups are taking the same time using either cable. Maybe thermal throttling at CPU or the Crucial SSD?
To eliminate the USB cable as the bottleneck I'll continue to use the faster USB-C cable and USB-C port on the computer.

Anibor_11 · Dec 31, 2023

wiganken said:
I decided to use 'CrystalDisk Mark' to test the external SSD speed using both cables. See photo for results, which shows that the USB-C cable is 25% to 29% faster than the USB-A cable. This doesn't explain why Macrium Reflect backups are taking the same time using either cable. Maybe thermal throttling at CPU or the Crucial SSD?
To eliminate the USB cable as the bottleneck I'll continue to use the faster USB-C cable and USB-C port on the computer.

View attachment 82755

In these comparisons, you are changing two things simultaneously, the cable and the USB computer port. So, the results can´be be attributed solely to the cable.

I made a test using the same USB-A port. In one case, I used a USB-C to USB-A cable. In the other case, I use a USB-C to USB-C cable plus one "double side" adapter USB-C to USB-A. The resuts were the same (the SATA SSD is a Samsung 870 EVO 500 GB installed in a Vantec enclosure).

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