I've discovered a lot of USB-C cables are garbage. (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but I've realized you have to be very careful when ordering USB-C cables. Especially USB-C to Type A ones. A lot of them appear to be built mainly for power, but not data. It just never occurred to me until I started diving into why certain peripherals weren't performing correctly. In one case, connecting an NVMe drive to my music streamer, it said the drive was there, but couldn't actually read it. Another was my CFExpress card reader, which was giving me pitiful 35MB/s read/write rates. Swap to a good USB-C to Type A cable and the reads went to 400MB/s. Switch it to a good C to C cable and connect to the Thunderbolt port on my computer, and I get 800MB/s writes and 1000MB/s reads. I've had the problem with C to C cables that didn't specifically state their data rate, or emphasized using them for charging.

You want to make sure C to Type A cables specifically state USB 3.1, and then also check the actual data throughput.

Am I just discovering something most others already knew?

 

[DaveF]

I only buy USB C cables for power delivery (both A-to-C and more recently C-to-C), so I haven’t encountered this issue. A few years ago, a Google engineer was doing a thorough review of USB-C cables and finding all kinds of problems like you’re experiencing due to the early standard and multitude of variants. But I thought all that was sorted out by now.

 

[JohnRice]

I only buy USB C cables for power delivery (both A-to-C and more recently C-to-C), so I haven’t encountered this issue. A few years ago, a Google engineer was doing a thorough review of USB-C cables and finding all kinds of problems like you’re experiencing due to the early standard and multitude of variants. But I thought all that was sorted out by now.

I have often gotten data rates around 35MB/s which indicates their data side is actually USB 2. A lot of cables seem to be made essentially for power, with just the minimal data capability. Now that I’m aware of it, I realize only more expensive ones specify USB 3.1.

 

[JohnRice]

An example is I just got THESE, because I needed a short cable with a right angle on the USB-C end. Now that I look at the details, if you scroll down far enough, it does say they are 480Mb/s (aka: USB 2) but they also refer to that as "High-Speed Transfer" even though that is 20 year old tech, and definitely NOT considered high-speed in any current context.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Yeah, I bought a rather powerful charging block ~1/2 year ago -- so guests and maybe future-me could use it for recharging laptops, etc, not just phones and tablets -- and started looking at additional USB-C cables and noticed the different, often rather low, ratings for data bandwidth.

See on Amazon

That charging block actually came w/ a 240W-capable PD cable, but it's apparently only rated for USB 2 data rate as well.

Seems like you might as well get at least a Thunderbolt 3 cable or similar, not just most any other non-TB USB-C cable, if you wanna be able to both recharge say a MacBook Pro *and* have excellent data bandwidth... and I'm not about to bother doing that (yet) unless/until I actually have/use such a laptop myself -- I used to have a working Dell XPS 15 that would qualify, but I also already had their corresponding TB3 block... though that's probably overkill unless I'm gonna connect a laptop to external monitor(s).

And even then, not all TB cables can exceed 100W for (re)charging, if you actually want/need that.

But truthfully, I haven't often wanted/needed faster than USB 2 data rates though (as the 50-60MBps rate seems ok enough when I occasionally transfer stuff, including most videos I've shot), so...

_Man_

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah, I bought a rather powerful charging block ~1/2 year ago -- so guests and maybe future-me could use it for recharging laptops, etc, not just phones and tablets -- and started looking at additional USB-C cables and noticed the different, often rather low, ratings for data bandwidth.

See on Amazon

That charging block actually came w/ a 240W-capable PD cable, but it's apparently only rated for USB 2 data rate as well.

Seems like you might as well get at least a Thunderbolt 3 cable or similar, not just most any other non-TB USB-C cable, if you wanna be able to both recharge say a MacBook Pro *and* have excellent data bandwidth... and I'm not about to bother doing that (yet) unless/until I actually have/use such a laptop myself -- I used to have a working Dell XPS 15 that would qualify, but I also already had their corresponding TB3 block... though that's probably overkill unless I'm gonna connect a laptop to external monitor(s).

And even then, not all TB cables can exceed 100W for (re)charging, if you actually want/need that.

But truthfully, I haven't often wanted/needed faster than USB 2 data rates though (as the 50-60MBps rate seems ok enough when I occasionally transfer stuff, including most videos I've shot), so...

_Man_

That's definitely a good idea, with anything that has a USB-C port. You'll be guaranteed it can pass at least 100W and at least 10Gb/s data. That cable I linked claims to have high-speed transfer and high speed charging, yet looking closely at the details it's only USB 2 (hardly high-speed) and only capable of 12 watts (2.4A) which is far from high-speed charging. Of course, it has a Type A connector on the component side and it's unclear to me if that connector can provide more than 2.4A. I don't think it can.

 

[JohnRice]

Now I've realized that the USB problems I've been having on my M2 Mini work office computer are probably related to crappy cables. I have a USB 3 hub, that has a Type B input. Type B plugs are different for USB 2 and USB 3. Even though the cable I'm using has a USB 3 Type B plug and USB-C on the other end, it appears the data speed of the cable is actually only USB 2. How stupid is that? That would completely explain the problems I've been having.

It never occurred to me to actually check the speed of the cable.

 

[Carl David]

See if you can find any not made in China.

That might help.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hmmm... for whatever reason, I thought I was only getting 50-60MBps transfers using the inexpensive Startech SATA-to-USB (type A) adapter I bought a while back, but it supposedly can do up to 5Gbps... and I just quickly tested it w/ the Samsung SSD I used for shooting higher bitrate videos w/ a Ninja V and got ~400MBps (or ~3.2Gbps) sustained (essentially) sequential reads from it, which I guess is close enough to the rated speed of the SSD -- it's rated for ~550MBps max reads.

Maybe I was thinking 50-60MBps for transfers to my modest RAID NAS drive on my network instead. OR maybe I was only thinking of transfers from some flash cards via my Kingston multi-reader that's only USB 2 -- I would only have photo stills and relatively low bitrate videos on those, not the higher bitrate 4K/HDR videos (and potentially ProRes RAW) from my Nikon Z6 via my Ninja V.

50-60MBps would be quite slow for transferring those higher bitrate 4K/HDR videos. The last batch I shot had anywhere from 350-385Mbps total bitrates for roughly 26-29GB for a 10min video (at 30fps of ProRes 422 LT IIRC, which is really not that close to the bitrates of the highest 4:2:2 compression quality that can be 2-2.5x higher, NVM ProRes RAW), which would take 7.2-8min to transfer at 60MBps... and is fine enough for just a couple videos of that size, but maybe not so much for over an hours worth... and definitely not if I bump up the quality.

See if you can find any not made in China.

That might help.

Well, other than probably best to choose good, recognizable/reputable brands/companies, doubt that really makes a diff at all. No doubt many of the recognizable/good brands also actually have plenty of their stuff made in China and/or are Chinese companies, especially if their prices are competitive at all.

Meanwhile, plenty of American-made stuff are plain duds as well.

I mean... we're not talking about very hard-to-make-well, handcrafted products afterall nor extremely high precision/engineered products...

_Man_

 

[JohnRice]

Hmmm... for whatever reason, I thought I was only getting 50-60MBps transfers using the inexpensive Startech SATA-to-USB (type A) adapter I bought a while back, but it supposedly can do up to 5Gbps... and I just quickly tested it w/ the Samsung SSD I used for shooting higher bitrate videos w/ a Ninja V and got ~400MBps (or ~3.2Gbps) sustained (essentially) sequential reads from it, which I guess is close enough to the rated speed of the SSD -- it's rated for ~550MBps max reads.

400MB/s is about the real-world limit throughput for USB 3. The 5Gb/s, which would be 625MB/s is total data rate up and down, and isn't the actual one-way data rate. Of course, 400MB/s is also probably close to the SSD's max as well. I have several NVMe SSDs to test higher rates.

I've been looking at the contacts on the cables, and a lot of the supposedly "USB-C" ones I have don't have a full compliment of contacts. There should be about 20, ten on each side, and I can see that most of my cables actually have fewer than that. It's also pretty easy to look at a Type A USB connector and confirm if it is 3.0 or 2.0 by the contacts.

 

[Todd Erwin]

It is for that reason that in most cases, unless I am only looking for a power cable, I try to stick to known brands, even for USB and lightning cables.

 

[JohnRice]

It is for that reason that in most cases, unless I am only looking for a power cable, I try to stick to known brands, even for USB and lightning cables.

Except some of these were reputable brands like Anker…

…and…

includes the USB-C cable that came with my M1 MacBook Air.

 

[JohnRice]

I just can't believe it took me so long to discover this. It seems that the majority of USB-C cables are designed for power, but not data. As I said above, even the cable that came with my M1 MacBook Air only has USB 2 level data transmission. I don't appear to have a single USB-C cable longer than 18" that has USB 3.1 level data capability.

At least that is changing now.

 

[DaveF]

This is reminding me that we’ve had frustrations with Apple’s Time Machine (backup) for the past year or so, slowing my wife’s m1 iMac down. Time Machine is notorious as a CPU hog. But even still, TM backups seem to take way too long with a USB 3 drive connected to the USB 3 ports on a new iMac.

And I wonder if the cables are really running the USB3.1 drive at USB2.0 speeds?

This has been on my to-do list to work on, but maybe now I’ll have some better direction to explore.

 

[JohnRice]

This is reminding me that we’ve had frustrations with Apple’s Time Machine (backup) for the past year or so, slowing my wife’s m1 iMac down. Time Machine is notorious as a CPU hog. But even still, TM backups seem to take way too long with a USB 3 drive connected to the USB 3 ports on a new iMac.

And I wonder if the cables are really running the USB3.1 drive at USB2.0 speeds?

This has been on my to-do list to work on, but maybe now I’ll have some better direction to explore.

If the drive has a USB-C connection, it's entirely likely it's running at USB 2 speed.

 

[DaveF]

I've got a 27" iMac (2017) with

• Four USB 3 ports (compatible with USB 2)
• Two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) - Technical Specifications

support.apple.com

So would there be any appreciable speed difference between these two? The first is a desktop external with that weird USB3 interface on the chassis. The second is a portable disk with USB C interface on the chassis. (Dollars per Terabyte is much lower with the desktop drive, as always.)

See on Amazon

See on Amazon

 

[JohnRice]

I've got a 27" iMac (2017) with

• Four USB 3 ports (compatible with USB 2)
• Two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) - Technical Specifications

support.apple.com

So would there be any appreciable speed difference between these two? The first is a desktop external with that weird USB3 interface on the chassis. The second is a portable disk with USB C interface on the chassis. (Dollars per Terabyte is much lower with the desktop drive, as always.)

See on Amazon

See on Amazon

The price per TB shows as the same for me. both $129 but with a 20% off for the pocket drive.

In any case, the Desktop drive is probably faster, since it's a 3.5" A/C powered model vs. a bus powered 2.5". Neither of them will be as fast as the slower bus, since platter drives max out at around 200MB/s, and most are slower. So, the bus they use really doesn't matter. The max real-world throughput of USB 3.0 (the "weird one) is about 400MB/s and USB-C is about 800MB/s, which neither drive can reach anyway. To get faster than this, you need an SSD. 2.5" SSDs can go up to about 500MB/s and M.2 pci SSDs can get as high as 3,500MB/s on a Thunderbolt bus. Those are more expensive, of course, and almost prohibitive in that capacity.

 

[DaveF]

I see the desktop model as a bit cheaper, but not a lot cheaper. I went with the 4TB MyBook to hit a $100 price point. It's not consequential I know but I didn't really want to spend $130 on a 5TB or 6TB model. I just need some big cheap storage. I'd like the speed of an SSD, but I need TimeMachine storage.

 

[JohnRice]

I see the desktop model as a bit cheaper, but not a lot cheaper. I went with the 4TB MyBook to hit a $100 price point. It's not consequential I know but I didn't really want to spend $130 on a 5TB or 6TB model. I just need some big cheap storage. I'd like the speed of an SSD, but I need TimeMachine storage.

I don't know why an SSD wouldn't work for TimeMachine, but they aren't ideal for a lot of rewriting, so it is best to stay away from them for that purpose if budget is a concern. Also, 4TB SSDs start at around $160, plus an enclosure comes to around $180.

 

[DaveF]

I don't know why an SSD wouldn't work for TimeMachine, but they aren't ideal for a lot of rewriting, so it is best to stay away from them for that purpose if budget is a concern. Also, 4TB SSDs start at around $160, plus an enclosure comes to around $180.

Just dollars to donuts: I wanted to spend ~$100 which only gets me ~1TB SSD, not enough for Time Machine.