USB 1.1 vs. USB 2.0

harryz

harryz

New Member
Hello,

I'm using an old computer with a USB adaptor to connect to old IDE drives so that I can "wipe" them using eraser. This machine only has USB 1.1 ports. Would the wipe go faster if I was able to connect my USB to hard drive adapter to a USB 2.0 port? I'm using Eraser 6.0.7.1893 on a Windows XP SP3 machine, and I'm doing a single pass with pseudo-random data.

Thanks!

Harry Z.
 
The short answer to your question is yes. Hard drive speed is the limiting factor in Eraser performance, and the drives themselves far out-perform USB 1.1. Remember that, to erase free space, Eraser has to write random data to all the free space on the drive. Channelling many GB through a USB 1.1 interface is a slow, slow process. So slow. in fact, that I'd strongly recommend against doing it.

David
 
Most likely. In your case, the bottleneck isn't even the hard disk, it's the connection between the computer and drive.
 
David and Joel,

I kinda suspected that the USB 1.1 interface would be a bottleneck. Nice to have it confirmed by the experts. Thanks for the responses!

Harry Z.
 
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