ASRock Intros Utility to Speed Up USB

[btarunr]

ASRock released a nifty little software utility that steps up USB transfer rates. The ASRock XFast USB utility is also able to speed up USB 3.0 flash drives, which are well within the 5 Gb/s theoritical maximum of the interface. OCWorkbench did a "before and after" test of the utility as part of its Kingston HyperX Max 3.0 review. The portable SSD managed transfer rates of 156 MB/s before using the utility, which then jumped up to 241.32 MB/s after using it. SiSoft SANDRA was used for measurements. More tests can be found here.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[araditus]

??? How ??? This seems very interesting indeeed, I believe its true, but I dont understand how there could be a bottleneck in the first place

 

[bear jesus]

I wonder what exactly it does to speed things up, the increase of 85mb/s from using this on that setup is very impressive although I'm curious if other devices could possibly get a higher increase.

 

[RejZoR]

It's all about buffering and the chunk size. If you copy 1 file 500MB in size it will probably max out any drive. If you copy 50.000 files that are also 500MB in size it will take forever to copy.
So this utility basically turns those 50.000 files into 1 massive chunk and transfers it in a different way.
In theory you should get similar results by using TeraCopy program to transfer files. I remember this one always maxed out my flash drives and also helped on Windows Vista where Explorer had incredibly slow transfer rate but TeraCopy maxed it out easily.

 

[TAViX]

can this be use on any platform, by anyone?

 

[LittleLizard]

Ok. Either the ASRock R&D team found a blackhole loop on the usb ports OR this is #$&&. I support the former

 

[myworldoftech]

Here is a link to the program:
http://www.asrock.com/feature/xfastusb/index.asp

 

[Mussels]

probably some form of cache

i'm going to test it now, see if it helps a USB 2.0 flash drive on a 3.0 port on my gigabyte board.


edit: only works on asrock mobos. i know that will be possible to fake, but i'll leave that to more experienced modders.

 

[Dave65]

Dunno how it works but it does,it came with my Extreme 6 board.

 

[AlienIsGOD]

Ill try this out on my GFs AMD rig and see how it works

 

[Roph]

+1 for TeraCopy.

 

[Delta6326]

Wow this sounds sweet! hope it works well!

 

[blibba]

My motherboard is supported!

 

[twilyth]

It's all about buffering and the chunk size. If you copy 1 file 500MB in size it will probably max out any drive. If you copy 50.000 files that are also 500MB in size it will take forever to copy.
So this utility basically turns those 50.000 files into 1 massive chunk and transfers it in a different way.
In theory you should get similar results by using TeraCopy program to transfer files. I remember this one always maxed out my flash drives and also helped on Windows Vista where Explorer had incredibly slow transfer rate but TeraCopy maxed it out easily.

I checked out their web site and they have some other nice little utilities including a clipboard extender. DL'ed everything.

Thanks man.

 

[Easy Rhino]

looks like they found a nifty way to increase the bitrate without corrupting any of the data. maybe a voltage bump and an increase in frequency?

 

[TheLaughingMan]

We are overlooking an easy way this is done. They may have simply found a glitch in their own BIOS or board drivers that reduces the throughput of USB 3. This could simply be a driver update to use USB 3 as specified now and they just disguised it as a "utility" to attract attention.

 

[TAViX]

We are overlooking an easy way this is done. They may have simply found a glitch in their own BIOS or board drivers that reduces the throughput of USB 3. This could simply be a driver update to use USB 3 as specified now and they just disguised it as a "utility" to attract attention.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[thebeephaha]

Shoot, only works on ASRock mobos.

 

[ASRockIQ]

works on my Mobo hehe

 

[A Cheese Danish]

Hmm very interesting. I kind of figured it would only work on ASRock boards.

 

[blibba]

We are overlooking an easy way this is done. They may have simply found a glitch in their own BIOS or board drivers that reduces the throughput of USB 3. This could simply be a driver update to use USB 3 as specified now and they just disguised it as a "utility" to attract attention.

This isn't a driver update. It's an application that runs in the background and launches on startup.

EDIT: I already use terracopy. Is there any point in using this as well?

 

[Tartaros]

In the end most of us are interested in teracopy instead of the asrock thing xDDD.