USB 3.0 bus question

[Thermite]

My flash drive that is usb 3.0 doesn't run much faster than a 2.0 drive. I know that not all usb drives are created equal, and that mine wasn't built for speed. It was built for ruggedness, but now that I have a smaller laptop I can't put the flash drive in without it hitting the desk and bending the ports. Now for my main question: The controller on a usb drive regulates the speed for a drive right?  Are the controllers on the computer for the usb ports also different and run at different speeds. If so are the ones on a computer usually higher or lower than the speed of the controller on the usb drive.

[helping]

The USB controller on the PC should not be the limiting factor when using a USB drive. 

[Glenwing]

The controllers and Flash on current flash drives is generally nowhere near capping out USB 3.0 max theoretical speed.

[Thermite]

The USB controller on the PC should not be the limiting factor when using a USB drive. 

Yea I kinda guessed that, but my main question was are the usb drives controllers completely different from one drive to another.

[Thermite]

The controllers and Flash on current flash drives is generally nowhere near capping out USB 3.0 max theoretical speed.

Why can't they max it out what is the hold up?

[Glenwing]

Why can't they max it out what is the hold up?

The good flash is used for SSDs. USB flash drives use cheaper flash, if they didn't they would be more expensive. A more advanced controller has a larger die size and generates more heat, and requires a thicker or larger PCB and more paychecks to engineers to design the more complex trace layout in the PCB. Typically the controllers are made with older fabrication plants (45nm/65nm) which cost billions of dollars to build and are outdated in two years for fabricating CPUs with. So they use them to make smaller controllers and other miscellaneous chips to make use of the older plants for at least something before they are useless, and it lets them dedicate all their newer fabs' resources to manufacturing CPUs before it is outdated. So the older (and less power efficient) transistors are used for flash drive controllers which doesn't help the heat and size constraints.

Basically, a fast flash drive would be expensive, and they aren't really a big ticket item so no point investing the engineering resources on them, or the good flash which can be used for faster selling SSDs.

[Thermite]

The good flash is used for SSDs. USB flash drives use cheaper flash, if they didn't they would be more expensive. A more advanced controller as a larger die size and generates more heat, and requires a thicker or larger PCB and more paychecks to engineers to design the more complex trace layout in the PCB.

Basically, a fast flash drive would be expensive, and they aren't really a big ticket item so no point investing the engineering resources on them, or the good flash which can be used for faster selling SSDs.

Thanks for the quick response, and do you think there will be flash drives that will utilize "the good flash".

[Glenwing]

Thanks for the quick response, and do you think there will be flash drives that will utilize "the good flash".

I'm not sure. We'll see speeds slowly climb I think, each vendor will try to one-up all the competition as always, but it's not an aggressive market. As SSD prices fall and become more popular, demand for SSD flash is tight. On the flip side, manufacturers are working hard at scaling up flash production, so we'll see how the price and availability of flash changes.

Anyway, I don't see any flash drives like you want coming right around the corner.

[Vitalius]

I'm not sure. We'll see speeds slowly climb I think, each vendor will try to one-up all the competition as always, but it's not an aggressive market. As SSD prices fall and become more popular, demand for SSD flash is tight. On the flip side, manufacturers are working hard at scaling up flash production, so we'll see how the price and availability of flash changes.

Anyway, I don't see any flash drives like you want coming right around the corner.

This one has 720Mb/s apparently, so about average for an HDD. It's expensive, but that should be obvious as to why.