Is USB 3.1 automatically applied?

[The Spark]

I just saw a cheap USB 3.0 portable 2tb hard drive for sale, if I buy it and plug it in on the 3.1 USB port will it automatically use the 10gb/sec transfer rate?

 

I tried to google but most articles drown in USB type issues with letters, cables and whatnot, my brain is too small to understand all that. Just need to know if there is something I should be aware of before making the purchase.

[TheRandomness]

No. Since the drive is 3.0 only, it'd be using that protocol and therefore would do 5Gb/sec. 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

No. Since the drive is 3.0 only, it'd be using that protocol and therefore would do 5GB/sec. 

*Gb/sec, so around 500MB/sec.

4 minutes ago, The Spark said:

I just saw a cheap USB 3.0 portable 2tb hard drive for sale, if I buy it and plug it in on the 3.1 USB port will it automatically use the 10gb/sec transfer rate?

 

I tried to google but most articles drown in USB type issues with letters, cables and whatnot, my brain is too small to understand all that. Just need to know if there is something I should be aware of before making the purchase.

Due to the speed of any HDD, don't worry about transfer rates of 10Gb/sec-HDD just aren't any where near capable of coming even close to saturating USB 3.0

[The Spark]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

*Gb/sec, so around 500MB/sec.

Due to the speed of any HDD, don't worry about transfer rates of 10Gb/sec-HDD just aren't any where near capable of coming even close to saturating USB 3.0

Can I use the external 3.0 hdd for gaming then or would you recommend an internal drive instead? The poster above wrote that I should get 5gb/s, that sounds to me like okay for gaming purposes.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, The Spark said:

Can I use the external 3.0 hdd for gaming then or would you recommend an internal drive instead?

It would be just fine. Internal HDD would perform slightly better, but considering the load times I had on an old 2.5" PATA 60GB HDD over a USB 2.0 adapter, its not significant (I consistently maxed out the connection at 60MB/sec when transferring files to and from it)

[The Spark]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

It would be just fine. Internal HDD would perform slightly better, but considering the load times I had on an old 2.5" PATA 60GB HDD over a USB 2.0 adapter, its not significant (I consistently maxed out the connection at 60MB/sec when transferring files to and from it)

Thanks Dabom, will buy it then, need space .....

[Mr.Meerkat]

22 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

(I consistently maxed out the connection at 60MB/sec when transferring files to and from it)

I thought USB 2.0 maxes out at 20MB/s no?

[Dabombinable]

33 minutes ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

I thought USB 2.0 maxes out at 20MB/s no?

480Mbps, so divided by 8=60MBps

[Mr.Meerkat]

23 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

480Mbps, so divided by 8=60MBps

Hmmmm...fair enough  

 

Must be something else bottlenecking my USB 3.0 thumb drive (gets 250MB/s when connected to a USB 3.0 port) and my 90MB/s SD card when I connect them to a USB 2.0 port