[Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

Strider · 2014-02-01 12:01:52

I have this drive connected to my Arch Linux box. Whenever I transfer large files (I use it to backup) the write speed drops from 30M/s to sometimes a few KB/s and then speeds up again ! This drive is connected via an USB 2.0 port with a specific cable which is 2.0 at one end (to connect to my motherboard) and 3.0 at the other end (to connect to the drive). Could this be related to the kernel SES driver which is used (buffer problem maybe)?

This speed problem is that serious that backups take very long and become almost not feasable.

Thanks in advance

Last edited by Strider (2014-02-02 21:00:54)

jasonwryan · 2014-02-02 00:27:51

Filesystems on source and target? Mount options for the drive? What does "transfer" mean: cp, rsync, drag and drop with some file manager?

Please read How To Ask Questions The Smart Way...

Strider · 2014-02-02 09:37:35

Jason,

this drive has 3 use cases (my PC is dual boot Arch / Windows Vista) :
1) Backup my PC linux box using a rsync front end (luckybackup) here source and target are ext4 in target always and source is either ext4 or lvm on raid.
2) Backup of my PC Windows Vista using an own written script which uses ntfsclone where source and target are ntfs.
3) Backup of my Windows 7 laptop

The problem is that I have performance issues in scenario's 1 & 2 (but not always) and never in case 3. I think this might finally be hardware related ...
Just before writing this post I connected the drive and it didn't even appear in my file manager (nemo under cinnamon 2.0). So I ran a journalctl and here is the outcome :

Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron kernel: usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci
Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron kernel: usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron mtp-probe[911]: checking bus 2, device 4: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4"
Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron mtp-probe[911]: bus: 2, device: 4 was not an MTP device
Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron kernel: usb-storage 2-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron kernel: scsi12 : usb-storage 2-4:1.0
Feb 02 09:55:33 Megatron kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Feb 02 09:55:34 Megatron kernel: scsi 12:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD My Passport 07A8 1049 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
Feb 02 09:55:34 Megatron kernel: scsi 12:0:0:1: Enclosure WD SES Device 1049 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
Feb 02 09:55:34 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Spinning up disk...
Feb 02 09:56:04 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: worker [926] /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:1 timeout; kill it
Feb 02 09:56:04 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: seq 1876 '/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:1' killed
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: usb 2-4: reset high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: .ready
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] 1953458176 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 53 00 10 08
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sde: sde1 sde2
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: ses 12:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: worker [926] terminated by signal 9 (Killed)
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
Feb 02 09:56:06 Megatron kernel: sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk
Feb 02 09:56:07 Megatron org.gtk.Private.UDisks2VolumeMonitor[592]: ### debug: emit_signal: 0x175a210
Feb 02 09:56:37 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: worker [908] /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:0/block/sde/sde1 timeout; kill it
Feb 02 09:56:37 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: seq 1884 '/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:0/block/sde/sde1' killed
Feb 02 09:56:37 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: worker [928] /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:0/block/sde/sde2 timeout; kill it
Feb 02 09:56:37 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: seq 1885 '/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/host12/target12:0:0/12:0:0:0/block/sde/sde2' killed
Feb 02 09:56:37 Megatron kernel: usb 2-4: reset high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
Feb 02 09:56:38 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: worker [908] terminated by signal 9 (Killed)
Feb 02 09:56:38 Megatron systemd-udevd[186]: worker [928] terminated by signal 9 (Killed)

Something also worth knowing : the drive is know for being a heavy power drain on the usb 2.0 port (it does not have an external power connection and gets its power only via usb) . So I bought a specific cable with 3.0 at one end and 2 usb 2.0 at the other end : one for transferring data and one for power.

Strider · 2014-02-02 10:21:56

Some extra info.

I tried to copy a huge file via cinnamon/nemo to the drive. It started off ok but then stopped, continued, stopped, continued etc.

Each time the file transfer picked up again I would have the following message :

Megatron kernel: usb 2-4: reset high-speed USB device number 7 using ehci-pci

frostschutz · 2014-02-02 10:44:46

Strider wrote:

This drive is connected via an USB 2.0 port with a specific cable which is 2.0 at one end (to connect to my motherboard) and 3.0 at the other end (to connect to the drive).

Never heard of such a cable, usually it's USB3 on both ends (but works in USB2 port anyway).

I'd try another cable if possible. Does the drive have its own power supply? If not, maybe the disk is not getting enough power, there are Y-Cables that have an extra USB plug just to get power off two USB ports instead of just one...

The cable could also simply be faulty. Or if the USB2 port is a frontpanel or hub, that could be the culprit.

WonderWoofy · 2014-02-02 17:43:18

@Strider, there is a difference between quote tags and code tags. Please use the appropriate ones for what you are posting.

Strider · 2014-02-02 20:58:27

@frostschutz : the Y cable is exactly what I bought ...
@WonderWoofy : you solved my problem ! I'll pay attention next time with the quotes ...

But I will anyhow mark this thread as solved since I probably found the cause of my problem. It's only not Arch Linux related, it is hardware related as I mentioned before. Here is the probable cause :
Running lsusb gives me :

Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 03f0:b011 Hewlett-Packard 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 045e:0719 Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 045e:0745 Microsoft Corp. Nano Transceiver v1.0 for Bluetooth
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 04f2:0116 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd KU-2971/KU-0325 Keyboard
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Here you can see that my printer is connected in usb 2.0 mode (bus 002) but my keyboard and my wireless mouse transmitter is only connected in usb 1.1 mode (bus 004). It is my motherboard that does that.
Now when I connect my famous Y cable, the data usb connector is connected in usb 2.0 mode. The power usb connector remains however unvisible in the output of my 'lsusb' command. I assume here it will connect in usb 1.1 which means that it indeed does not deliver enough current to support the data transfer ...

On my laptop I have 2 usb 2.0 ports that are not downwards compatible with 1.1. So also the usb power connector is in 2.0 mode and can deliver enough current. That is why on my laptop everything works fine.

Now if I could only find a linux setting to 'force' all of my usb ports on my PC in 2.0 mode ... (I already looked into the BIOS setup but didn't find anything)

Last edited by Strider (2014-02-02 21:02:25)

frostschutz · 2014-02-03 10:18:51

Strider wrote:

The power usb connector remains however unvisible in the output of my 'lsusb' command.

That's completely normal and not related to anything.

USB1 devices such as keyboard/mouse showing up as USB1 device is not strange, but if your system is old enough to have USB1-only ports, you'll just have to be careful where you plug stuff...

At least with USB3 it's easy to distinguish as they have a different color...

Arch Linux

#1 2014-02-01 12:01:52

[Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#2 2014-02-02 00:27:51

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#3 2014-02-02 09:37:35

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#4 2014-02-02 10:21:56

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#5 2014-02-02 10:44:46

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#6 2014-02-02 17:43:18

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#7 2014-02-02 20:58:27

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

#8 2014-02-03 10:18:51

Re: [Solved]Variable read/write speed with WD Passport 1 TB external drive

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