USB 3 vs Thunderbolt

[MikeFromMesa]

I have seen the speed values for usb 3 and Thunderbolt and know that TB is capable of "up to" twice the speed of USB 3 so I bought a new TB solid state drive (Transcend 256GB) and, when it arrived, I hooked it up with the TB cable it came with and ran the Black Magic speed test. The results were in accord with the values I saw posted in the online reviews of the device on the Amazon website - Read 384 MB/s, Write 297 MB/s. No big surprise here.

What did surprise me was when I decided to test the device using its USB 3 connector instead of TB. Those results were Read 420 MB/s, Write 294 MB/s. That is, the write speeds between TB and USB 3 were (statistically) identical while the read speed using USB was about 10% faster than with Thunderbolt.

This differs from what I expected and makes me wonder if TB really is any faster than USB in a real world device rather than a clinically measured lab test. Can anyone tell me if what I am seeing is real? Or am I missing something (again)?

 

[harryb2448]

About par for the course Rod. OWC advises there is very little difference but I do not know how that compares to TB2. Have a look at their figures:-


http://www.macworld.com/article/2039427/how-fast-is-usb-3-0-really-.html

 

[MikeFromMesa]

Interesting article although their testing showed TB to be faster than USB 3 on solid state devices and my testing showed the opposite. Perhaps this device has a poor TB interface and a good USB 3 interface.

Thank you for the link.