Performance test of USB 3.1 on the ASUS Z97-A USB 3.1 motherboard (Review)
Harold 7 Apr 2015
USB 3.0 was developed in 2008 and was to replace the aging USB 2.0 which transmits data at merely 480Mb/s. To date, USB 3.0 achieved a theoretical limit of 10 times more at 4.8Gbps. While new competing standards appear, USB being the defacto standard has to improve in it’s delivery of performance.
In 2015, the technology has allowed the USB speed to be doubled to 10Gbps with the introduction of the Super Speed Plus USB 3.1 Protocol. It improves the data rate and encoding providing a high throughput of 10Gbps. Although it has a new physical connector, Super Speed Plus USB 3.1 is compatible with existing SuperSpeed USB3.0 software stacks and device protocols, works with both existing 5 Gbps USB 3.0 hubs and devices, as well as USB 2.0 products.
ASUS released a couple of motherboards with onboard support of the USB 3.1 chipset from ASMedia. One such motherboard is the ASUS Z97-A USB 3.1. Together with the test kit which consists of a USB 3.1 Enclosure with with two 256GB mSATA devices in RAID 0(automatically), we are able to test out the performance of USB 3.1 with the onboard controller.
ASUS Z97-A USB 3.1 $159.99 (US)
ASUS Z97-A USB 3.1 £ 149.59 (UK)
