USB 3.1 review: 10 Gbps USB with the ASUS Z97-A - Introduction

Super fast portable storage over an improved USB port

We review a USB 3.1 motherboard from ASUS alongside a Samsung 840 EVO RAID SSD based storage unit that is USB 3.1 compatible. Recently we have tested USB 3.0 SSDs from Samsung (the T1) and that performance was amazing at roughly 400 MB/s. With USB 3.1 now becoming available things change once again as we can reach speeds of an excess of 600 to 700 Mb/s over USB 3.1, and in this article we'll show you all the details involved, and some performance numbers of course.

It has been topic of discussion for a while now, around CeBIT 2015 you are going to see manufacturers release motherboards with USB 3.1 controllers. The new iteration of USB is not supported natively, you will see motherboards and add-in cards based on ASMedia controllers. 

The all new Z97-A/USB 3.1 and a USB 3.1 Samsung 840 RAID-0 based storage unit.

SuperSpeed+ USB

USB 3.0 (also known as SuperSpeed USB) has a maximum bandwidth rate of 5 gbps (gigabits per second). That would be to 625 MBps (megabytes per second), ten times faster than USB 2.0 (aka Hi-Speed USB).  USB 3.1 (now known as SuperSpeed+ USB) however once again doubles the numbers jumps from 5 towards 10 Gbps. On the now slowly accustomed USB 3.0 super speed interface pretty much you will be maxing out in the 400 to 450 MB/sec threshold die to a lot of factors. With USB 3.1 you could hover in the 700 Mb/sec range if you have a storage device that supports USB 3.1 though, as that obviously is a requirement. ASUS shipped out their later iteration of the Z97-A/USB 3.1, they also shipped out a RAID SSD storage unit that is USB 3.1 compatible as well. In the next few pages we'll have a quick chat about USB 3.1 and then put the setup to the test. Interested already ?Well have a peek with the help of a photo first and then head on-wards into the review. 

ASMedia ASM1142 2-port USB 3.1 controller