Why aren't my PCI cards living up to their potential?

[RMskater]

I went out last night, really excited, to get two new toys for my computer (I don't have enough for the video card , so I had to calm my computer loving with other toys to upgrade my computer).

I got a 5 port USB 2.0 PCI card and a 3 port FireWire PCI card. Now, I installed them, Windows found them and auto installed them.

Now, my question is this. First, if USB 2.0 can supposedly transfer data at 480 MB/PS, then why isn't it doing this? I copied over a CD image that was 658 MB, and it took about 15-20 seconds to copy. Why is this?

I am running Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

[ccb056]

It could be a combination of many things

Maybe your Hard Drive couldnt spit the data out fast enough to the PCI Card
Maybe your CD Drive couldnt spit the data out fast enough to the PCI Card
Maybe you have too many things using up bandwidth on your PCI bus and the USB got the short end of the stick

However, 15 seconds for 1/2 a Gig of data is quite good considering.

[RMskater]

It could be a combination of many things

1. Maybe your Hard Drive couldnt spit the data out fast enough to the PCI Card
2. Maybe your CD Drive couldnt spit the data out fast enough to the PCI Card
3. Maybe you have too many things using up bandwidth on your PCI bus and the USB got the short end of the stick

However, 15 seconds for 1/2 a Gig of data is quite good considering.

I was wrong, I just retimed it, it's taking about 1 to 1 and 1/2 minutes for 632 MB. The drive is connected via FireWire and USB 2.0.

1. Uh, how could I check this?
2. It's not a CD drive. It's an image, so it's coming from an external HDD to an internal HDD.
3. Not likely. I only have this one drive connected to the PCI cards.

[ccb056]

how many rps does your drive spin at and how much cache does it have?

[RMskater]

How do I tell this?