I thought I would post of my recent experience regarding hi-speed USB 2.0, as there may be other folk with the same problem I've just had and don't realize it yet.
Bought myself a nice new Western Digital Elements 320gb Portable Hard Drive the other day.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=674
Thought I would have nothing to do but plug it in and back up all my music, my daughter iTunes music etc etc.
Also downloaded what has turned out to be an excellent data transfer utility called TeraCopy, and I would recommend the free version without hesitation.
So, plugged it in, set it away, and sat and watched my new toy.
Something not right here, I’m only getting about 800kbps transfer speed when it should be substantially more than that. Tried other USB2 Ports with the same result. (All my ports are stamped with USB2.)
A run through HD Tune confirmed it:
Did a lot of googling, and came up with a lot of similar situations, but never a solution. Eventually, as a last resort I decided to go into Device Manager, and check all USB entries for the availability of updated drivers.
I worked up the list of them shown here, with the “Enhanced Controller” being last.
As I worked up the list I got what I expected. Installed driver is the latest, until I did the last one and was gobsmacked when it said “driver successfully installed”.
Went back to Teracopy, set it away, and now I was getting around 10 times the previous transfer speed with every one of my USB2 ports.
The difference was even more pronounced making a Macrium Image Backup.
Before:
After:
I’ve never previously used my USB ports to transfer data like this, so had no idea they weren’t working as they should, and it’s pretty annoying that Windows installed the hi-speed USB driver from off my PC.
It’s always been there, but never installed.
It might be worth checking your own USB2 ports in Device Manager, just in case.