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I have a HP Omen 15-dc1056nf gaming laptop, which I game on extensively. Its USB ports are:

  • 1 USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C with Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gb/s signaling rate, DisplayPort™ 1.4, HP Sleep and Charge)
  • 3 USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A

Due to its small SSD space, I'd like to get an external SSD to install games on, and run them directly from the SSD (no moving games to/from the system SSD). I've already ordered a 1TB SATA Samsung 860 Evo which is rated for 550MB/s sequential reads in CrystalDiskMark.

According to Wikipedia, transfer speed of USB 3.1gen1 is 500MB/s, and 3.1gen2 is 1.2 GB/s.

I want to pick an enclosure but I'm not sure what to get the most out of the SSD. I'd prefer using one of the three type-A ports, to save the precious utility type-C port for the future, such as a streaming device. But I don't want to lose out on performance (sequential read speed is important for loading games). I don't mean the 50MB/s between the 3.1gen1 and the 860 Evo sequential read speed, I'm fine losing a tiny amount. I'm more worried that the 3.1gen1 won't give me anywhere near 500MB/s. Or that the 3.1gen1 enclosure won't.

My question is, if a computer claims to have a 3.1gen1 port, can I actually expect to get the full 500MB/s out of it? What about USB enclosures, do they give anywhere near the rated USB transfer speed?

I believe my 3 choices are:

  1. 3.1gen1 type-A enclosure. What I'm hoping I can get, but am worried about significant loss of performance due to laptop/enclosure not keeping up with SSD.
  2. 3.1gen2 type-C enclosure, if you tell me the laptop's 3.1gen1 ports won't give 500MB/s, but more like 200-300MB/s
  3. 3.1gen2 type-A enclosure, If you tell me the laptop's 3.1gen1 port can give 500MB/s, but the 3.1gen1 enclosure probably won't
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    Does this answer your question? Verifying USB connection speed (USB 3 or USB 2?)
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jul 7, 2021 at 20:08
  • It doesn't tell me if in the real world, the motherboard gives the full transfer speed. Or if accessories will give the claimed transfer speed.
    – jerkstorecalled
    Commented Jul 7, 2021 at 20:59
  • SATA and USB use transfer protocols to organize messages. USB has a streaming or Isochronous capabilty, but SATA uses a command-response protocol. Such protocols simply do not utilize the full bandwidth of the communication channel because of the inherent dead time between messages. So a SATA device will always transfer individual messages at full (& constant) speed, but simply cannot "saturate" the channel 100% of time.
    – sawdust
    Commented Jul 7, 2021 at 22:54

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