Hi,

Some more testing results

1. I took an 8GB USB 2.0 drive, wiped it, then formatted it as NTFS and set caching to "ON".
2. I copied the files from a previous download, as straight files without folders or sub-folders. They are mostly .pdf and .avi format.
3. There are 116 files making up 3310MB.

I modified the system:

1. Removed USB mouse and Keyboard wireless adapter. Installed a PS2 keyboard and wired USB mouse (there is only one PS2 port).

2. Went into BIOS and disabled both "legacy USB" AND "USB storage". They were both defaulted to "on". It turns out that the storage item refers to legacy kit as well.

The results were:

USB -> HDD 18.9MBps

HDD -> USB 6.7MBps

I appreciate that transfers to a USB stick are going to be slower than transfers from it, as the drive has management software to balance the use of its transistors; but that does seem rather a lot, and is consistent with IKnowNot's experiences.

I have just tested the desktop with a FAT32 USB2 stick, set to "quick removal", which is the default. I got 20.6MBps on the desktop, as opposed to 10.5MBps on the laptop.

So far it looks as if the drive format and the caching settings are irrelevant to this issue. I also suspect that the USB legacy support doesn't have any effect unless it applies to ALL USB devices.

On this MoBo's BIOS there is a separate setting for memory/storage devices, and disabling that may well do some good?

It certainly seems that the format of the files being downloaded has an effect, but I haven't really looked at that yet, as it is something you generally have no control over.

Unfortunately, I cannot compare BIOS settings as the HP BIOS is typical OEM and shows you very few settings other than those they permit you to alter.