Is there a way to measure the rate of data transfer in real time in Mountain Lion? I'd like to know just how fast my lightning cable is connected to a USB 2.0 port vs a regular USB cord, specifically from my iPad. Backups seem to take just as long with the new cord vs the old. Anyone know anything?
OS X Mountain Lion, iPhone 4 32gig, aTV2, iPad4,Shuffle
Well, a lightning cable can transfer data about 50x faster than a hard drive can, so measuring it will mostly just tell you the speed of the drive, as it's the limiting factor.
The only real way to test it is between super-fast devices, like 10 drive RAID systems or the like.
Also, if you're connecting the lightning cable to a USB port (via some sort of converter?), it's going to transfer at USB speeds. To get the speed you need to go from lightning to lightning and have a really fast drive or device on the other end.
The Lightning connector is just a new interface to
USB to the new Apple devices. All iDevices, whether
using the new interface or the old 30 pin connector
communicate via USB 2.0. So, bottom line is that
the transfer speeds are limited by USB2.0 and how
fast the devices themselves can transfer data.
Bottom line, the cables themselves have no effect
on transfer rates.
William Lloyd wrote:
Well, a lightning cable can transfer data about 50x faster than a hard drive can, so measuring it will mostly just tell you the speed of the drive, as it's the limiting factor.
.....
I think you are confusing "Lightning" interface used on iDevices
with "Thunderbolt" used on Macs. They are totally different.
Lightning/USB Data Rate Measurement
