USB Bandwidth – How Multiple Devices Share 480mbps Limit for USB 2.0

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If multiple USB 2.0 devices are connected to a computer, will they share the 480 mbps theoretical bandwidth? Say I have 6 external hard drives configured in RAID 0, all plugged in to my computer via 6 USB 2.0 ports, will the read/write speed be capped at 60 MB/s?

Best Answer

Some mainboards have multiple USB controllers, especially with USB3 this seems to be a relatively common configuration. In these cases you're sharing the specified bandwidth only among those ports that are connected to the same host controller. Some MoBos will have one controller dedicated to the front panel connectors and another for the rears. Others have different sorts of splitting.

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