Turning One Computer Into Four With Userful and Plugable

Posted on 07. Jul, 2011 by in Tips

Modern PCs have spare computing power. If it were possible to share a PC among many users, you could save a significant amount of money and energy.

There is a new generation of simple USB hardware devices, and operating system software which support them, which now enable this.

Our Plugable DC-125 Docking Station is one of these USB devices, and below we’re showing how it works in combination with Userful Multiseat Linux 2011.

Microsoft’s Windows Multipoint Server 2011 product is better known than Userful, but Userful has a significant advantage – if you’re willing to run Linux, it offers better per-client performance and scalability in terms of the number of stations supported per PCs.

Take a look at the video below to see Userful in action with a single PC and several of our Plugable DC-125 Docking Clients.

Let us know if you have any questions about how our solution works. And read and see more at our product page.

Plugable UGA-2K-A $57.50 (through July 4th)

Posted on 23. Jun, 2011 by in Windows

We’re sorry, the UGA-2K-A has gone out of stock. ETA July 15, 2011

Through July 4th 2011, we’re temporarily lowering the price of our Plugable UGA-2K-A USB Graphics Adapter to $57.50 (normally $64.50).

If you know how great 2 or 3 monitors are, and have wanted to add another (up to 6 on Windows; 4 on Mac), this is a great time to do it.

More independent USB-attached displays for Independence Day. Yea!

USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0 SATA Dock Performance

Posted on 14. Jun, 2011 by in Windows

The theoretical speed of a bus like USB is different from what devices are able to achieve in practice. USB 2.0′s theoretical max is 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 jumps that up to 4.8Gbps.

Today we’re benchmarking the Plugable USB 3.0 HDD Docking Station, which is capable of running on either USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 systems, to show what to expect in terms of performance.

While the low-level Windows drivers are different for USB 2.0 (Microsoft EHCI) and USB 3.0 (NEC/Renesas XHCI), above that layer, everything is common, using the drivers already present in Windows. This includes the existing Microsoft USB Mass Storage class driver that does much of the heavy lifting for USB-attached disks.

About the test platform:

Programs used:

HDTune (USB 2.0)

HDTune (USB 2.0)

HDTune (USB 3.0)

HDTune (USB 3.0)

CrystalDiskMark (USB 2.0)

CrystalDiskMark (USB 2.0)

CrystalDiskMark (USB 3.0)

CrystalDiskMark (USB 3.0)

ATTO Disk Benchmark (USB 2.0)

ATTO Disk Benchmark (USB 2.0)

ATTO Disk Benchmark (USB 3.0)

ATTO Disk Benchmark (USB 3.0)

Conclusion:

HDTune reports an Average Transfer Rate increase from 36.4MB/sec to 97.9MB/sec. This is about 168% faster than USB 2.0

CrystalDiskMark reports a sequential Read increase from 38.43MB/s to 107.6MB/s and a Write increase from 36.61MB/s to 88.75MB/s. That’s a 179.9% increase for Reading and a 149.2% increase for Writing.

ATTO Disk Benchmark reports a Read increase from 38402 to 105268 (KBytes/sec) and a Write increase from 35696 to 85762 (KBytes/sec) . Those are  174.12% increases for Reading and 140.25% increases for Writing accordingly.

Summary of Results

Summary of Results

If we were to get the average of the 3 tests we would get an average speed increase of 162.2%. A transfer that would take about 5 minutes on USB 2.0, would complete in roughly 2 minutes on USB 3.0.

These numbers may increase slightly in the future with USB-attached SCSI support, USB 3.0 streams, and other driver/firmware updates. But 2-3 times faster in practice is a good baseline for expectations.

We welcome any comments, corrections, or your own benchmark results.

Plugable USB 3.0/2.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station (LucidPort chipset) Product Details $28.95
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