USB floppy drive hanging on USB 2.0, but not on USB 3.0

[japlytic]

When I use a self-powered USB floppy drive (rated at 500mA) on a USB 2.0 port, it sometimes hangs during operation.
Using a USB 3.0 port (rated at 900mA) fixed this problem.

In a PCMCIA self-powered external CD-ROM drive was 33,000uF worth of electrolytic capacitors on the +5V bus from the PCMCIA slot - could the USB floppy drive be peaking beyond 500mA (especially without a large capacitance value on the +5V rail) when the motor starts? I think so.

[eccerr0r]

Re: USB floppy drive hanging on USB 2.0, but not on USB 3.0

I've definitely seen hard drives as marginal on USB2 ports. I've seen many USB ports just not capable to source the full 500mA, likely due to the resistance through the poly self-resettable fuse...

I have a USB floppy drive but have not seen it fail yet.

0.033F of cap is quite a bit... but there are self powered USB DVDRW(?!!) and scanners out there so 2.5W is definitely capable of doing something...

then again, wow...the laser must eat almost a watt or so when burning, not much left to run the motor and electronics...