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I am looking to connect a Windows box to a Raspberry Pi using a USB - USB transfer/bridge cable, like the one pictured here. I have looked over other questions but I haven't seen anything similar to my goal. I know that I can use Ethernet to SSH/FTP into the Pi but I need to harness the speed of the USB 2.0 (480 mbps) over the 100 mbps Ethernet controller. I am using the Pi in some compression/write testing for a project.

Are there special drivers that are available on the Pi/Windows for such a task? Any tips/tricks for going about this? Once I know that the two devices are talking to each other, I am planning on writing a program in Java or Python to send data in both directions.

Thanks in advance for the help!

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  • This question is better suited for SuperUser most likely .. There is no programming specific question here.
    – Zak
    Commented Apr 16, 2013 at 1:38
  • Yeah, I was thinking about that. I'll take a look at SuperUser and probably repost there. Thanks
    – D. Gibbs
    Commented Apr 16, 2013 at 1:40
  • No idea what cable you're talking about, but you won't gain much (if anything) from switching from Ethernet to USB.
    – Dmitry Grigoryev
    Commented Apr 1, 2019 at 6:41

4 Answers 4

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A quote from the product description:

The FastLynx USB Bridge Cable requires the FastLynx software for file transfer.

There is Linux client application in FastLynx software package but I don't believe there is a source version of this program and precompiled one is for x86, not ARM architecture.

It is possible that other such cables exist and they do have Linux applications that can be run on ARM architecture but I doubt it.

It would also be possible to do similar cable in more system agnostic way - the cable could be implemented in a way that it is seen as a USB Ethernet card on both sides. I don't know it such cables exists, though.

There is one thing you should keep in mind, however. RaspberryPi's USB host is not really great and it is possible your speed wont be anywhere near 480Mbps.

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  • Given it's the simplest in terms of both software and hardware, the cable might just be a usb<->serial<->usb link ( or you could make one with two FT232HL ), in which case it be easy to support on the pi side.
    – Pete Kirkham
    Commented May 9, 2013 at 21:04
  • @PeteKirkham: It is quite easy to build such cable indeed. The problem is that the OP want to use such cable in order to get very high speed of file transfers which would be impossible with such solution.
    – Krzysztof Adamski
    Commented May 10, 2013 at 6:44
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    FT232HL says it supports USB2 High Speed (480Mb/s), so what part is not possible?
    – Pete Kirkham
    Commented May 10, 2013 at 8:13
  • @PeteKirkham: FT232HL has two "sides" - USB side and "the other side". The High Speed is supported by the USB side, the problem is "the other side". What I didn't check before is that "the other side" may be used not only in UART mode (which is limited to 12Mbaud) but also in much faster FIFO mode (or some other). So you are actually right, using this chip (or maybe easier - two such chips) may be the easiest way to create such cable. But still, I'm not sure if there is any ready cable using that.
    – Krzysztof Adamski
    Commented May 10, 2013 at 8:23
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I would personally just connect to the unit using a VNC server connection at the ethernet cable plugged in. Try installing '11VNCserver' and login to it that way. It means you can store the raspberry pi away somewhere and save space. Don't install xtightvncviewer as this messed up the login for me many times and meant reflashing the SD card each time.

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You can access the pi over USB by using the bonjour service as described here.

With this you can SSH into you pi or use FTP/SFTP to access files. Of course this is also possible via your the programming languages you mentioned.

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Even easier, simple is usually best. SAMBA - SMB shares. You aren't using a Serial/USB stack. You are using a TCP/UDP stack. Samba is a "noisy" protocol. You could use a single hub for your data transfer, but using your existing network would have negligible overhead.

Only AppleTalk would be easier, does Bonjour exist in the ARM stack?

In my 28+ years of networking, from token ring, AppleTalk, SMB, Pipes, TCP/ UDP, v4 & v6 802.11 1,b,g,n, a, c. (1mb 802.11) Twinax simple is best. Creating a bi-directional Serial/USB protocol or application is much more difficult. IMHO

Sorry, to clarify, you might be able to write a TCP/IP stack protocol with python. A friend of mine built the SATA over Ethernet Linux stack. He's much more than an admin, he's a high-level programmer too. The GNU-SMB tools are probably easiest to set up a share. You'd need to enable "WINS" SMB on both machines. WINS is not a default protocol on Windows 10 it shows up as windows network, and it's called Samba - SMB (simple message block) in Linux. There is a Gnome GUI tool for Linux. Else you're diving deep into terminal commands & scripts.

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  • in these sad days, your answer put a smile on my face. You have a special ability to confuse things
    – Candid Moe
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 5:43
  • Oh, confusion is never my intent. I do think geek, sometimes faster than I type. I'm happy to clarify. I've been a Sys/Net Eng for 25+ years.
    – Joel Huebner
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 6:07

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