Because I've currently got Lando hooked up to my home network via a wireless USB dongle, it can be very time-consuming to transfer files larger than a gigabyte over from my main computer. To work around the problem, I ordered an 8GB Kingston DataTraveler 100 USB flash drive from Newegg.com.
The drive arrived in the mail today, so when I got home I started copying a 2GB file over. I immediately noticed that when it came to copying files over, the thing was slow as goats. I had read something to that effect when reading some of the reviews on Newegg.com, but over 20 minutes to copy over 2GB of data? Really?
Since I also remembered reading about the drive's default FAT32 file system, I started looking up how to convert the drive to NTFS, which just so happens to be the same file system in use on my main computer and Lando, since they are running Windows XP and Vista, respectively. What I found was a semi-legible video about how to convert a flash drive from FAT32 to NTFS. Rather than making you learn a new hybrid of English in order to figure it out, here are the steps I followed to accomplish the task:
- Delete all files from the drive.
- Go to My Computer and right-click on the flash drive, choosing Properties from the context menu.
- In the window that appears, click on the Hardware tab.
- Find the flash drive in the list of devices, click on it once and then hit the Properties button.
- In the new dialog, click on the Policies tab.
- Select the "Optimize for performance" option if it isn't selected already and hit OK.
- Hit OK again to get out of the original Properties dialog.
- Go to My Computer and right-click on the flash drive again, this time choosing the Format option from the context menu.
- In the subsequent dialog, choose the NTFS file system from the dropdown.
- Select the Quick Format option.
- Hit OK and wait as your flash drive is formatted with the new file system.
- When the final dialog appears, letting you know that the drive has been formatted, you're good to go.
After following the steps above, it was readily apparent when trying to transfer files to and from the drive that it was much faster. Note that the steps above are written from the perspective of a Windows XP machine, but they likely aren't too different on a Vista machine. Either way, I've noticed the speed increase on both machines, so I'm much happier with my new USB flash drive now.
Comments
Yeah, this doesn't help with the speed issue at all. Thanks though.
Sorry to hear it didn't help you out, Chris.
On the contrary, I read many times and this was based on tests that Fat32 is the fastest file system for flash drives.
NTFS is the slowest.
There's a guy who's done various speed tests. He finds NTFS to be faster too -
http://www.msfn.org/board/FAT16-FAT32-NTFS-speed-t125116.html
Dear
still the same I just waste my time to check anyways
thanks
all i have to say is. NTFS doesn't improve shit! especially on a Jump drive. At first I thought it was me, but then I realized NTFS permissions / security would take forever on a 16GB jump drive. formatted back to FAT32 and OMG is this thing lightning fast! moral of the story dont fiddle with ntfs on your usb jump drive, especially 16GB. or else a 300meg file will take 55 minutes, VS seconds. I am very shocked FAT32 is faster but who cares I now know better not to mess with ntfs on jump drives. if NTFS was faster dont you think companies would ship usb thumb drives as ntfs.??? haha
I think there are other tunables, too, other than just which filesystem format is used. I know when tuning large storage arrays for databases, we care about things like RAID stripe size and filesystem block size (or allocation size as it is referred to in DOS.) I changed my slow 16GB drive to FAT32 and it was faster. Also changed the allocation unit to 32bytes which is very high, but helps with the speed on transfers of LARGE files. I need to reformat and go back to 8k or something, though. The default for NTFS and FAT32 is 512 bytes.
Right click the flash drive click format then choose the settings that best fit your needs
Patrick out!!!
thx
This solved my problem (on vista)
1Mbyte/s ---> 30 - 50 Mbyte/sec
Some windows OS'es will, by default, set the USB device to be optimized for quick removal. This slows the transfers WAY down.
Right Click My Computer and select Manage
Under the Storage heading, select Disk Management (Note, your USB Device has to be plugged in)
Right click on the USB Device (should show up as Disk # - Removeable - ####MB - Online) and select Properties
On Properties screen select the USB Flash Drive and select Properties
On Policies Tab, change it to Optimize for Performance
Found via this site: http://thebackroomtech.com/2008/09/29/howto-fix-slow-usb-20-file-transfer-on-windows-xp/
Before this change, a 900MB file took over 4 minutes. After this change, it took about 30 seconds!!!!
I have a feeling that the blogger's system changed this setting when the format to NTFS was done.
Note to the above, one one of my systems, when I made this change, the device disappeared from the Disk Management list. After rescanning the disks, it came back.
I just tried this and it took an hour copy and cut it down to about 5 minutes. Don't know wether it was the NTFS or "optimize for performance". Thanks much!!!
I think that (by default) NTFS does delayed writes on a flash drive, FAT32 doesn't. I.e. with NTFS it looks like your files have been copied to the flash drive, but the copy continues to be done in the background for a longer time. If you pull out your flash drive during this time the data will be missing or corrupted.
Thankx
This worked , for my flash drive in vista
I don't understand it. Flash technology has the ability to go pretty darn fast, why do manufacturers make some so freakin slow?? And don't say the cost, because if they invest a little extra cost to make it fast I will buy again. If the drive is slow, I will never buy it again. In the end they are losing customers.
and another thing, I got this:
Before submitting your comment, you did not select the box stating that you hate spam. No comment for you!
What? I thought this was another way of asking if I didn't want a newsletter from you. I love "spam" when I get it.
FAT32 is really the best format for usb flash , u can use it in windows and osx , but this is not problem anymore when u got on osx ntfs-3g
but i still prefer to fat32
ALL USB LOSE SPEEDS AFTER THEY BEGIN FILLING UP
WHEN SPACE IS LOST
PERFORMANCE IS LOST
1: WINDOWS NEEDS TO FIND SPACE FOR THE FILES YOUR ADDING SINCE IT IS SORTA FULL IT NEEDS TO KEEP SEARCHING=LONGER STARTING TIME
2: USB 2.0 AND 1.0 AFFECT SPEEDS GREATLY
3: TRY THIS GET THE USB BACKUP FILES
FORMAT IT
THEN GET A HUGE FILE THAT IS NOT A SUPPORTED FILE TYPE AND TRANSFER LOOK AT THE SPEEDS COMPARE TO IT WHEN FULL
4: WHEN TRANSFERRING IF WINDOWS SUPPORTS THE FILE TYPE THERE ARE A FEW RULES IT FOLLOWS TO ENSURE THAT THE FILE IS NOT DAMGED WHILE TRANSFERING
5: THIS IS TRUE
Hello
There is no need to delete all data on the stick just to convert the filesystem to NTFS (which makes it much much faster!)
In a DOS Box enter: (tested on Windows XP)
Convert K: /FS:NTFS
if the USB stick is connected as driver K:
If it tells you that you must reboot the PC, try it again immediatley after rebooting. For me it worked the second time. ALL data will remain on the stick after conversion! And the performance was MUCH better than before with FAT32.
Ahhh.
And soem meore notes:
1.)
NTFS is definitely MUCH faster.
While for you the transmission to the memory stick seems to have already finished, the driver keeps on writing to the USB stick invisible in the background the data he has in his cache. So you don't have to hang around waiting. It happens invisible for you.
This means: don't just pull out your memorystick immedienately after writing to it ! You wil have data corruption!
Instead use the Windows functionality to eject USB devices which will flush the cache.
If you did not write anything, just have read data, it doesn't matter: you can pull it out without ejecting it.
Another advantage of NTFS is that it is fail save. It is much more secure than FAT which should not be used anymore today. See Wikipedia for more information about NTFS!
Another point:
Many Memory sticks that say Kingston are not Kingston! They are chinese copies of bad quality with less memory and less performance than the real ones from Kingston!
So dont blame it on Kingston if you bought a fake!
See post above: Rusman on April 20, 2009 at 3:47 AM
That's the fix! Not NTFS. I tried both, NTFS made no difference (note, Windows 7 displays the actual transfer speed).
Before the change suggested by Rusman, I was getting 3MB/sec or less; now it's consistent 30-40MB/sec!
speed is indeed increased..............thanks
using:
4gb usb, OS-xp
I 2nd; Russman's post worked for me-using Win7.
This worked wonders.
Went from transferring a 260mb folder from 415kb/s to 2.5mb/s
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Sorry, but is not faster when you convert your Flash Drive to NTFS, I thought the same but using TERACOPY i could check speed and it was 1MB/s slower, There is a problem i still cant understand, I copied a 700 MB .avi movie to my Flash Voyager 2 GB, just after i formated my PC it lasted around 40 seconds to do it, this is around 18 MB/s transfer, some weeks later, after i used my PC and its USB ports i did it again, and now it last 1:40 seconds to copy the same file to the same Flash Drive, now it is working at 7 MB/s, i dont know whats the problem, i have been investigating all this week, im using Windows XP Professional, i readed about Windows 2000 doesnt have this problem, and readed too about VISTA has a worse problem with USB transfers, but my External 750GB USB HDD doesnt have problems at all, it is working around 35 MB/s (280 Mbits/s) so it is ok, i think this is a USB drivers problem, i cant understand, i swear my Flash Voyager 2GB was working at 18MB/s and now just 5 MB/s. I have another PC in my apartment in other state, it was working 18MB/s too, i will travel this week and i will test it again to see if it continue copying at 18MB/s.
Thanks for the Info
Claudio
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