USB 2 Flash Drive problems ( Need the best for this one )

[BMR]

OK, Here is one for you all to try out. I have yet to get an answer to this problem or even see it discussed by someone who knows the solution ...........

USB 2.0 flash memory devices ( ie pen drives, etc ) are great devices and work well under Windows in terms of replacing the floppy disk, however, you will notice that if you transfer 1 single file to the drive say of size 50 MB then it will take about 50 sec ( which I still think is extremely slow for a supposedly USB 2.0 high speed device ) but try transfering a 1000 files of total size 50 MB and you are looking at 5-10 min to do the transfer.

Now I have read many "Experts" who have suggested changing the file format of the drive to NTFS and then you get fast transfers. This is TOTALY INCORRECT . Yes Windows will report that the tranfer is complete almost immediatlely but if you look at the drive you will still notice that the transfer is going on in the background and it takes just as long than it would if the drive were formatted to Fat 32 or Fat 16. Worse yet, if you remove the drive before Windows finishes the background transfer, then the files will be corrupt.

Microsoft has admitted that they are at fault in regard to this problem, and indicate it has to do with the rewritting of the Fat table every time a single file is transferred. Thus 1000 files causes the fat table to be rewritten 1000 times taking something on the order of 215 seconds to complete.

Has this probem been fixed of has anyone found a workaround. I love using these drives but find this to be an extremely irritating problem. These drives are totally Missrepresented when they are advertised as USB 2 HIGH SPEED since they are no faster than USB 1.1 drives unless you have a single file transfer and even then the speed is slower than proper USB 2 speeds.

Solutions , comments ??????


I suspect the people in this forum are far more capable than ones in other forums to find a solution.


BMR

[Boba_Fett]

Hmm... Well, on my USB 2.0 flash devices it takes around maybe 10 seconds to clear a 50mb file. My guess is that either your sending HDD (the data that is being transferred to your USB 2.0 device) is either fairly slow or that your drivers might be messed. Transferring 1000's of files should take longer as the source HDD is stuggling to push out the (probably) fragmented files as fast as it can.

Oh, and last time I checked, USB flash devices are just that, flash devices. You cannot format flash memory... What you could do if you don't like to wait is zip the ton of files you are about to transfer and then send it over to the USB 2.0 device.