Fastest read rate off a USB 2.0 flash drive?

[riahc3]

What is currently the highest read rate of a USB 2.0 flash drive? I need a 2GB to load off a OS.

 

[alzan]

What is currently the highest read rate of a USB 2.0 flash drive? I need a 2GB to load off a OS.

480 megabits per second is the theoretical rate; you'll get much lower than that in practice.

In any USB speed, one large file will transfer the fastest, many small files transfer slowest.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Somewhere between 25-28MB/s sequential is realistic. Maybe 30MB/s on a good day. Most drives can do that. Write speed are horribly slow on most cheap drives though.

You can always use a USB3 flash drive in a USB2 port. They usually have higher read/write speeds then "pure" USB2 drives.

 

[riahc3]

I completely miswrote the question. I apoligize.

I wanted a PRODUCT that gives the highest read rate of a USB 2.0 drive. Meaning, a product that eachest the closest to 480 megabits (or realistically 25MB/s - 30MB/s)

Sorry about that.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I wanted a PRODUCT that gives the highest read rate of a USB 2.0 drive.

Do you mean the USB controller? Because that's integrated into the southbridge/PCH today, and has been for the last 10+ years. Intel's standard EHCI controllers are the best there are. You just cannot buy one on an expansion card...

If you're going to add an expansion card, you should really consider adding a USB3 controller. You can get one in either PCI or PCIe format. Though the PCI ones are expensive and limited to whatever bandwidth is available on your PCI bus (typically 50-75MB/s).

Could you post your system specs? It'll make advising you a bit easier.

 

[mikeymikec]

I would expect a USB 3.0 memory stick to make full use of USB 2.0 in terms of read speed, but for write speed AFAIK they're all rubbish (one interesting fact is the lack of official manufacturers' stats wrt their performance*).

Kingston's DataTraveller Mini 3.0's datasheet reckons it can read at 70MB/sec, so therefore if connected to USB 2.0 it will go as fast as the controller would let it. I'm a bit dubious about that 70MB/sec figure personally, but even if we say the real figure is half that, it's still fast enough to be bottlenecked by USB 2.0. Usually memory stick write speeds are about 5MB/sec.

That memory stick model is one of the few types I came across on the Kingston website that mentions performance.

* - admittedly I've been looking at the low end first, and my interest was mainly in write speeds because I sell memory sticks for backup systems in a lot of low-capacity scenarios.

One other thing, if you want performance, get an external hard disk instead. I've yet to see a modern external HDD that doesn't beat the crap out of a memory stick in both read/write performance.

- edit - I've just had another look around, specifically at the high end of Kingston's selection, and they reckon that the DataTraveller R3.0 G2 can do 120MB/sec read and 45MB/sec write (apparently the 16GB can only do about 25MB/sec write though). A 16GB model is double the the price of the average 16GB stick, but I might give one a spin out of curiosity. Wrt OP's question, the figures in this paragraph all relate to USB 3.0, but based on these figures, the adapter should be fast enough so that the 2.0 controller is the performance bottleneck.

 

[riahc3]

Do you mean the USB controller?

No. I mean a USB flash drive.

I would expect a USB 3.0 memory stick to make full use of USB 2.0 in terms of read speed, but for write speed AFAIK they're all rubbish (one interesting fact is the lack of official manufacturers' stats wrt their performance*)

All I need is read. I don't mind anything about the write speed.

So I should go with a USB 3.0 flash drive? It would give me the max read performance of a USB 2.0 flash drive?

I can find a Transcend USB 3.0 8GB JetFlash 700 for about 7 dollars. I don't need anything more than 2GB.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

So I should go with a USB 3.0 flash drive? It would give me the max read performance of a USB 2.0 flash drive?

If you want to eliminate the flash drive as a bottleneck, then yes. Corsair/Kingston flash drives are your best bet for performance, especially the Corsair Flash Voyager GT.

Be aware that you pay attention to price vs capacity. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to get a low capacity drive as the higher capacity ones a only a few € more.

 

[pw257008]

wouldn't this be more affected by random read than sequential? in which case, stated numbers might not mean anything. I know RaspberryPi uses Class 4 SD cards for their OS if you purchase the SD card with the rPi because the random read on those cards is actually as good or superior to most Class 10 cards (which have higher sequential read rates). Though the USB3 recommendation is probably still best, since there's not much data I'm aware of on random read performance of flash drives

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Though the USB3 recommendation is probably still best, since there's not much data I'm aware of on random read performance of flash drives

In that case you should be looking for Windows OTG certified drives. They have better then average random read/write performance. Again expect to pay a premium.

 

[tweakboy]

Rally has 20mbps ,,,, all others from 5mbit to 10mbit avg. gl