Why is writing to USB storage so absurdly slow?

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phucheneh

phucheneh

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2012
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I don't know if this is really getting worse, or I'm just getting more impatient.

Every single SD card and flash drive I own is just so...damn...slow...to copy files to. And I'll qualify 'SD card' by saying both micro and fullsize, in multiple card readers and when inserted into multiple devices. It seems that the card is the bottleneck, not the medium used to write to it.

I'm copying music to the microSD in my MP3 player right now at 2-3MB per second. 5MB/sec or less seems par for the course, even on the newest flash drive I have (a 16GB Sandisk of some variety).

I think I used to write CD's faster than this. If not, certainly DVD's.

Is it just a matter of write speeds ALWAYS having been bad for solid state devices of this variety? And are they, as I suspect, getting worse? I would not be surprised if the latter coincides with the dropping cost of the media...i.e. as the product becomes cheaper (less expensive)...you get a 'cheaper' (worse) product.

Or is something wrong with my USB controller or some such?
 
phucheneh

phucheneh

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2012
7,306
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Here is what I have googled up so far:

Change devices from 'quick removal' to 'better performance.' Apparently, I've never done this, and have always scoffed at people who insist on clicking the 'safe removal' icon. I guess I should change this, but old habits will probably cause me to not use the 'safe removal' bit. What will I do if that happens? Corrupt the whole drive?

Check BIOS settings for USB. Don't think this is an issue, but I'm gonna check it...as soon as...this one folder...finishes...copying....uggghhhh....
 
dave_the_nerd

dave_the_nerd

Lifer
Feb 25, 2011
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Depends on the media - they make high performance SD cards and USB drives, but they tend to be much more expensive.
 
phucheneh

phucheneh

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2012
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Well, BIOS was set to enable legacy support, but I don't believe it was forcing it. I turned it off. No difference.

Changing to the 'performance' option in the device setting actually DECREASED speed and caused drag and drops to result in little freezes...the actual time between dropping and the files being copied was probably about the same, but the dialog box was frozen for 3/4 of said time.

I also went ahead and reformatted the 8GB SD card in my MP3 player, since it was apparently glitching and only recognizing 4GB. I'm guessing I used this card to root or put Cyanogenmod on something, or some such scenario where I had to part to a certain size.

Write speeds are staying in the 1.5-2.8MB/sec range. Would this be normal for a generic Sandisk microSD?
 
mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
19,984
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Re: quick removal versus safe unplug

The rule of thumb I employ is that if I've only read data from a USB storage device, I'm fine with disconnecting without "safely unplugging" it first.

If I've written data to the device, I safe unplug it first. Why? Because I have often encountered Windows complaining that the file system isn't happy on the drive's file system. Doing a safe disconnect ensures that the file system has been properly dismounted, there aren't any files in use, etc. Your computer does the same thing when shutting down (amongst other things of course like stopping services).
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
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SD cards are slow. All but a handful of USB drives are slow. That's how it is. They don't have the controllers that SSDs do. The overall best are Sandisk's Extreme USB 3.0, still, and they know it, so it's priced accordingly (I ended up getting a Verbatim, instead, which has served me well enough).

My fastest SD card is a fairly new Samsung that gets about 2.5MBps 4K, and about 15MBps sequential. For multi-MB files, a UHS card and UHS reader can double your sequential speeds, but it won't help random writes much.

They really aren't getting worse, but they aren't getting better, either, and there's no financial incentive to change it, since they are fast enough for most users, who just need basic phot and video storage, and don't know that faster storage even exists.
 
dave_the_nerd

dave_the_nerd

Lifer
Feb 25, 2011
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Cerb said:
SD cards are slow. All but a handful of USB drives are slow. That's how it is. They don't have the controllers that SSDs do. The overall best are Sandisk's Extreme USB 3.0, still, and they know it, so it's priced accordingly (I ended up getting a Verbatim, instead, which has served me well enough).

My fastest SD card is a fairly new Samsung that gets about 2.5MBps 4K, and about 15MBps sequential. For multi-MB files, a UHS card and UHS reader can double your sequential speeds, but it won't help random writes much.

They really aren't getting worse, but they aren't getting better, either, and there's no financial incentive to change it, since they are fast enough for most users, who just need basic phot and video storage, and don't know that faster storage even exists.
Click to expand...

The cheap USB thumb drives from Microcenter are usually good for 15-20MB/sec. It's not blazing, but it's a lot faster than some of the competition and they're inexpensive enough to be kinda disposable.
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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Got a link? A physical Microcenter is well over an hour away...
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
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dave_the_nerd said:
The cheap USB thumb drives from Microcenter are usually good for 15-20MB/sec. It's not blazing, but it's a lot faster than some of the competition and they're inexpensive enough to be kinda disposable.
Click to expand...

That's quite a change then. My other, older, MC flash drives were among the slowest I owned, with less than 3MB/sec write speeds.
 
dave_the_nerd

dave_the_nerd

Lifer
Feb 25, 2011
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Cerb said:
Got a link? A physical Microcenter is well over an hour away...
Click to expand...

VirtualLarry said:
That's quite a change then. My other, older, MC flash drives were among the slowest I owned, with less than 3MB/sec write speeds.
Click to expand...

http://www.microcenter.com/product/385308/8GB_SuperSpeed_USB_30_Flash_Drive

I have a few of them I've used for installing OS's or ESX boot volumes on test systems. I bought them for price/capacity but was surprised by the speed.

Obviously, if there's no MC in close proximity, you have to pursue other options, was just throwing out the trivia.
 
Zodiark1593

Zodiark1593

Platinum Member
Oct 21, 2012
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I've got a flash drive rolling somewhere that sports about 1.25 MB/s write speed. Blegh, but it does the job.
 
R

richaron

Golden Member
Mar 27, 2012
1,357
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I always get +70MB/s from my SD cards. But I only use good cards and my USB 3.0 internal reader.

There's lots of cheap crappy flash memory to shove in cheap crappy drives/cards (and for most purposes it's fine). USB drives (opposed to cards) also need their own USB controller*; another area to cut costs.

Edit: *For some reason I assume USB interfacing requires more resources than SD protocols... I might be way off on that. But that's part of the reason I purchased a decent card reader & I prefer SD cards.

Edit2: Just did quick SD tests sometimes I do drop to low 60's. Big file write I'm getting +80MB/s. These cards are a couple of years old now; SanDisk 'Extreme Pro' UHS-1 SDHC in Linux.
 
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mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
19,984
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Are people confusing read and write speeds by any chance?

For example, a lot of USB 3.0 flash drives claim to do about 70MB/sec when reading, but write speed is about 6MB/sec.
 
SKORPI0

SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
18,469
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dave_the_nerd said:
::puts onion on belt::

When I was a kid, our 3.5" floppies read/wrote at 30kBps, and we liked it!
Click to expand...

Blue_Max said:
*plugs in C64 FastLoad cartridge*
Click to expand...

But don't forget to use this first. :awe:

250px-80561-00145.jpg
 
Tsavo

Tsavo

Platinum Member
Sep 29, 2009
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My USB flash drive does 400MB+ r/w.

Helps that it's a disused SSD in an external case.
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
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86
dave_the_nerd said:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/385308/8GB_SuperSpeed_USB_30_Flash_Drive

I have a few of them I've used for installing OS's or ESX boot volumes on test systems. I bought them for price/capacity but was surprised by the speed.

Obviously, if there's no MC in close proximity, you have to pursue other options, was just throwing out the trivia.
Click to expand...
Decent prices, too. I don't like capped drives, but I'll add one on anyway, and see. They are available for online ordering, and I'm about to order an SSD from Microcenter, as well.
 
Burpo

Burpo

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2013
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Yeap I got the Adata 32Gb version. They are fast (once formatted to NTFS).. I copied several movies to one yesterday and it was writing to usb @ 75+mb average, starting out at over 100mb sec. (USB 2.0).
 
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VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
10,202
126
Tsavo said:
My USB flash drive does 400MB+ r/w.

Helps that it's a disused SSD in an external case.
Click to expand...

I was having the same idea. I found this enclosure, claims to be both USB3.0 and SATA6G. Mixed reviews, some DOAs or unreliable. It's cheap though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817576016

What enclosure are you using? And is it reliable for you? I would be willing to pay more than $13 if I knew it was going to be reliable.
 
KentState

KentState

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2001
8,397
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VirtualLarry said:
I was having the same idea. I found this enclosure, claims to be both USB3.0 and SATA6G. Mixed reviews, some DOAs or unreliable. It's cheap though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817576016

What enclosure are you using? And is it reliable for you? I would be willing to pay more than $13 if I knew it was going to be reliable.
Click to expand...

This is what I use in conjunction with an SSD. Speeds are excellent when using USB 3.0.

http://www.amazon.com/Anker%C2%AE-Al...+3.0+enclosure
 
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