Thumb Drive - Performance degraded after format

[DaveLembke]

I should probably just take a hammer to this and get a newer bigger one, but figured I'd run this past you all. I have a Thumb Drive that is a 1GB that use to be fast at read/writes and after the last quick format it slowed to a crawl when writing to the device.

Prior to this last quick format this thumb drive had been set up with Fedora 16 using a PenDrive utility to create a bootable USB stick with the Fedora 16 ISO.

I no longer needed Fedora 16 on this thumb drive and so I performed a quick format of it.

I then performed a full format of this device thinking that the quick format left something behind but it was still slow, and took a couple minutes for format it in which I have never had a thumb drive take like 3 minutes to format, especially a small capacity 1GB. Anyone know of a software tool etc to check thumbdrives for corruption. When copying data to it and comparing, the data is an exact match, its just that the speed of this device has drastically declined. I tried this thumb drive in 3 different computers 2 with Windows 7 and another with Windows XP and they all show the same symptoms with this device. I was thinking maybe it was driver related somehow, but now it looks to be hardware related so I posted it here to see if there is some sort of tool out there to recondition/diagnose flash memory.

Also to add to this I have another 1GB stick that runs fast, and that one shows like 987MB available, while this stick that is performing slower shows just 963MB available after format.. Could this indicate Bad Memory Blocks ( Shrinkage of storage )? I have heard that SSD's shrink as cells die, wasnt sure if Flash Sticks also shrink?

[patio]

Did you format it NTFS ? ?
If so that would account for the longer format time...and the capacity difference.

[TheShadow]

The native format for a flash drive is FAT-32.  Knowing that, I've never tried to format a FD to any other format.

Try re-formatting the FD to FAT-32 and see if the speed comes back.

Just a thought!

 

[Salmon Trout]

The native format for a flash drive is FAT-32.

Flash drives don't have a "native format". Flash drives can be bought unformatted or formatted. Ones that come pre-formatted tend to use FAT, mainly because it (a) offers the widest platform compatibility, (b) does not require a license fee to be paid to Microsoft like NTFS does. Even among drives using FAT family file systems, there are variations. For example one big maker, Sandisk, supplies flash drives preformatted with FAT for 2GB or lower capacity, FAT32 for 4GB to 32GB capacities, and exFAT for 64GB or higher capacities, but flash drives, like hard drives and SSDs, don't care what file system you lay down on them. I think, from the OP's description, that the flash drive in question is starting to go bad. The memory cells in flash devices have a limited number of read/write cycles, and also the controller can go bad.

All my pen drives are formatted with NTFS and they all runnning at acceptable real-world speeds, which are never what the makers quote in their publicity.

[patio]

All my pen drives are formatted with NTFS and they all runnning at acceptable real-world speeds, which are never what the makers quote in their publicity.

Agreed.
I remember it being advised against using NTFS on flash drives 'cause the read /writes from indexing would wear them out faster...
Sounded like hogwash the 1st time i saw it...and still.

[Salmon Trout]

I remember it being advised against using NTFS on flash drives 'cause the read /writes from indexing would wear them out faster...

I don't think removable drives are indexed by default in Windows 7, and in XP you can disable it.

[patio]

I may have used the wrong terminology...it's not the OS...it's how the file system itself acts...i'll look it up.

IE Fat vs. NTFS.

[Salmon Trout]

I may have used the wrong terminology...it's not the OS...it's how the file system itself acts...i'll look it up.

IE Fat vs. NTFS.

Ah I see. I did some checking and this is what I believe is the case: The fact that NTFS is a journaling file system does involve a certain number of write operations whe files are created, deleted, or changed. These are the ones that wear out flash memory, read operations don't. They happen with FAT too though. Thus FAT was better suited for ‘dumb’ first generation flash drives. However flash memory designers were forced to address the issue and later generations incorporate "wear levelling". That being said, there probably are other reasons to use FAT with a thumb drive, for example many DVD and media players will play files off a USB drive but only FAT.

[DaveLembke]

Checked the thumb drive and its Fat32. Sorry about delay in getting back to this. But good to see lots of info shared on this matter. I ran a test using same computer, same data, and writing from thumb drive to same X: drive which is my internal SSD for fastest usb thumb drive to physical hard drive transfer. I am thinking this thumb drive is showing its age. Still functions but its way slow. Also saw complaints on google about this brand not being a top performer for speed.

Its a [ Micro Center ] 1GB which I bought as part of a Linux Bootable Distro purchase for like $10 a few years ago. Since then i have learned how to use Universal USB Installer 1.8.7.2 from pendrivelinux.com to make my own. Used this tool to install Fedora 16 to it about a year or so ago. But since then installed a larger distro to a 4GB thumbdrive.

I attached a speed comparison between this probably worn out 1GB Micro Center and 1GB Kingston transferring same data to same X:\ drive which is my SSD thru USB 2.0.

I tried dumping partition and making it NTFS and then dumping partition and making it Fat32 again. No increase in speed.

I know that with hard drives you can view information to know how many bad sectors have been flagged as bad, but not sure if there is such a thing for flash ( thumb drives ). I was thinking it might have been loss due to some sort of corruption, but I am thinking its shrunken due to dead cells maybe since the Micro Center is smaller than the Kingston when formatted, and the Kingston is nice and fast.


[year+ old attachment deleted by admin]

[Salmon Trout]

Its a [ Micro Center ] 1GB which I bought as part of a Linux Bootable Distro purchase for like $10 a few years ago.

I am slightly confused about why you are taking any trouble over this, except maybe healthy curiosity of course. I don't know if you have seen flash drive prices lately, but in England where I live, 1 GB drives dropped off the radar some time ago. The cheapest smallest ones now seem to be 2 GB but 4 GB are taking that slot rapidly. I can walk into a store here and get a no-name 4 GB drive for 3.99 British pounds ($6.48 USD) and cheaper on the web. For comparison a pint of beer in a pub costs around 3.00 pounds, and a Big Mac is around 2.29 pounds. For less than that $10 you spent a few years ago (and even a few years is a long time in the context of flash drive technology generations) I can walk in a store and pick up an 8 GB drive.

What I am trying to say is that a bad pen/flash drive is a throw-away-and-forget thing, just like a scratched CD-RW or a damaged floppy. If you had valuable data on it, bad luck.

I know that with hard drives you can view information to know how many bad sectors have been flagged as bad, but not sure if there is such a thing for flash ( thumb drives ).

Well, I use a program (by a Ukrainian guy called Mikhail Cherkes) called Check Flash. It has identified bad blocks on drives for me. Be warned, a full check on a large (4 GB+) drive can take some time, one or more hours, and some checks involve overwriting every block on the drive, which would destroy any data partitions on there. It is a portable app, that is, you just unzip and run it. Be very very careful about choosing the right drive letter, because it is quite capable of nuking a whole hard drive of data in the time it takes to say "Oh No!".

You can get it here

http://www.mikelab.kiev.ua/PROGRAMS/ChkFlsh.zip

or here

http://www.computerbild.de/download/Check-Flash-6750982.html?dl=1

[DaveLembke]

Thanks Salmon for that tool. I was looking for a tool like this and all I found was Hard Drive testers that displayed smart data etc which thumb drives dont have. Going to use this tool now to check out my thumb drive.

You are correct at the statement of

except maybe healthy curiosity of course

in relation to taking the trouble with this. I can just take a hammer to this thumb drive and pick up a new 4GB for around $4, or 8GB for $6 these days. But figured instead of just destroying the flash drive why not figure out why its not functioning up to speed.

If something isnt working properly I am the type of person who has to find out why, even if in most peoples eyes it may be a waste of time since it can be replaced so inexpensively. Thanks for helping out on this subject even if it might be seen as a waste of time in some peoples eyes.   

I think even if I were rich, which I am not, and a computer had a problem, I wouldnt just throw it away if it didnt boot and get a new one. I'd be diagnosing and fixing it...lol   Thats Just Me!   

Off to use that tool on that drive and see what it shows.