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#1 2016-01-19 07:07

CaptNoize
Member
From: Zombieland,Pa.
Registered: 2015-12-09
Posts: 264
Website

Best Flashdrives

What are the most compatible flash drives with Q4OS...? I want to download music files to use in a USB player. Any input would be appreciated.

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#2 2016-01-19 08:00

bobby
Member
From: Nevada, USA
Registered: 2015-12-24
Posts: 459
Website

Re: Best Flashdrives

I use both SanDisk and Cruzer 8 & 16 GB and have no problems.


No Longer Using Q4OS

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#3 2016-01-19 16:00

Dai_trying
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2015-12-14
Posts: 2,989

Re: Best Flashdrives

I have yet to find a flash drive that doesn't work, however, If you have usb3 port try and buy usb3 flashdrives, it may sound a bit obvious but the speed differences can be quite substantial. You can still use usb3 drives in a usb2 or even usb1 port but the transfer rates will be reduced to the lowest common denominator.
I have LOADS of usb media from 128mb (ancient) drives to a 64Gb cruzer edge. All of which work fine.

Dai

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#4 2016-01-20 01:39

bobby
Member
From: Nevada, USA
Registered: 2015-12-24
Posts: 459
Website

Re: Best Flashdrives

CaptNoize,

It really is a good question as one time SanDisk when they moved to the 1 GB thumb drives and put IBM on the label. The slowest thumb drive I every used. I later found out that SanDisk used compression to get to the 1 GB at that time in history. There wasn't anything on the package that mentioned compression was being used to rip me off smile  I just tossed it in the trash and found a faster 1 GB.

Today, there is so much competition no company could do this without costing money in returns.

Just my thoughts and experience.

Bobby


No Longer Using Q4OS

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#5 2016-01-20 02:11

CaptNoize
Member
From: Zombieland,Pa.
Registered: 2015-12-09
Posts: 264
Website

Re: Best Flashdrives

I just wondered,since I was looking for some inexpensive flash drives when I saw a  Staples ad. They listed a Sandisk compatible with win blows Xp,Vista,7 and 8. The next price up was compatible with Winblows Xp,Vista 7,8, and then it listed Linux kernel 2.6 and greater..??
I thought, What's up with that..??? A friend of mine said some of these have OS compatibility programs loaded on them....?Huh..? Is this true..? I thought a flashdrive  is a flashdrive ...should work on anything...? Right..? Don't tell me there's another snag we( the consumers of the world) are going to have to deal with.?????!!! I'm truly getting sick of it all....if so....... :-/

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#6 2016-01-20 10:06

Dai_trying
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2015-12-14
Posts: 2,989

Re: Best Flashdrives

I recently bought my cruzer edge 64Gb which had a couple of windows executables on it, although I think they were something to do with the encryption/protection offered on the pack. I just format and the drive is clean smile

Dai

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#7 2016-01-20 19:38

MC
Member
Registered: 2015-12-23
Posts: 182

Re: Best Flashdrives

CaptNoize wrote:

A friend of mine said some of these have OS compatibility programs loaded on them

Some do, but it's nothing more that the manufactures "tweaky" bloat-ware. I've found them on SanDisk drives before. Reformat and it's gone. Some of the high-dollar models have encryption software capabilities installed. That's where it's probably necessary to be OS-specific.

I've got about a dozen or more of various brands of flash drive. Both the name brands and the generic drives work equally well on my Linux systems.


Q4OS running Xfce

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#8 2016-01-21 11:34

Rademes
Member
From: Latvia
Registered: 2015-12-13
Posts: 636

Re: Best Flashdrives

All flash drives, which are compatible with Linux, should be compatible with Q4OS.
The one thing you should keep in mind: If you want to use 16GB or less capacity flash drives, DO NOT buy USB3.0 flash drives! Because these flash drives usually have one or two memory chips, which can not achieve high USB3.0 speeds. I have tested two Kingston Data Traveler G4 16GB USB3.0 flash drives and their average read speeds are 37MB/s. But Kingston Data Traveler G4 32GB USB3.0 flash drive`s average read speed is 86.1MB/s. Feel the difference? Average write speeds are slow - 6,2MB/s. But USB3.0 flash drives are more expansive than USB2.0 flash drives, so buying small capacity USB3.0 flash drive is a waste of money!
Also keep in mind, that Micro flash drives are slower than normal flash drives, and more expansive.
I use flash drives for creating Live System images and system backups, so now I have 15 Kingston Data Traveler 101 G2 8GB, and 4 Kingston Data Traveler 101 G2 16GB flash drives, which work very good on Linux and WinXP systems. Also they have TOSHIBA memory chips. So I recommend to buy them.
Generally, if you want to buy flash drive, first go to http://www.amazon.com , type name of flash drive you want and read customer reviews.
For example Kingston Data Traveler 101 G2 16GB customer reviews.
If to speak about your way of usage - downloading music files:
For transferring very large files, however, this Kingston drive really shines. I benchmarked its read/write speed using 1GB video files, and was able to achieve up to 11.4MB/s in write, and 20.2MB/s in read. This is over twice as fast as its rated speed, which claims just 5MB/s write and 10MB/s read. In contrast, the Transcend drive only achieved 7.5MB/s in write and 13.4MB/s in read, under the same test conditions. - from customer review.
If to speak about another brands: SanDisk - I don`t like them, because they are slow and come with some unnecessary software. Need to wipe them using dd and reformat before usage. SiliconPower - very good, but has slower read speeds than Kingston. TDK - Trash! Get hot after short period of writing, writing speed drops down to 2Mb/s, unreliable. Corsair - expensive, haven`t tested, for me it is waste of money.


Before asking for help please read this topic: https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3502   If you have problems with WiFi network, try to install the Network Manager using Q4OS Software Centre.

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#9 2016-01-21 13:19

q4osteam
Q4OS Team
Registered: 2015-12-06
Posts: 4,223
Website

Re: Best Flashdrives

Rademes, perfectly written, thanks to this comprehensive info.

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#10 2016-01-21 17:02

Rademes
Member
From: Latvia
Registered: 2015-12-13
Posts: 636

Re: Best Flashdrives


Before asking for help please read this topic: https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3502   If you have problems with WiFi network, try to install the Network Manager using Q4OS Software Centre.

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#11 2016-01-31 15:18

Rademes
Member
From: Latvia
Registered: 2015-12-13
Posts: 636

Re: Best Flashdrives

! Important notice !
If you are going to buy flash drive with capacity more than 32 GB, pay attention in which file system it is formatted. Often big capacity flash drives are formatted into exFAT file system. Avoid this file system!
This file system is owned by Microsoft, and Microsoft has not officially released the complete exFAT file system specification and a restrictive license from Microsoft is required in order to make and distribute exFAT implementations. Microsoft also asserts software patents on exFAT which make it difficult to re-implement its functionality in a compatible way without violating a large percentage of them. A LOT of patents, which prevent its implementing on open-source operating systems.
Because of it, exFAT functionality and available management options in Linux are strictly limited (see GParted file system support table in Q4OS)!
If your flash drive is formatted to exFAT, create new msdos file allocation table on it using GParted, and then create new FAT32 partition.
GParted tutorial.
FAT32 volume size limit is 2 TB for a sector size of 512 bytes. So flash drives up to 2 terabytes can be formatted using FAT32. Do you have flash drive with 1 TB size?
The only one noticeable drawback in FAT32 file system is the maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB minus 1 byte or 4,294,967,295 (232 − 1) bytes. So if you are using large archives, or create OS backups, you should split them into parts of 4096 Mb. Clonezilla`s  example.
Yes, exFAT works faster than FAT32 through the reduction of the file system overhead in cluster allocation, but such high speeds are only necessary for recording video streams.
More about FAT32.
In conclusion I must say, that FAT32 is the most widespread and universal file system in the world. It is supported by almost all desktop operating systems and portable devices.
Made a long time while writing this, hope it will be useful...

Last edited by Rademes (2016-01-31 15:28)


Before asking for help please read this topic: https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3502   If you have problems with WiFi network, try to install the Network Manager using Q4OS Software Centre.

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