slow flashmemory write --???

[surface9]

My dual boot system (win2000 sp4; winxp sp2) recognizes this new LG 1G
flash memory and functions properly under windows 2000 sp4 (it reads
and writes at about 4meg/sec).

On windows XP (SP2), however, it writes at about 1 minute per meg. It
will read at 4 megs per second, but, it doesn't seem to be able to
write but at that turlte's speed.

Same machine, same hardware, just different operating systems - what
gives? I have tried this on 3 other machines and get the same result
- slow writes on XP, normal function on 2000. The LG website even
has drivers for Win98SE, and they work flawlessly and read/write at
4megs/ sec on a win98se system..

Is there a flaw in winXP SP2 that this LG flash memory has uncovered?
I have a much smaller Piny thumb flash memory (128 meg) and they
function flawlessly on ALL systems, including XP.

Is there anything publsihed on this? Any ideas?

LG responded to an email saying they have NO SOLUTION.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

I suspect you are writing lots of more or less small files.

Windows 2000 has a write cache for FAT formatted 'removable'
USB drives while XP has not.
XP has the policies 'optimize for speed' and 'optimize for
safe removal' and pretends that 'optimize for speed' but
for FAT formatted 'removable' USB drives it has absolutely
no effect.
The only way to get a write cache on such drives is to
format it with NTFS.

I've put together some information about that:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbstick_e.html#cache


Uwe

 

[surface9]

Uwe,

My first attempt (on XP) was with a single mpeg file 500 megabytes in
length. I gave up after 20 minutes when only about 20 megs had been
transferred.

I switched to Win2000, same PC, same file, and it took a bit over a
minute to transfer the entire single file.

I then tried the same operation on a win98se machine, and it performed
same as the win2000 one.

I then tried it on 2 different PC's, under XP and 2000, and, the
0ppresults were the same. I notice that XP reports a different driver
version than does 2000, but, I don't know what to do about that.

I can live with this, but, what I don't understand is that when I use
my creative 128 meg flash memory, even XP transfers the data at the
high speed (4 megs per second) for a single large 100 meg file.

The only thing I can figure is that the LG flash drive is somehow
different than the creative one, and this difference exposes a
weakness in the XP dirvers.

I need my flash memory to be FAT because i still use win98se in some
of my systems.

I wish LG would respond, but, they defer to microsoft for the drivers.

littleberry

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Ok, here a write cache would not help. 20 MB in 20 minutes sounds
like USB 1 or USB 2 fullspeed. Maybe an updated chipset driver
helps here. Check out the websites of the computer's or mainboard's
manufacturer.


Uwe