Thumb drive

[Jack]

I'm going to buy a new thumb drive next week. I started with a 2gb went to 4gb and now 8gb. So if anyone use them please tell me your thumb drive size. What is a a good size for a thumb drive?

[donald]

Hi Jack
I would say it depends on how much space you need.
I have half a dozen of thumbdrives from 2GB to 32GB.
More important than size is the speed.(and the prize)
For porteus, 2GB might be enough, but those drives are most likely
only USB 1.1 compatible, means slow, don't buy.
I'm not sure if such small ones are still available these days.
Your new drive should be a USB 2 compatible one.
Unfortunately you will not know if they will be bootable
unless you can test them before buying.

Size doesn't matter..

[Jack]

Most where I live are SanDisk USB 2.0 and right now Walmart has a 16gb for $4.97 and 64gb for $22.97. Here the 2 links.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-CZ50- ... e/44684747
http://www.walmart.com/ip/SanDisk-CZ60- ... e/23350701

I going to put music and video on it. A LOT of both. Let me know which might be better to use

[donald]

Dear Jack...what shall I say?

personally I would take 4 of 16GB, not 1 of 64GB.
why?
16GB x 4 = 64GB but only $19,88,
and then 1 for music, 1 for videos, 1 for porteus etc.
bear in mind, if you have 4, and one gets lost or damaged, you still have 3
If you have only 1, all is lost.
But that's only me, it's your turn to make a decision which fits your needs.

hmmm...would you get your money back if they are not bootable?

cheers

[Jack]

The 16gb is bootable I already have 3 of the 8gb ones and they work great. And your right about 4 of the 16gb. So that my choice too. I think or seem to think they are fast thumb drives.

Is there program for linux to check the read and write speed of thumb drives? Do you know of any program out there?

[cttan]

Hi Jack,

FYI I have a 32GB to put all my files in it as multiple usb will just create confusion.
Before I got here, I had 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB.
1GB and 2GB were previously used for Slax.

[donald]

@ Jack
for measuring the read speed one can use (as root)

Code: Select all

hdparm -t /dev/sdb1

change /dev/sdb1 with your flash drive address listed in `fdisk -l`.

=======================================================
for a write speed test open a root-terminal somewhere on the device
which you want to test, and use:

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile0 bs=10M count=40; sync;

Note: this will write a ~400mb file
wait a while, till the results are displayed.

when done, remove the testfile with

Code: Select all

rm ./testfile0

the result is not 100% correct, because this test writes only zeros and the
write speed can vary depending on what kind of File is written to the device.

[Bogomips]

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile0 bs=10M count=40; sync;

Can you use

Code: Select all

time dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile0 bs=10M count=40; time sync;

?

[donald]

^
What do you mean, can I, or would I ?...
I can but I wouldn't, because the only value of (some) interest is MB/s.(IMHO)

[Jack]

^
What do you mean, can I, or would I ?...
I can but I wouldn't, because the only value of (some) interest is MB/s.(IMHO)

Is this for me? If so I don't understand what you mean.

[donald]

@ Jack
No it isn't.
The ^ character means that this post is related to the post above.
(from Bogomips)

[California Bob]

Amazon has PNY 128GB USB 3.0 flash for US$29.99:

http://www.amazon.com/PNY-Turbo-128GB-F ... B00FE2N1WS