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Thread ID: 146046 2018-04-08 08:42:00 Slow USB thumb drives. mzee (3324) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1448257 2018-04-08 08:42:00 I have found that EMTEC USB drives are very slow compared to others such as Toshiba, Lexar, Voyager, and Aram.
Has anyone else experienced this?
mzee (3324)
1448258 2018-04-08 09:28:00 Some drives are not that flash ( excuse the pun) :D One review (conclusion) on the EMTEC:

While the Emtec brand used to be a byword for quality, this product doesn’t seem to be outstanding in any way. It is a low-cost, low-end, generic flash drive based on a Phison controller and a single channel of Intel/Micron TLC flash. The Phison controller seems to have compatibility issues with NEC chipsets, exhibiting slower read rates than even USB 2.0 drives often put out. Using Intel chipsets, it still exhibited relatively slow writes of 10MB/s or thereabouts, but with much speedier readback (75MB/s or so).

The use of TLC flash seems increasingly common in low cost flash drives, however, this does bode poorly for their longevity, data retention and performance. While this drive may have been relatively cheap, it definitely performs like a cheap drive. After all, it’s nothing special.
wainuitech (129)
1448259 2018-04-08 22:02:00 They are total **** wratterus (105)
1448260 2018-04-08 22:40:00 When USB 3.0 drives first appeared I bought an expensive Kingston 32GB GT something or other after researching read/write speeds. I was sick of drives reading/writing in the range of 5-12MB/s which was slow even by USB 2.0 standards but which seemed to be the common range of standard thumb drives at the time.

Many years later it's still one of my best performing drives and I have accumulated quite a collection. You get what you pay for, decent drives tend to specify read/write speeds so you can compare them and cost a bit more. Cheaper drives often make no specific speed claims which generally equates to pretty slow, they may mention USB 3 in big letters to give you the impression of speed but turn out not to even max out a USB 2 port.
dugimodo (138)
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