How fast USB Flash Drive? Compatability?

Stefan

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If its numerous files adding up to 1 Gig, then it could work. If on the other hand you are handling files that are larger than 120 megs at a time, then you might have to either recompress the files somehow, or its not going to happen. Data transfer rate of the original USB (1.0 or 1.1) is 11 megabits per second. USB 2.0 stated transfer speed is 480 megabits per second. Ideally with USB 2.0 you cannot transfer to the drive faster than your fastest drive in your system; therefore if you have an internal hard drive running at ATA 66 or ATA 100, then your maximum speed is 66 megabits per second and 100 megabits per second, respectively.
 

itsme1234

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That's wrong, for ATA66/ATA100 the theoretical bandwidth is 66/100 megaBYTES/s (528 megabits/s for ata66/800 megabits/s for ata100). Of course the hard drive itself can't handle that bandwith.
However, the limiting factor in reality is either the usb1 (around 1 megabyte/s) either the flash memory itself (around 5 megabytes/s if we are to trust the specifications, usually less in real life).

[ QUOTE ]
Stefan said:
therefore if you have an internal hard drive running at ATA 66 or ATA 100, then your maximum speed is 66 megabits per second and 100 megabits per second, respectively.


[/ QUOTE ]
 

Saaby

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Can you make a 1 wire network with a crossover cable? I wonder if you can do a direct transfer over USB...
 

Wits' End

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I wondered about that but I only have an A/B cable I think I'd need an A/A cable. Plus this way I get the flash drive /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif . Of course a new cable would cost less and probably be easier /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif practicality? bah-humbug /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

jtice

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HA! I would like to see you get a crossover cable to work!

I have tried on many computers many times, and it simply doesnt work.

Even the network teachers at my school helped out, they still couldnt get it to work. I even tried a few weeks ago at my buddies house, and both computers had nic cards, STILL wouldnt work.


I have a USB1 card reader with 128 and 256 MEG cards. Its pretty fast, and shouldnt take you too long to use something like that. Super simple also.


[EDIT] Oh BTW, I have tried CAT5 crossover cables, not USB. But I figure that you would incounter the same type of problems, if not worse. Sence the nic cards SHOULD have seen the connection themselves.
 

itsme1234

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There's a good reason not to have an A-A cable: if you connect 2 "computer" USBs you only get smoke. There are "computer to computer" usb cables but they need software on both sides and are crazy expensive (like 25-60 eur/usd, depending on where you shop). What's more interesting is that you can get 2 pci ethernet adapters (3-4 eur/$ each) + one short ethernet crossed cable (1 $ or so) for less than 10 $. If you don't want to open the computers then you can get usb->ethernet adapters for about 12 $/eur each and still pay less than one "usb transfer cable". Of course you have to pay less if one of the computers has already ethernet.
 

Wits' End

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[ QUOTE ]
jtice said:
HA! I would like to see you get a crossover cable to work!

I have tried on many computers many times, and it simply doesnt work.


[/ QUOTE ]

So aw shucks your saying I'll have to buy a new toy, that I can justify getting. Well life is tough /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Edit: cross posted with ItsMe. Smoke is bad to mix with computers. I think this Dummy is going with Flash Drive /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

itsme1234

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The UTP/cat5 crossover cable is working each and every time if you have the right cable and if you know how to set up networking for your operating system (I rule out hardware problems like broken NICs because I assume those computers are using the NICs for LAN/internet).
Yes, you have to actually read some HOWTOs, it's not working "out of the box", you don't just connect the cable and the computer asks "it looks like you connected a crossed cable, would you like to share files ?".

[ QUOTE ]
jtice said:
HA! I would like to see you get a crossover cable to work!

I have tried on many computers many times, and it simply doesnt work.

Even the network teachers at my school helped out, they still couldnt get it to work. I even tried a few weeks ago at my buddies house, and both computers had nic cards, STILL wouldnt work.
[...]
[EDIT] Oh BTW, I have tried CAT5 crossover cables, not USB. But I figure that you would incounter the same type of problems, if not worse. Sence the nic cards SHOULD have seen the connection themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]
 

jtice

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itsme,

LOL Yes I am well aware that its not as simple as simply hooking up the cable.
And I am aware that it takes a special cable, heck, I can even make the cable.

But for some reason the two computers never see each other.
I have went through all the steps of setting up a crossover network. And even tried tricks that shouldnt work.

Everything always seemed to be fine, with no errors, but the computers never saw each other. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

I am a network/computer admin, and have done alot of networking, which has all worked great,, just not this darn crossover stuff.
 

raggie33

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flashmemeory is slow as hell id guess like max 4 megs per second
 

Charles Bradshaw

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Most USB 2 stuff is downward compatible with USB 1.1. Most flashdrives and card readers(/writers) are also compatible with linux, just in case you needed to know that.
 

James S

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there are different speeds of flash memory. You can buy cheap slow ones or expensive fast ones. But no matter the speed, thats probably the simplest way to move your files, plus you have something useful out of the deal at the end of it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Just have patience /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Any and all USB 2.0 things that can be 1.1 compatible are. If the necessary throughput is too high for 1.1 it won't work, but you're talking about uncompressed video or something, the drive will just throttle back. If it doesn't then it is hacked up somehow with non-standard chips and you don't want it. But it will say somewhere on the packaging.

a Ethernet crossover cable is also a great solution, but there is sometimes some voodoo to getting it to work. With better quality ethernet cards you don't even need one anymore, they discover the fact that you've got them plugged directly into another machine. So try that too if you're going to. Then you just need a compatible TCP settings on both machines, same subnet and different IP, no DHCP or anything just manually assign one. Even then though, some cards will guess wrong, and you may need to sleep one machine and wake it up after the other is setup to get them both on the same page.

USB crossovers have been pretty well explained by IsItMe above /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Don't do it unless you get the special ones, and they are overpriced and require driver installs and just generally, you'd be better off with the USB drive.
 

GJW

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If you plug a USB 2.0 device into a USB 1.1 computer running WinME or higher it will nag at you that the device is not running at full speed but it will still work.
Another posibility is a direct cable connection via serial or parallel port. It's SLOWER but I've never had it fail with Windows 95 or higher.
 

Brock

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I would suggest a USB2 card reader and a good sized card. I use compact flash in our digital camera so I have a bunch; the largest is a 1 gig Sandisk Ultra. I use an older 256 to take my work files home with me; I only have a USB1 reader here at work and a USB2 at home. The 2 is about 3 times faster, but I am thinking the older 256 CF card is hitting the limit there. They come in handy a lot more then you might think. Oh I also have a PCMCIA adapter to use the same card in most laptops. Realistically I can move about 20 meg a minute here at work and about 60 meg per min at home. I get really confused with this migbit/byte thing. I wish they would just say "so many meg per min" and nothing else, and what they actually x-fer in, not what it could be. I am just easily confused /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 

Joe Talmadge

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Isn't there a way to remove the hard drive from your current computer, re-mount it on the new computer, and then just copy over to the new drive? I'm under the impression that this isn't difficult to do, though I don't know how to do it myself.
 

Brock

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Oh I should add that I also take the USB reader and just plug it in to any newer OS and "poof" it shows up as a removeable drive. Very handy for backing up the inlaws pictures or moving large files around.
 

Stefan

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Sorry about my above statement...it was early morning and I wasn't thinking straight. Networking deals with megabits per second, and hard drive storage is megabytes per second.

I would have suggested 2 network cards and a crossover too, but it would seem to be more of a hassle for what little files he wants transferred. USB drives if I recall, (whether actual external drives or USB flash drives), as long as the USB ports work, that would be the best solution. I am one to believe that if it involves any kind of accurate software backup, take your time and do it right. Locally there are too many times that I get annoyed at CD backups, that if you do it at the fastest speed, I usually get a disc that is not useable in 5 minutes.

Another thought: Have you considered archiving to CD-Recordables?
 

FNG

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Or burn it to two cd-r's? Thats what I would do if it wasnt on a network.

edit. I didnt see Stefan's last post. The only blank cd's I buy now are from Sony or Samsung (i think), the ones where you twist off the top. They are manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. One way you can tell is if the serial number in the clear part of the CD is straight across, not curved. This information was from a few years ago so im not sure if it still exists.
 
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