Kingston DataTraveler G3 16 GB actually slower than a slower drive

[Utente]

Hi guys,

I had a pretty obscurely branded usb flash drive (TX Think Xtra 16GB). I recently had to buy a new one (Kingston DataTraveler G3 16 GB) because the plug became wobbling and faulty (if you moved it even slightly it would loose the connection).

I used the old drive to run a live version of backtrack linux. So I installed it on the new Kingston too.

The issue is that linux runs tremendously slowly on the new drive. So I googled a bit and found many people complaining about DataTraveler G3 being slow.

So I decided to do some speed tests:

HD Speed:

->TX Think Xtra (16 GB):
 
   ->Burst rate:

	->Read:              18.5 MB/s
	->Write:             1.4 MB/s
	->Write+Read:        1.3 MB/s
	->Write+Read+Verify: 1.3 MB/s
    
    ->Average:

	->Read:              18.4 MB/s
	->Write:             4.2 MB/s
	->Write+Read:        3.0 MB/s
	->Write+Read+Verify: 3.0 MB/s

->Kingston DataTraveler G3 (16 GB): 

    ->Burst rate:

	->Read:              24.2 MB/s
	->Write:             17.8 MB/s
	->Write+Read:        10.2 MB/s
	->Write+Read+Verify: 10.2 MB/s

    ->Average:

	->Read:              20.8 MB/s
	->Write:             5.6 MB/s (but keeps oscillating like sin)
	->Write+Read:        4.4 MB/s (but keeps oscillating)
	->Write+Read+Verify: 4.4 MB/s
______________________________________________

CrystalDiskMark:

->TX Think Xtra (16 GB):

	->Sequential Read:  19.43 MB/s
	->Sequential Write: 4.192 MB/s
	->512k block Read:  19.67 MB/s
	->512k block Write: 1.868 MB/s
	->4k   block Read:  6.600 MB/s
	->4k   block Write: 0.027 MB/s
	->4k QD32    Read:  0.0   MB/s
	->4k QD32    Write: 0.0   MB/s


->Kingston DataTraveler G3 (16 GB): 

	->Sequential Read:  22.37 MB/s
	->Sequential Write: 6.667 MB/s
	->512k block Read:  23.13 MB/s
	->512k block Write: 0.951 MB/s
	->4k   block Read:  4.465 MB/s
	->4k   block Write: 0.048 MB/s
	->4k QD32    Read:  0.0   MB/s
	->4k QD32    Write: 0.0   MB/s

From this data it seems that the Kingston drive is faster than my previous one. Though linux ran flawlessly on it.

The only thing I could think about is that TX Think Xtra was much more stable on average reads and writes, whereas Kingston kept oscillating between high and low values (producing a sinusoid curve on the data plot) keeping a stable average though.

Any ideas about why the faster drive is actually slower than the slower drive?

Thanks in advance

 

[profkefah]

try formatting the drive with
low level format

 

[Kinst]

May be next paramaters is more important for boot/system flash drives
->512k block Write: 1.868 MB/s - 2x faster
->4k block Read: 6.600 MB/s - 1,5x faster