Best format for USB flash drives nowadays?

On 10/12/2015 3:02 PM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2015-10-12 17:51, Ed Light wrote:



Maybe you don't multitask heavily with lots of tabs open?

Whatever that has to do with my USB keys is a freaking mystery to me.

Well, you said Win 98 was stable for you, or something like that.

At
any time I have half a dozen basic apps open
....
... And in my Win98 days (oh so long ago) I usually had the system pretty heavily loaded as
well.


OK. When you were using 98, apparently you were not getting crashes. But

Of course I did. But I don't recall a FAT32 volume getting messed up.

Did you chkdsk it often?

I didn't have a volume failure, but I ran chkdsk /f quite a few times.




Mishaps do happen between computers and USB sticks. So, errors could
happen on FAT 32 that NTFS would be more immune to.

Since to the very best of my recollection I've never had an issue with a
FAT32 formatted key, I'll either have to believe me or believe you've
had some very unlucky times.

Again, do you chkdsk once in a while?

Or you abused the devices perhaps by
physically pulling them during a write or before a write post was complete.

No, I'm very careful about writes being complete.


Unix and Linux formally demand that you dismount a drive before
physically disconnecting it. Windows has always been wishy washy about
that going back to its atrocious DOS underpinnings of Win 3.x...

I'm using "USB Safely Remove" which makes the safely remove operations
pretty classy. Sometimes, though, a stick is just locked up. Possibly
because Win 7 regards an NTFS stick more like a HD than a FAT32. But I
can reboot to free it. Or, if nothing is lighting it up, just yank it
and then chkdsk it to make sure it survived.


I've had someone else's computer totally destroy a USB stick. Not a file
system thing, of course.

Hmm - I miss Windows. Hahahaahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha,,,,

I think it did it while I was in the BIOS!
Or while I was booted into Boot It Next Generation, imaging a partition.

Maybe there was a surge in the line current.


--
Ed Light

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http://realnews.com

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Thanks, robots.

On 2015-10-12 23:17, Ed Light wrote:
On 10/12/2015 3:02 PM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2015-10-12 17:51, Ed Light wrote:



Maybe you don't multitask heavily with lots of tabs open?

Whatever that has to do with my USB keys is a freaking mystery to me.

Well, you said Win 98 was stable for you, or something like that.

At
any time I have half a dozen basic apps open
...
... And in my Win98 days (oh so long ago) I usually had the system
pretty heavily loaded as
well.


OK. When you were using 98, apparently you were not getting crashes. But

Of course I did. But I don't recall a FAT32 volume getting messed up.

Did you chkdsk it often?

I didn't have a volume failure, but I ran chkdsk /f quite a few times.

Ya got me there. It's now so far back in time that I don't recall.
OTOH, for external "portable" media like USB keys or camera CF cards I
would re-format often, usually in camera. Lot's of fresh starts.


Mishaps do happen between computers and USB sticks. So, errors could
happen on FAT 32 that NTFS would be more immune to.

Since to the very best of my recollection I've never had an issue with a
FAT32 formatted key, I'll either have to believe me or believe you've
had some very unlucky times.

Again, do you chkdsk once in a while?

Or you abused the devices perhaps by
physically pulling them during a write or before a write post was
complete.

No, I'm very careful about writes being complete.


Unix and Linux formally demand that you dismount a drive before
physically disconnecting it. Windows has always been wishy washy about
that going back to its atrocious DOS underpinnings of Win 3.x...

I'm using "USB Safely Remove" which makes the safely remove operations
pretty classy. Sometimes, though, a stick is just locked up. Possibly
because Win 7 regards an NTFS stick more like a HD than a FAT32. But I
can reboot to free it. Or, if nothing is lighting it up, just yank it
and then chkdsk it to make sure it survived.


I've had someone else's computer totally destroy a USB stick. Not a file
system thing, of course.

Hmm - I miss Windows. Hahahaahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha,,,,

I think it did it while I was in the BIOS!
Or while I was booted into Boot It Next Generation, imaging a partition.

Maybe there was a surge in the line current.

Hmm. Yeah. Windows had nothing to do with it.

On 10/13/2015 5:29 PM, Alan Browne wrote:


OTOH, for external "portable" media like USB keys or camera CF cards I
would re-format often, usually in camera. Lot's of fresh starts.

That would certainly keep you safer!

--
Ed Light

Better World News TV Channel:
http://realnews.com

Iraq Veterans Against the War and Related:
http://ivaw.org
http://couragetoresist.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at

Thanks, robots.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Shadow wrote:

I read something about journaling not working well on flash
cards, which would probably exclude NTFS, and all the Unix extXs from
the OP's choice.

I finally got around to reading this yesterday:
"Optimizing Linux with cheap flash drives" - February 18, 2011
http://lwn.net/Articles/428584/

It's a little old, but still relevant. Basically journaling does
mess up the way these drives work, but they are also optimised
for FAT in other ways as well. The way PC utilities partition
drives can also mess up performance/lifetime if the user isn't
careful.

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On Fri, 16 Oct 2015 01:38:07 +0000 (UTC), lid
(Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Shadow wrote:

I read something about journaling not working well on flash
cards, which would probably exclude NTFS, and all the Unix extXs from
the OP's choice.

I finally got around to reading this yesterday:
"Optimizing Linux with cheap flash drives" - February 18, 2011
http://lwn.net/Articles/428584/

It's a little old, but still relevant. Basically journaling does
mess up the way these drives work, but they are also optimised
for FAT in other ways as well. The way PC utilities partition
drives can also mess up performance/lifetime if the user isn't
careful.

I knew I read it somewhere. Continues he

https://wiki.linaro.org/WorkingGroup...lashCardSurvey

dated 2013.
Which makes me wonder if the "align" option on third party
formatters need tweaking when using SDHC cards, or if they are
optimized by design.
I use AOMEI Partition Assistant on my flashdrives first time I
run them to remove any rubbish and increase the size of the clusters.
Free:
http://www.disk-partition.com/
I know there are others ....
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

On all my flash drives I've asked support what size sectors to use with
NTFS to get the best speed, and none of them said not to use it, or that
it would have a disadvantage.

--
Ed Light

Better World News TV Channel:
http://realnews.com

Iraq Veterans Against the War and Related:
http://ivaw.org
http://couragetoresist.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at

Thanks, robots.

In article om,
Ed Light wrote:

On all my flash drives I've asked support what size sectors to use with
NTFS to get the best speed, and none of them said not to use it, or that
it would have a disadvantage.

I would avoid this format:

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=18983
--
Where's the Vangelis music?
Pris' tongue is sticking out in in the wide shot after Batty has kissed her.
They have put back more tits into the Zhora dressing room scene.
-- notes for Blade Runner

On Fri, 16 Oct 2015 11:17:09 -0400, Warren Oates
wrote:

In article om,
Ed Light wrote:

On all my flash drives I've asked support what size sectors to use with
NTFS to get the best speed, and none of them said not to use it, or that
it would have a disadvantage.

I would avoid this format:

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=18983

I saw that on Majorgeeks. Stupid thing to do, use a massive
capacitor to destroy a laptop. Though if you could keep it charged, it
would be a good alternative to agent 86's "This message will self
destruct in 10 seconds" with the pin popping out of the grenade....
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Ed Light wrote:

On all my flash drives I've asked support what size sectors to use with
NTFS to get the best speed, and none of them said not to use it, or that
it would have a disadvantage.

Personally I wouldn't trust tech support for a consumer product like that
to know what they're talking about, but that's just me.

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In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Shadow wrote:
On Fri, 16 Oct 2015 11:17:09 -0400, Warren Oates
wrote:

In article om,
Ed Light wrote:

On all my flash drives I've asked support what size sectors to use with
NTFS to get the best speed, and none of them said not to use it, or that
it would have a disadvantage.

I would avoid this format:

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=18983

I saw that on Majorgeeks. Stupid thing to do, use a massive
capacitor to destroy a laptop. Though if you could keep it charged,

Actually the capacitors charge up off the laptop's own USB supply.

it
would be a good alternative to agent 86's "This message will self
destruct in 10 seconds" with the pin popping out of the grenade....

Nah, nothing in data security beats a big bang!

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