How to Improve Data Transfer Speed of Pen Drive
Factors that affect Pen Drive Speed
1) Version of your USB Port
2) Transfer Location
3) Type of Files
4) Choosing perfect File System
5) Device Policy
6) OS & Hardware Performance
7) Few other Factors
2) Transfer Location
3) Type of Files
4) Choosing perfect File System
5) Device Policy
6) OS & Hardware Performance
7) Few other Factors
Upgrade to USB 3.0
- USB 3.0 is the 3rd major version of USB standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices.
- USB 3.0 can transfer data up to 5 Gbits/s (625MB/s)
- USB 3.0 is about 10x Faster than USB 2.0
Transfer Location
- If you transfer files to your local computer, then speed will be faster
- If you are transferring data from USB to USB then speed may decrease
- If you transfer it on a network than it depends on your bandwidth
Type of Files
- If your file size is larger than you will get max speed whereas if you have small files than it will take a long time to transfer data.
Choosing Perfect File System
- Microsoft Windows uses FAT, NTFS, exFAT, Live File System and ReFS file systems (the last of these is only supported in Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2016, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10).
- NTFS provides max speed for transferring, but like everything, it also has pros and cons.Many of CD/DVD Players don't support NTFS File system, but after transferring data you can get back to FAT32 (Default Filesystem for Pen Drive)
- If you wish to transfer larger files than you will surely need to format it with NTFS because FAT32 won't allow you to transfer larger size files.
Format your Pen-Drive using NTFS file system
- Right click on External Drive and go to Format.
- In the Dialog box Change file system from FAT32 to NTFS.
- A Full Format removes files from that volume and scans for bad sectors on the disk. As it performs Bad sectors scan, it takes more time to format a volume. It may take whole night to format 1TB Hard Disk Drive
- A Quick Format removes files from that partition but will not scan your disk for bad sectors. Select this option only if your hard drive is not damaged and is working correctly.
A bad sector is any sector of disk that’s unwritable or inaccessible due to permanent damage. Bad sectors may increase due to failed flash memory transistors or any physical damage to the disk surface.
- Now format your Pen-Drive and start transferring data
- If the file has a larger size you will get maximum speed.
- If you want more speed in small files than using WinRAR or 7 zip(Freeware) or any other compression you can transfer data at max speed
- To use your device with CD/DVD players you can format your Pen-Drive with FAT32 and it will be back again.
Device Policy
- You can change these device policies for best performance by the below steps. Follow the steps carefully to increase your overall pen drive speed.
- Firstly, plug in your Pen-Drive into the USB port of your computer and right click on a Pen-drive and go to properties.
- Now head towards hardware tab there and a list of drives will now display in hardware tab.
- Now select your drive and click on properties.
- Select "Change settings" button.
- Now click on policy tab of next wizard and tick the better performance option there and click on ok button.
- After selecting this option you should safely eject your Pen-Drive.
- This will now help your Pendrive to boost up its performance.
OS & Hardware Performance
- Copy speed vary with OS & File System they use
- Windows uses NTFS file-system, which gets fragmented and you have to defragment it regularly to maintain it at its top speed.
- Linux uses EXT3/EXT4 (Journal) file-systems, which writes data to the disk intelligently and never gets fragmented.
Other Factors that Affect Speed of a PenDrive
- Drives become slower with time due to the number of write/read cycles.
- Replace OLD drive with new.
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