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USB Supercharger

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KevinM
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USB Supercharger

Are people aware of USB Supercharger? Are people using it?

I saw it mentioned in the Fastest USB Format thread. I'm surprised it hasn't been talked about since.

I started using it about 3 weeks ago. It's definitely a bit rough around the edges - not nearly as polished as TrueCrypt for example - but it really does improve performance. A month ago Thunderbird on my thumb drive was barely tolerable, GIMP took about 90 seconds to start up, and I'd see lots of short pauses/lock-ups in Firefox (probably while it was saving session data every 10 seconds or so). Now Thunderbird performs about as well as if were run from a hard drive, GIMP start up is snappy, and Firefox pauses have almost disappeared (still see a few in Hulu). I don't understand all of this - why would improving small-file write-speed improve GIMP startup - but that's what I see.

I'll admit I'm concerned about reliability. I experienced an issue in Firefox two weeks ago. I wonder what caused it; I have no way to know if it was Supercharger. I wiped and re-installed Firefox Portable and I haven't had an issue since, but I have been extra careful with dismounts.

FWIW: I'm not affiliated with EasyCo at all. Just wanted to see what other people have to say, and maybe make people aware of this if they aren't already.

Also FWIW: I'm using a Patriot Xporter XT. From what I can tell this is one of the faster thumb drives currently available, but like all MLC thumb drives the small file write speed kills performance for apps like Thunderbird.

xuesheng
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Thanks for mentioning USB SuperCharger

I installed it on my 2GB Cruzer Titanium today and the first thing I noticed was that the flash drive now has more than 430 MB of extra free space once I had re-loaded all of my files onto the SUPERCHARGE drive.

The PortableApps.com menu now appears almost instantly when I start it.

I'm not using Auto Mount so I have to manually unmount the drive. I hope this will avoid the sort of problem you reported.

Pyromaniac
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that seems a bit inconvinient

mailing a license to you? I think that's a bit weird, don't you?

KevinM
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Yeah

I hear you, but it is what it is. It's not freeware (as in not-license-free).

Seems like all vendors are going this way - licenses locked to the device. I blame Microsoft for popularizing the precedent.

KevinM
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Data Corruption

I'm sorry to report my second incident of data corruption this morning. This time it was serious - entire directories unreadable.

I'm back to using a bare drive. It's a real shame.

I don't suppose there's anything else like supercharger out there. Anyone know of anything? Even anything under development?

KevinM
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Okay with Win7

Just wanted to report that I upgraded my PCs to Win7 in October and decided to give USB Supercharger another try. I've been using it many hours a day for the past two months with no issues. I think maybe the drivers for Vista and/or XP may not be that reliable.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled posts.

ViperGeek
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I just found USB SuperCharger

I just found USB SuperCharger yesterday and am astounded! I keep having to check the USB access LED to insure I'm running my apps off of the flash drive instead of the hard drive. Their website shows charts and graphs of performance improvements, but where this software really shines is in the usage of Portable Apps.

USB SuperCharger: Where have you been all my life??? Wink

- Dave

ps. Thanks for the comments about reliability. I perform daily backups of my portable drive and will watch carefully for corruption issues.

Darkbee
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Not Convinced

How is it that the old saying goes "If something appears to be too good to be true then it probably is". I haven't taken time to fully understand the mechanics of exactly what USB Supercharger does but I'm under the impression that it basically breaks wear-leveling so that it'll kill your drive faster (given certain conditions). Asking an Olympic champion to meet or exceed an Olympic record on a daily basis surely will shorten that athletes career.

I also have to question that if this is the "miracle cure" for slow USB drive speeds then why isn't everybody using it? Why aren't manufacturers changing the way their controllers write to devices?

Sorry if this appears overly skeptical, but the fact of the matter is I am overly skeptical.

Pyromaniac
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I think you already answered it:

it basically breaks wear-leveling so that it'll kill your drive faster (given certain conditions)

I'm assuming the flash drive maker company people haven't worked that out yet.

But with USB 3.0, I don't think it will make a huge difference.

John T. Haller
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USB 3.0 makes ZERO difference

As has been discussed many times, the limiting factor to USB flash drive speed is not USB. It's the memory chips. That's why USB hard drives are so much faster. A USB3 flash drive would perform no better than a USB2 flash drive if they used the same chips. If the USB3 flash drive used faster chips, it will be MUCH more expensive. And people won't buy it. We already have much faster flash drives on USB2 but people don't buy them so they are hard to find (online only often direct from manufacturer, never retail) and very expensive.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Pyromaniac
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so...

does that mean that even a 3.0 flash drive plugged into a 3.0 port makes no difference then a 2.0 in a 2.0 port? I know that 1.1 is slower than 2.0, so I assumed that 2.0 was slower than 3.0 (assuming that the device is also 3.0)

Then whats the point of 3.0?

John T. Haller
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Specific Devices

USB 1.1 was slower than the speed of flash RAM, so USB 2.0 does make a difference to those devices. USB 3.0 is primarily for devices that need it. Things like external hard drives, transfering digital video and the like.

USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum data rate of 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s). Most flash drives only read at around 20MB/s and write at around 10MB/s (or less) due to the hardware they contain. Upgrading the connector to USB 3.0 won't make them any faster.

The other big issue with flash drives is read/write speed accuracy. The measurements are for single big files. Doing lots of little reads and writes will drop the speed down to 1/10th or less of the rated speed. This is again due to the speed of the controller and RAM chips. Faster ones cost a lot more and no one is really willing to buy it.

There are already eSATA/USB2 flash drives available. These typically have faster flash memory/controllers in them. They are only available in larger sizes but will hit 30MB/s read and write over USB2. They are double the cost (or more) of a similarly sized USB-only drive. Many still have the issues with lots of little reads and writes seeing drastically reduced speed.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

KevinM
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Kingston has the DataTraveler

Kingston has the DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 that is basically an external SSD in thumb-drive form. It has reasonably good small file write speeds even on USB 2, better on USB 3 (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1417/3/).

Super Talent also has some thumb drives that would qualify as SSDs. I believe RiData does too.

They are quite expensive, though the Kingston isn't that bad on a price/GB basis. I might consider buying one if it wasn't so fat and hot, and if it didn't require a Y-cable for USB 2. I wish Intel would release an SSD thumb drive.

Vandrvekn
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USB 3.0

Both the memory chips and and USB interface are limiting factors. I have a few USB 2.0 drives that max out the USB interface on their read speeds, about 32 MB/s. The write speeds are generally much lower.

There are already a few USB 3.0 flash drives that claim higher speeds, but I haven't tested any myself. I assume when more are on the market, it will be the same as with 2.0 drives. Most will be using the cheap flash memory and run very slow; faster ones will be available but a good bit more expensive.

There are some 3.0 drives already out:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007960%20...

I can't really see myself buying one until more systems have 3.0 ports. Right now it's mostly limited to add-in cards and a few motherboards. I haven't even seen any laptops with USB 3.0 yet, or any computers with 3.0 ports on the front.

ottosykora
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cross speed

would up to some 60 Mb/s via the usb 2, so there is still not the top reached.
yes protocol overhaed etc to be deducted first, but still there is lot of space left.

Otto Sykora
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KevinM
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I think the practical limit

I think the practical limit for mass storage devices on USB 2 is around 35 Mbps. The Kingston drive I mentioned above is a good example; it gets over 60 Mbps on USB 3, but it's limited to about 35 on USB 2. I've seen the same thing reported for dual-interface hard drives - fast over an eSATA connection, but limited to 35 Mbps or so on USB 2.

In my experience a lot of things are like that - WIFI, 100 BaseT, PCI - in practice they all seem to be limited to 50%-60% of their theoretical maximums.

KevinM
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"... I'm under the impression

"... I'm under the impression that it basically breaks wear-leveling ..."

I don't think it's possible to bypass a thumb drive's wear leveling. That's done in firmware.

Supercharger claims it decreases wear by making small writes more efficient - or as they say by decreasing write amplification - and I believe them. It makes sense.

John T. Haller
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Correct

Rather than do lots of small writes individually here there and everywhere on the drive (think about installing OO.o and its thousands of files) they queue up the writes and do them as one big write using a virtualized file system (similar to truecrypt but with a different goal). That's why you need the drive installed on the PC (or admin access to get it running) to be able to read the drive utilizing it.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

KevinM
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Something like LogFS of

Something like LogFS of YAFFS2? - turn all random writes into sequential writes, so you can erase a block and fill it up - much more efficiently than erasing/copying/updating an entire block on every random write.

I believe solid state disks achieve their speed in much the same way, via their more powerful controller - plus the fact that they have 8 or 10 flash channels (as opposed to the typical thumb drive's one or two).

Moonbase
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Another approach

Here’s another approach, surely not for everyone, though: I am photographing a lot and professional cameras mostly use CF (CompactFlash) cards. This is the reason I usually also tote an USB card reader along (a Digisol #00047200 v2.0, highly recommended, supports Ultra-DMA 32 MB/s). For use with the cameras, I like Transcend "300x" CF cards (supporting up to 45 MB/s).

I usually carry around my PortableApps on either an USB stick with SD-HC card inserted, or a portable 500GB USB drive. The SD card variant is quite slow and running larger apps is a pain.

Now — just for the fun of it — I put all my Portable Apps onto a spare camera card (2GB Transcend 300x UDMA, SLC) and tried it out. I can tell you this baby flies!

Of course it’s not for everyone carrying around a hi-speed card reader but for those who do it might be an interesting option. And the media can be changed, allowing for versatile setups. Plus, CompactFlash cards contain their own (IDE-like) controllers and thus handle all that »wear-and-tear« and »bad bit« stuff themselves.

In any case, get a SLC (Single Level Cell) based CF card, not a MLC-based. They’re faster and more reliable. I have very good experiences using SanDisk, Transcend and Lexar brands. They’re available up to "600x" speed (CF 4.1) now but that only makes sense if you’re using USB 3.0 and a very fast card reader with a hi-speed interface. For USB 2.0 usage, the "300x" cards plus a decent UDMA-capable card reader (like the Digisol or the Lexar) are fast enough.

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