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Flash Drives

post #1 of 50
11/23/08 at 10:33am
Thread Starter 
I apologize in advance if this question is in the wrong forum. I've rarely ventured too far out of the Entertainment section of HTF before. Moderators, please move it if necessary.

I have a 1G and a 2G flash drive. I can store around 250 pics (digital images) on the 1G. So, I thought I could store around double this amount on my 2G, but it turns out that I cannot; in fact, I believe the storage as far as the number of images is the same for the 1G and the 2G. I also have a lot of text on the 2G drive (what would amount to about 2,100 pages); however, I cannot believe that this text would take up that much space. Does the fact that I cannot store more than 250 (+/- 10) pics on the 2G have anything to do with partitioning and/or formatting the flash drive?

On a related note, I recently purchased the Kingston 64GB (red) flash drive. This came about because my son downloaded some updates for his PS3 and Xbox yesterday (multiple folders and files were required), and he mentioned how he would love to have a flash drive with a lot more memory than he now has (also a 1G). I was also curious about this new flash drive, so I took the plunge and bought one.

Has anyone purchased one of these recently, and if so, do you like it? I thought too about getting a Corsair, but I read some negative reviews on it that gave me pause.

Here is some background info. on the Kingston:

Kingston 64GB DataTraveler DT50 USB Flash Drive Announced [DataTraveler DT50 Doubles Capacity, ReadyBoost Incompatible] TFTS - Technology, Gadgets & Curiosities

Kingston 64GB USB Drive: Cheap but Slow - Gearlog

Kingston launches 64GB flash drive
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post #2 of 50
11/24/08 at 2:33am

Re: Flash Drives

Scott,

I really can't answer the first part of your question. I have a few
various flash drives, but see no partitioning problems with them. You
should be able to store twice as much on a 2G over a 1G.

What I can tell you is that Corsair are excellent flash drives. I have
a few and love them. Very reliable.
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post #3 of 50
11/24/08 at 6:46am
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
Scott,

I really can't answer the first part of your question. I have a few
various flash drives, but see no partitioning problems with them. You
should be able to store twice as much on a 2G over a 1G.

What I can tell you is that Corsair are excellent flash drives. I have
a few and love them. Very reliable.
Ron,

Thanks. My son offered the opinion that I may have purchased a 'bad' 2G flash; I suppose that that is possible.

Thanks also for the Corsair info. Most of the negative stuff I read had to do with it having the rubber casing (nothing negative about speed or storage).
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post #4 of 50
11/24/08 at 7:19am

Re: Flash Drives

you might try putting the disk back in and emptying the trash too. sometimes even though you move something to the trash and then take the disk out, its still reading it as there and wont write over it til its emptied.
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post #5 of 50
11/24/08 at 10:16am

Re: Flash Drives

A 2GB memory card will hold twice as much photos, documents, etc. as a 1GB card. Period. If yours does not, something's amiss.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shane D
you might try putting the disk back in and emptying the trash too. sometimes even though you move something to the trash and then take the disk out, its still reading it as there and wont write over it til its emptied.
A weakness of OS X, historic holdover from the old days, is that you must empty the trash for the entire system to truly delete files from removable media.

Until the trash is emptied, the files remain, hidden, on your flash drive.
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post #6 of 50
11/24/08 at 5:01pm

Re: Flash Drives

Dave is right!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Had this happen many times.

If you are using a MAC and a flash drive and have deleted files
off of it, that flash drive is not truly empty until you have emptied
the trash can.
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post #7 of 50
11/24/08 at 5:41pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Thanks to all for the help.

I am not using a Mac; could this make a difference in the storage capacity of the flash drive?

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
A 2GB memory card will hold twice as much photos, documents, etc. as a 1GB card. Period. If yours does not, something's amiss.
Dave,

I agree. That's why it seemed odd to me. The thumb drive is one of those where the U3 Launchpad comes up on the screen, and moves around a bit before it goes away.

When I plug it in, if often says 'E' cannot be read, whereas 'F' can be read. I thought that maybe it was a thumb drive with two drives, but I don't think so, as the maximum amount of pics it can hold is around 240, and only on the 'F' drive.

With this 64GB flash drive I have coming soon, I figure it ought to have a bit more space than either my 1GB or 2GB drives.
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post #8 of 50
11/24/08 at 8:43pm

Re: Flash Drives

The U3 system takes up some space. I don't know how many programs are pre-installed, but perhaps there's enough there to drop your usable space noticably. So, if you don't use the U3 system, I suggest plugging it into a computer formatting it, and checking the available memory.

If you're using Windows, I believe it deletes files fully from the flash memory fully when you drag to the trash. But you can make sure by plugging it into the PC you originally deleted the files from and emptying the trash.

Regarding the E & F drives -- there are many possibilities. You might have a conflict with an existing removable or network drive. I've also seen computers that just don't read some USB drives correctly and dont' register the drive correctly.
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post #9 of 50
11/24/08 at 8:58pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
The U3 system takes up some space. I don't know how many programs are pre-installed, but perhaps there's enough there to drop your usable space noticably. So, if you don't use the U3 system, I suggest plugging it into a computer formatting it, and checking the available memory.

If you're using Windows, I believe it deletes files fully from the flash memory fully when you drag to the trash. But you can make sure by plugging it into the PC you originally deleted the files from and emptying the trash.

Regarding the E & F drives -- there are many possibilities. You might have a conflict with an existing removable or network drive. I've also seen computers that just don't read some USB drives correctly and dont' register the drive correctly.
Dave,

Many thanks. I'll try what you've suggested. I think your thought about a possible conflict between E & F drives could be spot on, now that I think of the messages I've received when I've used the stick.

Hopefully these problems won't exist (or if they do, will be negligible as far as storage space is concerned) with the 64GB.
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post #10 of 50
11/25/08 at 7:30am

Re: Flash Drives

i had a drive that had that u3 stuff on it and i found a program thru the manufacteres website that removed it all from the drive and it worked correctly after that.

the one i had was a 2gig and i could only access 1.5gig until i removed that stuff

edit: that u3 stuff cannot be removed with just a format. you can't touch/delete/change any aspect of that 'extra' drive. Mine wasn't kensington though.
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post #11 of 50
11/25/08 at 7:54am
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shane D
i had a drive that had that u3 stuff on it and i found a program thru the manufacteres website that removed it all from the drive and it worked correctly after that.

the one i had was a 2gig and i could only access 1.5gig until i removed that stuff

edit: that u3 stuff cannot be removed with just a format. you can't touch/delete/change any aspect of that 'extra' drive. Mine wasn't kensington though.
Shane,

Thanks. I may try to discard that stuff; on the other hand, I may not need to be that concerned about it once I have a 64GB. That U3 stuff is somewhat annoying, isn't it?
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post #12 of 50
11/27/08 at 7:46am
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Something dawned on me yesterday with regard to storage space on flash drives. So I tested my theory, and it yielded impressive results.

Here are a couple of sample files of mine:

TrekGorn.38
TrekHorta.123

I changed the length of the file names to:

Trek.38
Trek.123

I did this for about 100 files, and I had a ton more space on the drive. I suppose this is elementary to most here, but I hadn't thought that this would make a substantial difference--which it did. I guess my file names were just too long!
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post #13 of 50
11/27/08 at 9:14am

Re: Flash Drives

That makes no sense. Filename length has nothing to do with available capacity on a harddrive. There's something else going on.
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post #14 of 50
11/27/08 at 1:10pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
That makes no sense. Filename length has nothing to do with available capacity on a harddrive. There's something else going on.
That could be. But that's what occurred when I changed the names of hundreds of files. I'm just pleased I now have hundreds of files at my disposal due to my having changed the length of my file names (even if this is not the cause of the problem).
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post #15 of 50
11/29/08 at 11:00am
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Dave et al.,

How does one empty the trash on one's flash drive? I've not done this before. I deleted everything off of one of my flash drives. It says it's empty, but before I begin adding files to it again I'd like to be sure. Thanks.

BTW, on my 'F' and 'G' drives on the 2GB, the following still remains:

autorun.inf
Launchpad.zip
LaunchU3.exe

I could delete these from the 'G' drive of the 2GB, but not from the 'F' drive of the 2GB. It informs me that these are 'read only' files.
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post #16 of 50
11/29/08 at 8:06pm

Re: Flash Drives

You're on a Mac, right? Drag files to the trash and empty the trash on the desktop.

I don't understand why your 2GB flash has two partitions. That may indicate a larger problem. I suggest copying off files you care about and formatting it with a single partition.
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post #17 of 50
11/29/08 at 8:35pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
You're on a Mac, right? Drag files to the trash and empty the trash on the desktop.
No, I'm not on a Mac.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
I don't understand why your 2GB flash has two partitions. That may indicate a larger problem. I suggest copying off files you care about and formatting it with a single partition.
I don't understand it either. But I will format it with a single partition. This will probably solve the problem. Thanks.
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post #18 of 50
11/30/08 at 8:29am

Re: Flash Drives

In Windows, you simply delete the files. You can empty the desktop trash for good measure, but I don't think it's necessary with removable drives.
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post #19 of 50
11/30/08 at 9:16am

Re: Flash Drives

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
That makes no sense. Filename length has nothing to do with available capacity on a harddrive. There's something else going on.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Since flash drives are usually formatted with FAT32, there is a hard limit of file entries for the root directory, something that is relatively easily reached by having long filenames.

FAT was never made to deal with more than 8.3 filenames, so the way they made long filenames possible is to use additional, invisible directory entries to store long filenames. However, once the limit of possible directory entries is reached, the device appears "full", since no more directory entries can be made.

Using only 8.3 filenames helps work around that problem, as does moving files into subdirectories, IIRC.

-Christian
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post #20 of 50
12/1/08 at 4:49pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Dave and Christian,

Thanks for the help! Much appreciated.

BTW, my 64GB is working wonderfully. It's astonishing to me how much data this tiny item can hold.
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post #21 of 50
6/8/09 at 9:54am
Thread Starter 

Re: Flash Drives

Hello. I'm hoping that someone may know the answer to this.

I have a flash drive that has what my colleagues refer to as the 'silly virus.' When I plug it in and look at its properties under "My Computer," a folder icon appears rather than a hard drive icon. I was told to click on 'Explore,' and then to delete 'Autorun.inf' which I have done. But the folder still comes up when I plug it in for the next session. Nothing seems to be corrupted -- either text files or images. Do I need to dump/transfer the contents elsewhere and then reformat the drive? If so, what is a good way to do the transfer -- on to my hard drive, or somewhere else? Many thanks for anyone who might know what I need to do.

Addendum: I've scanned for viruses and have used Mallwarebytes Anti-Mallware. Each time I do this, it says there are no problems or infections / risks, etc.
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post #22 of 50
7/14/09 at 1:52pm
Thread Starter 
Now this is a bit odd. It's similar to the problem I encountered with my 1 GB and 2 GB flash drives several months ago. In fact, that problem is what prompted me to purchase a 64 GB flash drive. I figured I'd have enough space for a lifetime.

I have a 64 GB flash drive that appears to be full. When I look at the properties, it says I have used 8.82 GB, and have 51.3 GB of free space left. However, I cannot save any more .jpgs. Very odd indeed. When I try, it says the attempt failed. I have tried this several times with the same result.

I did a Mallware clean-up, to see how many pics I have currently on the drive. It's around 25,000. Does this make sense to anyone -- that I would not be able to download any more pics? I can't figure it out.

Here is the message I received when I tried it again this morning:

E:\Gamesters3104.jpg could not be saved, because a file already exists with the same name as the '_files' directory.

Try saving to a different location.

I know that there is no file with the same name, and that I have over 51 GB of free space left. Does anyone know what the problem could be? My guess is that I have reached the limit for pics that can be downloaded, although I have to ask why I still (seemingly) have all of this free space remaining.

Additional information: I have a capacity of 60.1 GB, and when I shorten the file name (e.g., to Game3104.jpg), I am able to download the picture.

Does anyone have any ideas why this might be occurring? Thanks for any help that may be provided. :)

Edited by Ockeghem - 7/15/2009 at 01:26 pm GMT
Edited by Ockeghem - 7/15/2009 at 01:36 pm GMT
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post #23 of 50
7/15/09 at 7:25am
Thread Starter 


Quote:
Originally Posted by Christian Behrens View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
That makes no sense. Filename length has nothing to do with available capacity on a harddrive. There's something else going on.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Since flash drives are usually formatted with FAT32, there is a hard limit of file entries for the root directory, something that is relatively easily reached by having long filenames.

FAT was never made to deal with more than 8.3 filenames, so the way they made long filenames possible is to use additional, invisible directory entries to store long filenames. However, once the limit of possible directory entries is reached, the device appears "full", since no more directory entries can be made.

Using only 8.3 filenames helps work around that problem, as does moving files into subdirectories, IIRC.

-Christian

Christian,

My flash drive is formatted with FAT32. From everything I have experienced with this (and previous) flash drives, what you have described above seems to be the problem. I do have some very long file names (some in excess of twenty-five characters, including the .jpg extension). I think you're on to something here.

"However, once the limit of possible directory entries is reached, the device appears "full", since no more directory entries can be made."

Yes, the evidence suggests that this is what is going on.

Question: What does '8.3 filenames' mean? Is this synonymous with 8 characters + 3-character extension?

Also, how do I create subdirectories on a flash drive?




Edited by Ockeghem - 7/15/2009 at 04:19 pm GMT
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post #24 of 50
7/15/09 at 7:52am
N/T
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post #25 of 50
7/15/09 at 8:02am
Thread Starter 
DaveF,

Do you happen to know how to create a subdirectory on a flash drive? It's probably very easy to do, but I've never tried it before.

I've been experimenting this morning with files. I've added about 100 pics to the flash, using much shorter file names. For example, instead of writing "GamestersofTriskelion2600.jpg," I have been using "Gamesters2600.jpg," and finally, "Gamester1.jpg." The shorter I make the file name, the more free space I apparently have to use.  I am guessing that creating subdirectories will solve this problem, but I really don't know.

If nothing else, I now know approximately how many files I can have on a 64 GB drive without regard to conserving filename length.

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post #26 of 50
7/15/09 at 8:03am
I don't know anything about a filename length limit in FAT32, but I can tell you that there is an absolute limit on the number of named objects that can exist at the root of a drive.  It is either 256 or 512 (working from memory here), so that could well be your problem. The simple solution in that case is to create a folder or two and put the pictures inside it.   

And it isn't necessarily true that a flash drive with twice the capacity can hold twice the number of picture (or documents, or smiley faces.)  Drive "A" may be able to store 250 1 MB photos, but drive "B" - with twice the capacity - will not be able to hold 500 photos if the new pictures have a file size of 2 MB.   File size is what matters, not number of objects.  All things being equal a 2GB drive should hold twice as much as a 1GB drive, but all things are rarely equal. 

Regards,

Joe
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post #27 of 50
7/15/09 at 8:45am
Thread Starter 


Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino View Post

I don't know anything about a filename length limit in FAT32, but I can tell you that there is an absolute limit on the number of named objects that can exist at the root of a drive. It is either 256 or 512 (working from memory here), so that could well be your problem. The simple solution in that case is to create a folder or two and put the pictures inside it.

And it isn't necessarily true that a flash drive with twice the capacity can hold twice the number of picture (or documents, or smiley faces.) Drive "A" may be able to store 250 1 MB photos, but drive "B" - with twice the capacity - will not be able to hold 500 photos if the new pictures have a file size of 2 MB. File size is what matters, not number of objects. All things being equal a 2GB drive should hold twice as much as a 1GB drive, but all things are rarely equal.

Regards,

Joe

Joe,
 

Thanks. That makes sense.

Can you describe how to create a folder on a flash drive? And once I create the folder, do I need to change the length of filenames from what they were when they were part of the root directory to something shorter in the newly created folder?

{Some of you are probably thinking, this guy has seventeen advanced degrees in the arts and sciences, knows almost as much as Mike Frezon about baseball, and yet cannot create a folder? Sheesh. Where has he been all his life?}



Edited by Ockeghem - 7/15/2009 at 03:56 pm GMT
Edited by Ockeghem - 7/15/2009 at 04:14 pm GMT
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post #28 of 50
7/15/09 at 8:58am
Scott,

Creating a folder on a flash drive works the same as on any other drive. For Windows, right-click on the window that shows the contents of the drive and select "New -> Folder". Considering that you seem to have a lot of pictures on your drive, naming it "Pictures" and moving all your .jpgs into that folder would make sense.

And to answer your earlier question, yes, 8.3 filenames refers to the original limits of 8 characters for the actual name and 3 characters for the extension.

-Christian
 
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post #29 of 50
7/15/09 at 9:03am
Thread Starter 


Quote:
Originally Posted by Christian Behrens View Post

Scott,

Creating a folder on a flash drive works the same as on any other drive. For Windows, right-click on the window that shows the contents of the drive and select "New -> Folder". Considering that you seem to have a lot of pictures on your drive, naming it "Pictures" and moving all your .jpgs into that folder would make sense.

And to answer your earlier question, yes, 8.3 filenames refers to the original limits of 8 characters for the actual name and 3 characters for the extension.

-Christian

Christian,

Thank you. I will give that a try and see if I free up a ton of space.

If you happen to know the answer to my last line above (whether or not I need to change the length of filenames from what they were when they were part of the root directory to something shorter in the newly created folder), that would be greatly appreciated!

Okay, creating a folder or two was a snap, thanks to your instructions. Now I have to figure out how to move them into it -- dragging will be somewhat cumbersome, since the folders are moved back to the beginning of the contents, and the alphabetical arrangement I now have and the newly created folder are quite far from one another.

Okay, I think I figured it out.  In IE, I just highlighted all of the pics, and then chose "Move to ...", and that seems to have worked fine.  Now I hope that my space problem is solved. :)



Edited by Ockeghem - 7/15/2009 at 04:29 pm GMT
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post #30 of 50
7/15/09 at 9:45am
Thread Starter 
Thank you to all who helped! The problem is solved. I can create file names as long as Prince Fielder's home runs without any problem.

Much appreciated, Joseph and Christian. :) :)
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