yea i suppose. the max on my mainboard is only 2.0. old board meh

can u try using H2testw on it?

Yes but it still can reach to the maximum speed of USB 2.0. - 30/30 mb/s

now KL market those thumbdrive wan find a 19mb/s write speed also couldnt c yet.

pen drive slide model is even slower than pqi i830
3.25mb/s write speed

wonder will the u339 xt perform better than this one a lot or not.




Attached thumbnail(s)

ok my cruzer seems died/corrupted
it turned into 2 64mb partitions instead of single 8gb partition
not really sure how to fix this, will grab a new one i guess

any good performance drive to intro lately? i really like my cruzer build n design


@super macgyver
still carrying cruzer contour?

This post has been edited by Kyl3: May 29 2011, 08:20 PM

I want to buy a new external harddrive. 1 or 2 tera. But the thing is, i do not know which one to buy and hopefully its not too pricey.

Any recommended software to benchmark my flash drive / thumb drive?

Hi, I've just stumbled across this thread with lots of info.
Some time ago I've bought a Cruzer Contour 8GB (older "cruzer" model with pouch) that was performing as advertised. But after running the U3 launchpad removal, write speed fell from ~18 to 15MBs.
I'd like to know if this is due to some sort of caching that the original software was performing, or if the loss of performance is due a wrong alignment of the new partition, but I have no brand new pendrive to check how it came from factory.

Using diskpart, from an admin CMD, and
DISKPART>LIST DISK
DISKPART>SELECT DISK #
DISKPART>LIST PARTITION

it displays a new created partition with an offset of 31KB, which is the default for pre-Vista MS oses, and might degrade performance on a flash drive due to 512b alignment. This active partition was created by launchpadremoval.exe.

Can anyone with a still factory U3'd Contour please tell me which are the offsets and cluster sizes for the original partitions? I'd like to confirm where the performance degradation comes from, which I haven't seen yet any explanation other than removing U3. Thanks!

This post has been edited by justtesting: May 31 2011, 01:02 AM

Great news for Cruzer Contour Users, the write performance problem caused by removing U3 is indeed related to a new wrong partition alignment created by programs, and not by the removal of U3 by itself.
By cleaning the older partition made by lauchpadremoval.exe that was aligned to 31KB, and creating a newer one via windows diskpart (now aligned to 1024KB) performance is up again from ~15MBs to >~18MBs. Read performance has gone down a bit, but knowing the exact original alignment and cluster size should improve that little bit, for which a 32KB cluster size might degrade.

Cruzer Contour 8GB FAT32 4KB, 31KB Alignment


Cruzer Contour 8GB exFAT 32KB, 1024KB Alignment


I'd still like to ask any of you with a factory partitioned Countour to check it's alignment, that should also be optimized for 4KB block aligned writes. Knowing cluster size for it's default fat32 partition would be nice too.

For anyone wishing to repartition and format their Contour after losing write performance, do as followed under Windows 7/Vista:

Run diskpart, from an admin CMD, and
DISKPART>LIST DISK
DISKPART>SELECT DISK # (this is very important, because if you select the wrong drive, you'll completely erase it!)
DISKPART>LIST PARTITION (to check if the current one is badly offset to 31KB)
DISKPART>CLEAN (you can't go back now, all data will be lost!)
DISKPART>CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY (to create a new partition that fills the whole drive)
DISKPART>ACTIVE (If you wish this to be an active partition)
DISKPART>LIST PARTITION (to check if the newly created one is aligned to 1024KB*)

Reformat then your partition to prefered FS under explorer that will pop up a format prompt for that drive, or via Computer Management. It's not as practical via prompt. If it isn't assigned a drive letter (it should keep the same as it had), you can do it either via Computer Management, or via ASSIGN X: command in diskpart.

*windows Vista/7 might also align partition to 64KB if the drive is smaller (at least it does it on 2GB drives, but I haven't any 4GB Contour to test it), but that's also a correct multiple of 4KB. Other alignments can also be specified by adding CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY align=n, where n is the offset as 1024KB for align=1024. But be aware that diskpart doesn't seem to create anything under 32KB.

Running launchpadremoval.exe again or the HP USB Format tool will restore the flash drive to the previous unoptimized legacy 31KB alignment.

I've done this on older Cruzer 2GB RB and Cruzer 16GB models with no substancial write performance increases.

Hope this helps!

edit: corrected partition info to FAT32 on first screenshot

This post has been edited by justtesting: Jun 6 2011, 09:51 PM

this transend model already arrive in lowyat...saw in startec...8gb around 65 i think...

e,how u know i using contour 16gb with pounch bag?

u can try go for either bufallo or seagate 5yr warranty model.

H2testW

meaning after doing tis on ur drive, u also feel not much difference ar?

This is the fastest read/write speed I ever see:

126.26/74.5

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=731&pgno=6

"it would take under 14 minutes to completely fill out this 32 GB flash drive, and under 9 minutes to copy out its entire contents."

On the Cruzer Contour 8GB performance improved a lot as you can see on my screenshots. It completely restored the 5 MB/s performance loss caused by removing U3, which again, is not related to U3 but to an incorrect partition alignment caused by launchpadremoval.exe or HP USB Format tool (for using an offset of 31KB). This has already been discussed on this thread, were the general consensus was not to remove U3 because of this performance loss - now you know it's possible to gain it back.

What I meant to say in the end of the post, was that on my other regular Cruzer drives (not Countour!), a -RB 2GB and 16GB, a correct partition alignment didn't cause such major performance boost.

If you still have a Contour, could you please post the output of:

Using diskpart, from an admin CMD, and
DISKPART>LIST DISK
DISKPART>SELECT DISK #
DISKPART>LIST PARTITION

Just to check what was the original partitions offset, and if possible, tell me the also the cluster size. Thanks!

This post has been edited by justtesting: Jun 16 2011, 02:18 AM

i'm using SanDisk Cruzer Contour 8GB and here's the outcome

before the tweak


after the tweak


for comparison with the C:\


it does improve a lot.

This post has been edited by sniper69: Jun 16 2011, 08:17 AM

Thanks for the confirmation, so it looks to be valid on any Contour that lost write performance after repartitioning.
My lower read speeds are due to a SB750, this controller caps USB transfers around 25MBs with any device.

so i just need to run tis 3 command to get back my default speed ar?

can u pls test using the h2testw software ar?

No, those instructions are to check actual settings. I put them for anyone to report how was their Contour originally.
After doing that, and if you have the performance reduction, most likely your partition offset is 31KB.

See my second post (#2091) for complete instructions on how to clean and repartition. Take special care to select the correct usb drive, because all information on selected drive will be lost. Understanding every step is very important!

This post has been edited by justtesting: Jun 17 2011, 08:58 PM

Currently, what is the fastest 4GB and 8GB flash drive?