When i go to defrag my USB 8GB memory stick, my pc gets painfully slow?

Patty O Furniture

Hi,

Hopefully someone can help me with this problem?

Apologies if this is long, but i dont want to leave anything out, as i'll be back later in the afternoon.

The reason why i defragged the usb memory stick as it was slow copying avi files from the ext hard drive to the usb stick (to watch on a television with a usb slot) as it only used to take about 2-3mins for a 350MB file, but since the last while its takin up to 12m instead? As i've done it before as it was recommended to do it

I tried it out on a laptop (not mine) & only takes about 1-2m to copy over?

So i didnt know whether it was the USB stick or the PC? (as i was copying files from the pc as well)

As soon as i open up Disk Defragmenter to defrag the usb stick the pc grounds to a halt & takes a long time to do a command & then eventually it will, but afterwards i check the Defragmentation Report as it says (in which i've seen before)

''Some files on this volume could not be defragmented. Please check the defragmentation report for the list of these files''

I click on View Report & it stays like that still at the moment (as i'm writing this on a laptop)

I thought maybe it was the pc from the last time as it has about 16% so i defragmented it last week!

USB memory stick has about 17%
Also i have an 500 GB external hard drive at 33%
I assumed the reason it was going quick all the other times was that the ext hd was usb3.0, but you would need a 3.0 usb on the pc, is that right?

Thanks for any help received.

yoyo

Flash memory does not need and should not be defragmented. Defragging a flash drive can cause problems with it, see here. You should only defragment mechanical drives

Nick

sink

What Yoyo said.

The reason why you need to defrag a hard disk drive is because it read/writes bits sequentially on a spinning platter of magnetic disks, not unlike a vinyl record/CD. If you have a file that is spread across multiple sectors (fragmentation) it takes time for the head to move into place to read the bits, de-fragmentation rearranges files so that all the bits are in one neat sequential block and the head won't have to move as much and so the file will be read faster.

A USB thumb drive is based on flash memory which has no moving parts and is simply a microchip. As such it can read bits from multiple sectors with any delay and so the is no need to store bits sequentially.

Patty O Furniture

Thanks for the replies, as i'm only able to get back to this, but i've read some of the articles Askleo had.
I really had no idea on not to defrag my USB memory stick would cause damage in the long run.

There was no problem with copying avi files from the the usb memory stick to the laptop as it took no time.

Why is it takin longer now as it didnt earlier to copying avi files from the ext hard drive to the usb memory stick.

The PC grounds to a halt, could be something with 512 MB memory, but i barely use it for browsing & maybe get rid of some programs i barely use,

maybe the registry needs cleaning(of what i've heard, but i wouldnt touch w/out advice)

maybe the ext hard drive could do with defragging?

As i've limited knowledge on pc know-how, so the help here will go a long way of being reassured.

Thanks

CreepingDeath

Patty O Furniture wrote: »

The reason why i defragged the usb memory stick as it was slow copying avi files from the ext hard drive to the usb stick (to watch on a television with a usb slot) as it only used to take about 2-3mins for a 350MB file, but since the last while its takin up to 12m instead? As i've done it before as it was recommended to do it

Cheap usb flash drives tend to be slow as a rule.

When you plug it into your computer do you get any sort of warning about USB performance ? It may not be a USB 2 flash drive or USB 2 sockets on your computer.

In general the USB ports at the back of your computer are faster / more reliable, as they're directly on the motherboard.

There's a few tools to check the performance of your USB drive too... Linky

Patty O Furniture

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Cheap usb flash drives tend to be slow as a rule.

When you plug it into your computer do you get any sort of warning about USB performance ? It may not be a USB 2 flash drive or USB 2 sockets on your computer.

In general the USB ports at the back of your computer are faster / more reliable, as they're directly on the motherboard.

There's a few tools to check the performance of your USB drive too... Linky

Yeah i know the warning, to tell you where better to use it, there are 2 USB ports at the back & front
The back ports are certainly faster as you say instead of the front.

But to save me from sliding out the pc from the desk to take out the Memory stick from the back panel, i use a (1.5m) 4-port USB Hub to connect at the back
the USB ports certainly were a lot faster, as i got that panel replaced i think it was USB1.1 & afterwards it was faster so i assume it was USB 2.0.

There's no problem with speed when i copy files onto a laptop only when i copy files from the ext HD to the memory stick thats the problem.