Why is my USB flash drive so slow on my home computer, but not at work?

[superboyac]

I have a Sandisk 512 MB SUB flash drive.  On my home computer, transferring to/from it is as slow as an ox, like over 5 minutes to transfer 100 MB.  However, the same drive, when I use it at work transfers blazing fast, like 10 MB per second.  What's the deal?  All of my USB ports at home are 2.0.  And it doesn't matter where I plug it in, either the usb ports that come attached to the mother board, or the extra belkin 4-usb-port pci card that I've installed.  I don't get it.  Anyone else ever have this problem?

[noth(a)nk.you]

I feel your pain on the slow transfer rate--somewhere in my mass of wires, something has gone awry to leave me at USB1 speeds.

On your problem, it might be some incompatibility between your drive and motherboard/USB port.  I know that the computers in one of the labs here (a university) came equipped with very finnicky ports (computers built by some company down in Georgia), and roughly 80% of USB drives do not work _at all_ in these machines. 

My suggestion, do you have access to another brand of drive to try instead of  yours?

[Carol Haynes]

Have you got any USB1 devices plugged into any of your USB2 ports? USB 1 devices can knock down all other USB 2 ports to USB 1 speeds.

If you have got USB1 devices try unplugging them and see if your USB2 devices speed up.

If not try a cheap USB2 PCI card (you can get them for a few dollars) so that you have a separate USB2 interface.

[superboyac]

Have you got any USB1 devices plugged into any of your USB2 ports? USB 1 devices can knock down all other USB 2 ports to USB 1 speeds.

If you have got USB1 devices try unplugging them and see if your USB2 devices speed up.

If not try a cheap USB2 PCI card (you can get them for a few dollars) so that you have a separate USB2 interface.

-Carol Haynes (April 07, 2006, 10:36 AM)

Actually, I have a joystick attached to one of the neighboring ports that is probably usb1.  I'll give that a shot when I go home.  I think everything else is 2.0, but I'll check.  If that's true, that really sucks...so I can't mix devices?  lame.

[Carol Haynes]

If it sorts the problem try moving the Joystick to different USB sockets - what I have found is that is USB2 hubs have a priority over the sockets - maybe it is just a fixed scanning order. The first USB1 device encountered seems to reduce the speed of all the following devices, so if you can get the USB2 devices first in the queue it might work. Basically first of all unplug everything except you flash drive and see if that cures the problem - if it does fiddle with the device order until you have everything working the way you want. If you can't get everything to behave together (but do when you joystick is unplugged) then either buy a new joystick or a cheap USB PCI card for the joystick to play through.