Help: Recommend flash drive(s) for small files

[Cloq]

I am having a hard time finding flash drives that are small file(s) friendly (read fast write/delete).

The brands I have used: Corsair, Super Talent, Lifetime, Edge, PNY. Capacity range: 2GB - 16GB.

Relatively speaking, they all tanked when it came to dealing with small files (4KB and smaller).

Just recently, I spent a couple hours moving ~13K files (most) under 4KB size. Total amount: 5GB.  

All my flash drives are really fast when it comes to dealing with big files (over a meg).
As a test I copied 5 files, each 1GB and that process only took a few minutes.

Recommendations? Anyone?

[timns]

Zip up your small files first?

[Cloq]

I sync to my flash drive, and occasionally I back it up to another flash drive, structure and all.

I am thinking of syncing to a cloud storage service but the downside to that is always have to have the internet available. 

[wraith808]

Here's a thread on this.  It's from 2009, but there's a lot of good info.

You could probably run tests on it and get good info on the actual transfers; there's some info on that here.  Again, it's from 2009, but the program links provided still work other than Chip Genius and Check Flash.

Chip Genius seems to be at http://www.fake-memory.com/index.html, though it seems that this site is only for verifying if a chip is fake (the original purpose of that post).  More on Check Flash (and some other speed utilities) can be found at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-lightweight-tools-to-check-the-speed-of-your-usb-flash-drive-windows/, and a download link for Check Flash can be found at http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/Check-Flash.shtml.

I use the cloud sync route; I was concerned about having the internet available, but it's not really a big issue, it turns out (at least for me).  I can recommend Dropbox and Jungle Disk for the sync.

[4wd]

ChipGenius' home is at MyDigit, (Chinese), but you can also download it from here.

[Cloq]

@wraith808

Thanks! Informative site. Bookmarked.

[f0dder]

You could set your filesystem cluster to the flash erase-block size - that should speed up things, but is also (possibly) going to waste a lot of space... and it might not be possible to find the erase-block size without trial and error.

[Cloq]

I am currently looking at an eSATA/USB flash drive (kanguru or super talent).

Looks interesting from everthing I am reading, plus I have an esata port on the top of my case.

Anyone used one of those yet?

[rjbull]

Just wondering: would it help to use TeraCopy?