Will USB 3.0 Work As Fast On a USB 2.0 Port?

[tedalin]

Are you sure the format wasn't exFAT? A file does have to be smaller than 4GB to be stored on FAT32, but exFAT doesn't have that limitation.

Hi, ceebee. I made a mistake. Youre right. I checked on that file on my usb flash drive and it says 3.7GB. Sorry for the confusion.

I'm now thinking about getting an external drive. The thing is, I already placed an order with amazon for the 32GB usb flash drive. And its now too late to cancel the order. I wish I knew about the advantage of the external drive before placing the order.

Given this situation, what do you think i should do?

[Ferrit]

Buy them both they each have their own uses.

[tedalin]

Buy them both they each have their own uses.

I cant buy both. its either one or the other.

[CeeBee]

Then get an external drive. It's not like you will ever have a need of carrying the backup at your key chain. If you need some data with you a small 2-4GB drive will likely be more than enough.

[slgrieb]

Absolutely. Particularly for a memory stick where you have no cache... You aren't going to read/write faster than what the stick can do.
For a hard drive the story is different as you have some cache, data may be read/written in larger chunks and cached.
However for a memory stick more data is sent only after previous reads/writes are completed.

Right, but cache memory is still small in relation to the transfer rates provided by current interfaces. Interestingly, you can't even say "Well, this interface provides for the enhanced performance of future storage devices." because, pretty soon, PCI-E 3.0 and compatible SSDs are going to make everything else look really shabby. Most of the recent R&D on conventional hard drives has been more about raising capacity than performance.

[slgrieb]

Then get an external drive. It's not like you will ever have a need of carrying the backup at your key chain. If you need some data with you a small 2-4GB drive will likely be more than enough.

If you are considering an external storage device for backup, hard drives are still a better buy than pendrives. They offer far more capacity for the money. Pendrives are like briefcases, good for carrying a small amount of important data that you might need immediately, but not really a replacement for a filing cabinet.

[tedalin]

If you are considering an external storage device for backup, hard drives are still a better buy than pendrives. They offer far more capacity for the money. Pendrives are like briefcases, good for carrying a small amount of important data that you might need immediately, but not really a replacement for a filing cabinet.

hi, slgrieb. the reason why i originally got a pen drive is for convenience. its small and has a large capacity. the one i ordered from amazon is 32gb.

i want to backup my computer on it. although my hard drive is 28gb large, i'll shrink it down to 15gb and use a program to make a backup image of it. i got an a 2 year old pendrive that i used to make an image of my other computer with. and it still works, even after 2 years. and the image backup is still intact.

though i'm not saying that a pen drive is superior to an external drive, it does serve its purpose, given my experience. let me know what you think. thanks.

.

[slgrieb]

A pendrive will work fine for your purposes. In my case, I've got years of accounting and business info, etc., so I really need the capacity of a hard drive.

[tedalin]

A pendrive will work fine for your purposes. In my case, I've got years of accounting and business info, etc., so I really need the capacity of a hard drive.

hi, slgrieb.. you sound like a man with lots of accounting experience with lots and lots of quickbooks experience... lol.. i'm trying to learn quickbooks myself.. on a side note, do u know of any online tutorials where i can receive daily quickbooks assignments to help me further improve my quickbooks skills? thanks slgrieb. i'd appreciate your feedback if you know of any.

[tedalin]

Then get an external drive. It's not like you will ever have a need of carrying the backup at your key chain. If you need some data with you a small 2-4GB drive will likely be more than enough.

Hi ceebee. i got a problem that maybe u can help me with. my 32gb flash drive arrived today. i formatted it to ntfs. but now it runs too slow. and i cant convert back to fat32 because the file that im backing up is much larger than the 4gb that fat32 will allow. what do u think i should do now?

[CeeBee]

Hi ceebee. i got a problem that maybe u can help me with. my 32gb flash drive arrived today. i formatted it to ntfs. but now it runs too slow. and i cant convert back to fat32 because the file that im backing up is much larger than the 4gb that fat32 will allow. what do u think i should do now?

Well since you went against the advice received to get an external drive you'll have to either stick with the slow speed or format fat32 and use a different utility to backup files. Decent backup utilities allow setting a maximum file size for the backup and larger backups will generate several files.
Note it's still going to be ~5x slower than an external drive.

[tedalin]

Well since you went against the advice received to get an external drive you'll have to either stick with the slow speed or format fat32 and use a different utility to backup files. Decent backup utilities allow setting a maximum file size for the backup and larger backups will generate several files.
Note it's still going to be ~5x slower than an external drive.

hi ceebee.. i got the problem solved. i got a backup program that allows one to make a backup image copy of xp and it splits the file into chunks, even with fat32. i made a backup image of my computer to my usb flash drive in 30 minutes! thanks man.

also, i got a pagefile.sys thats 2GB big and i want to delete cuz its so big. is it ok to delete it? will i run into proiblems if i do?

[slgrieb]

hi, slgrieb.. you sound like a man with lots of accounting experience with lots and lots of quickbooks experience... lol.. i'm trying to learn quickbooks myself.. on a side note, do u know of any online tutorials where i can receive daily quickbooks assignments to help me further improve my quickbooks skills? thanks slgrieb. i'd appreciate your feedback if you know of any.

Actually, (going back about 40 years ago), my first wife's father was an accountant, and I did some bookkeeping for him. My wife trained me, and then after she got her MPA (Master of Professional Accounting) degree, I got some more exposure to basic accounting. That's helpful in setting up Quickbooks. But honestly, I don't know where to go for basic info except formal classes, or Quickbooks online support. I think it's helpful to have some basic understanding of how to set up a chart of accounts and a general journal before creating a company in Quickbooks, but it isn't absolutely essential.

[tedalin]

Actually, (going back about 40 years ago), my first wife's father was an accountant, and I did some bookkeeping for him. My wife trained me, and then after she got her MPA (Master of Professional Accounting) degree, I got some more exposure to basic accounting. That's helpful in setting up Quickbooks. But honestly, I don't know where to go for basic info except formal classes, or Quickbooks online support. I think it's helpful to have some basic understanding of how to set up a chart of accounts and a general journal before creating a company in Quickbooks, but it isn't absolutely essential.

Thanks.,