Hi, I’ve been looking for sometime how to resolve this problem and I still don’t find an answer so maybe you can help me.
The case is that everytime I try to copy a big file to a pendrive the velocity start falling and 1gb could spend about half an hour. If I try to use another application like chromium the system turns so slow that is imposible to work.
This doesn’t happen with an usb hard drive and this usb pendrive works just fine in mac os x and Windows.
I’ve found some answers that aren’t my case, the problem in opensuse 9 or 10 don’t remember that the problem was the rsync option while mounting the drive.
I’m using now opensuse 11.2
So if anyone of you have an answer it will be very welcome :’(.
Thks
Although I am not the right person to answer, if you need help you will need to be a bit more specific.
Exact program where the problem manifests, kernel version, name and version of the USB key you are using, usb-version of the mainboard (USB3/2/1), producer of the mainboard, chipset of the mainboard, did you try other slots to connect, is this a rear or frontpanel or a hub where you connect the key etc.
If this is a problem of drivers, one need this info to help.
If this is a problem of OS then one need well defined into about the kernel and drivers used.
If this is a problem of only a subset of programs you should define the exact version.
Providing all this, I am confident somebody will be able to help you in some way, maybe not giving you the solution but maybe pointing you in the right direction.
Good luck.
The problem is that everytime that I try to copy a big file to a pendrive, it happens with any usb2 pendrive formatted as FAT32, the speed at first is good but then it starts falling arriving at velocities of 350kb and things like that.
These are some data of my OS:
Kernel Release:2.6.31.12-0.2-default
Kernel Version: #1 SMP 2010-03-16 21:25:39 +0100
marcos@linux-idgl:~> uname -a
Linux linux-idgl 2.6.31.12-0.2-default #1 SMP 2010-03-16
I’m working on a DELL Optiplex SX280 and the usb-version of the mainboard is USB2 and it happens in all the USB slots of the machine.
I’ve been working with Linux for sometime but I’m not very good configuring it, so tell me If you need more info and I’ll be a good boy boy and I’ll post it.
PD: Thanks for the tip Stakanov
How big is the file? The problem could well be the format in FAT32. Recall that you have a max limit of 4GB. If the file is bigger the transport will abort.
The case is that everytime I try to copy a big file to a pendrive the velocity start falling and 1gb could spend about half an hour. If I try to use another application like chromium the system turns so slow that is imposible to work.
Would be interesting to know if actually ‘cp’ is hogging your resources, so I suggest taking a look at ‘top’ or another process monitor while copying the file.
How big is the file? The problem could well be the format in FAT32. Recall that you have a max limit of 4GB. If the file is bigger the transport will abort.
Hi stakanov I know the 4gb limitation and is not the case, it happens when I try to copy big amounts of data but any of the files is not superior to 4gb.
Would be interesting to know if actually ‘cp’ is hogging your resources, so I suggest taking a look at ‘top’ or another process monitor while copying the file.
Hi gropiuskalle this is some data of the top:
load average: 4.40, 1.82, 1.04
I’ve been looking at the threads who appears and the copy doesn’t jump into the first positions but the machines turns much slower than when copying through the same port to an external hard drive.
thanks for your replies 
Are you using very long file names? There is also a limit on file names if you use very long designations in the hierarchical lower tree.
I had some issues with 11.1 and a Lacie USB2 disk (sometimes when the speed is to hight it gives me “stalled”), but that does happen independently from the file amount, seems to be a problem of other tasks running in the same moment.
Do you have other tasks running on the same USB bus? Recall also that, although the interface and controller might be 2.0, sometimes if there is only one channel and you use also another USB1 device, this will then lower the speed to 1.0 standard (and this might well be noticeable with a big amount of files).
Are you using very long file names? There is also a limit on file names if you use very long designations in the hierarchical lower tree.
I had some issues with 11.1 and a Lacie USB2 disk (sometimes when the speed is to hight it gives me “stalled”), but that does happen independently from the file amount, seems to be a problem of other tasks running in the same moment.
Do you have other tasks running on the same USB bus? Recall also that, although the interface and controller might be 2.0, sometimes if there is only one channel and you use also another USB1 device, this will then lower the speed to 1.0 standard (and this might well be noticeable with a big amount of files).
Hi stakanov, that’s not the case the names are fine and are not so long, and it happens everytime I try to copy to a pendrive formatted as FAT32, the same operation works fine when I try to copy to an external hard drive.
Another thing is the way Flash memory works. If you are replacing files flash must first erase the block this is SLOW. In SSDs there ares special controllers and extra mapping done to speed this process. But on cheap pen drives this is not so. So if you you have existing data that is being replaced things can slow down a lot because of all the housekeeping the device has to do to erase before writing.
PEN DRIVES ARE NOT DISKS they work on different principles.
No gogalthorp that’s not the case, it happens always 
doesn’t matter what I copy.
Please any help :’(
So if you have a completely empty USB pen drive. It still does this?
As I understand it the problem is not the the copying of the file but the responsiveness of the machine while the copy is running.
If this is the case you may want to try the desktop kernel as opposed to the default kernel you are currently running.
jeff
I’m having the exact same problem here… >:( …And I was hoping that I could find any answers, but, unfortunately, this is not the case, and I’m growing tired of this issue…
No matter how many Usb’s I insert, the problem is exactly the same, it takes about 20 minutes to copy a 175Mb file into a 2.0 Usb drive, and when I do that the system purely goes insanely slow, it even in some cases crashes the system…
I recently changed to Linux, being a Windows Xp user for quite a long time, and I never experienced such thing, I must say if this problem persists, I would not want to go back to XP.
I’ve noticed that this was a problem in previous OpenSuse versions, but wasn’t this thing fixed? I have updated everything in my system…
So can anyone help me and all of the guys having the exact same problem here?
THANK YOU
Post Scriptum
The problem is not the usb drive, 'cause I’ve been using them for a long time, and so far no such thing has ever happened until I installed Linux
Has anyone tried copying the file in gnome? I seem to only have this problem when using KDE where I get an extremely slow file copy speed, but under gnome I do not have any problems. This leads me to think that it could possibly be some sort of KDE bug.
:’(>:(:’(>:(
Initially, The problem was in Gnome as well… And now, don’t ask me how I have done it, but the problem is partially solved…
The system is running really fast, I can copy at real decent speeds, but every-time I try to “unmount” the drive, I get an error message saying me that I don’t have root privileges…
Now,how did I solve the problem? I really don’t know, but unfortunately I created a new one…
Can anyone help me on this one? I’m a newbie, I’ve been using OpenSuse for less then a week
Thank you
:’(:’(>:(>:(
Oooops… Talked too soon…
One of the Usb drives is working just fine but I cannot unmount it… The other one has disastrous speeds but I can unmount it…
Can anyone tell me what this means?
I really could use some help
THANK YOU
lol!lol!lol!lol!
Problem solved (partially)
In Gnome desktop I can now work with real speeds, I dont get the PC freezing, but, in KDE, it is an awful thing, everything freezes when I connect an USB drive…
So, bottom line, I chose to use Gnome over KDE
Thank you all
By the way, anybody knows if the KDE guys are aware of this issue?
YA YA!! the same happens with me!!! When i intially copy and paste the file in a pendrive with NTFS file system, the speed is about 105 mb/s and then decreases from 75 mb/s to 50 mb/s and then till … 11 mb/s!!!
WHAT THE MATTER!!???
When you first start copying, the outgoing data gets cached in the I/O system. So it looks like it’s being transferred to the drive quickly but actually a backlog is building. Eventually the cache stops accepting more backlog and the rate drops to the steady state that can be maintained. You’re doing well if you can achieve the speed of the USB port or the flash memory, whichever is the lesser.
On 10/04/2011 08:26 AM, anandlakra07 wrote:
>
> WHAT THE MATTER!!???
i’ll guess that all with the problem will have it until someone brings
it to the attention of the developers, here: http://tinyurl.com/nzhq7j
–
DD
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