Using large USB memory sticks - problems - solutions?

[Dave2002]

Many of us USB sticks for various purposes, and these have got larger storage wise over the years. I am currently up to 32 Gbyte devices, though I still have some much smaller ones.

There are a few problems with larger ones though.

1. Some scanner/printers will work with these, but assume that one wants to print, rather than scan. Inserting a USB stick in will then cause the printer to wait for minutes - maybe 5 or more, while it checks all the data which is on the stick. This can be a pain.

2. Some machines either don't recognise the sticks, or may be doing background processing while checking them out. My Macbook Pro doesn't seem to recognise the Integral 32Gbyte sticks which I use - or if it does, it certainly doesn't tell me. Windows PCs are slightly better - they may still take a long while to get things ready, but at least they inform the user that there's a new memory device connected.

There are solutions to some of these problems - such as keeping smaller devices for specific purposes, and only using the large ones when absolutely necessary. There may be other problems and/or solutions which others have encountered with this form of storage device.

[Simon]

Oh, don't use the big ones, if you can avoid it. They are a pain, and it's surely rare that you'd need more than 8GB, unless you are doing a lot of HQ picture work. 8GB is the max I ever use - and there's another good reason, too, which is if you lose, or have stolen, a smaller one, you don't lose as much data.

I have a large external hard drive connected by USB, which I do have to transport occasionally, but it's specifically for back-up storage of irreplaceable work related stuff and is very secure.

As for having problems with Macbooks etc - sorry, but that's what happens when you use Apple stuff!

[Bryn]

I tend to keep to 8 and 16GB, but one use for 32GB is as an emergency back-up device for the Windows 8 installation on an HP laptop I have (only one such backup is possible and I trust a decent 32GB memory more than a set of up to 8 DVD+Rs.

Larger SDHC cards can be a bit of a pain in some devices too. On Zoom H2m H4 and H4n 'Handy Recorders' I aim to stick to 8GB maximum capacity. Anything with greater capacity takes an age to be registered at start-up. With the H2n this problem, along with the need to start a new file when the 2GB limit is reached (with consequent delay of as much as a minute), has been resolved. With the H2n, start-up ios much quicker and a new file is opened and not a moment is lost at the 2GB limit. I am fairly happy to use 32GB SDHCs with the H2n (allowing up to about 32 hours of continuous 4 channel surround recording at 48/24 per stereo pair, (the 4 channels are recorded as 2 x 2 channel files). Battery life is also very much extended with the H2n.

[Dave2002]

As for having problems with Macbooks etc - sorry, but that's what happens when you use Apple stuff!

You might just as well have written

As for having problems with PCs - sorry, but that's what happens when you use Windows stuff!

[Simon]

Indeed I might, Dave. But I'm rather anti-Apple, for various reasons, and I enjoy having a dig now and then - in a good-natured way, of course. I have an emphatically pro-Apple colleague whom I wind up regularly.

[Dave2002]

Indeed I might, Dave. But I'm rather anti-Apple, for various reasons, and I enjoy having a dig now and then - in a good-natured way, of course. I have an emphatically pro-Apple colleague whom I wind up regularly.

TBH, although I use computers and similar gadgets most days, and could hardly survive without them, there are frequent times when I really don't like any systems - Macs, PCs even Unix or Linux, or tablet systems. Over the last decade though I've had more grief from PC/Windows - and I reckon I've saved many man hours over the last few years by switching to Macs. They are not completely trouble free however, and sometimes there are tedious things to fix even with them.

[Bryn]

Though they tend to work out more expensive per GB, lower capacity USB sticks have the advantage of being less cumbersome to navigate when used to hold a variety of mp3s or aacs for playback in a car radio, DVD player, etc. Such devices tend not to have the most flexible or user-friendly file navigation systems, so 4GB sticks are often to be favoured for such applications. Trouble is, they cost barely less that the 8GB option.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

TBH, although I use computers and similar gadgets most days, and could hardly survive without them, there are frequent times when I really don't like any systems - Macs, PCs even Unix or Linux, or tablet systems. Over the last decade though I've had more grief from PC/Windows - and I reckon I've saved many man hours over the last few years by switching to Macs. They are not completely trouble free however, and sometimes there are tedious things to fix even with them.

I still love my 1995 Acorn computer. I can boot it up, open and edit a file, print it off, and then shut down, while still waiting to the Windows PC to boot up. I like Apple too and am considering buying the most powerful new iMac, and not worry too much about the USB memory stick issue.

[OldTechie]

I have the ultimate 16GB USB memory stick. Put it in a computer, write some files to it. Carefully eject it doing all the right things. Put it in another computer and you can read the files. Write some more files to it. You can read them. Carefully remove it. Put it in another computer. The second set of files are not there at all. The directory entries for the for set are there, but the files are corrupt. Delete everything and start again. Now files can only be read in the computer that wrote them, and only in the session where you wrote them. Format it - back to square 1.

This is a new type of memory: Write-only memory with guess-where-it-went caching.

Actually, this thread has just reminded me to deal appropriately with the memory stick (but I may be about to infringe the WEEE regulations.)