Hardware Tip: don't buy (affordable, even if major brand) flash drives

[Ryccardo]

Yesterday I wanted to put a certain OS installer on USB to try it out.

Unwilling to erase the one I normally use for installations (having a known good one) I went for the "experiments" one but couldn't find it around, but I had a microSD (the cheapest Kingston 16GB I could get in 2015) and the cheapass transparent reader bundled with current issue R4s and r4ids.cn's. I expected the combo to have terrible, but it turned out significantly faster than both.

tl;dr A class 10 microSD, even if used without UHS, runs in circles around commercial flash drives of comparable price

 

[Originality]

Depends on the Flash drive. I have a Sandisk flash drive that has 245MBs read and 190MBs write. Others I’ve seen are 100-150MBs read and 30-50MBs write. Then there are USB2 flash drives which are even slower.

In comparison, most microSD cards are around 60-90MBs read and 20-30MBs write, with the fastest Sandisk being rated 245MBs read and 100MBs write.

Also when it comes to mSD cards, you also need to factor in the speed of the adaptor/reader you use. It’s an extra layer that can cause a bottleneck.

But yeah... your OP isn’t very helpful in how inaccurate it is.