Slow Flash Drive

[Shangri-laschild]

I recently put Firefox Portable on a flash drive and it has not been working out like I had hoped. It's slow even when I barely have any windows open. I've tried it on two different computers though they were both work computers so it could be that they are similar enough to not matter. I've tried it on two different flash drives. A 2gb Sandisk and a 16gb Sandisk. Anyone have any ideas on things I could try? The slowness of it is starting to make it not worth it despite all the many reasons I wanted to use Firefox Portable.

[Dreamstalker]

Are the flashdrive and the USB port the same speed? I've had issues when using a 2.0 drive on a computer that can only handle 1.1 (if this is the case, you should get an error bubble when plugging it in along the lines of "This device may perform faster if you plug it into a USB 2.0 port"

That's the only thing I can think of, anyway. I'm running FF Portable off of an 8GB flashdrive with less than 2GB of free space, and only notice slowdowns trying to run it (USB 2.0) off of a computer only capable of 1.1.

[RichS]

I've had the same problem. I've been using SanDisk flash drives for awhile - I have currently 1, 4, 8, 16, and 32GB drives.

I've also been using PortableApps since I got the 4GB drive. I've had slowdowns using the apps with the 4, 8, and 16GB drives with USB 2.0.

The fix was the 32GB drive - on that, all the apps are speedy, and I'm not sure why. Either the extra space, or they're using faster memory chips in their drives now.

[Amadan]

Make sure the drives are U3 compatible if you want portable apps. Some of the Sandisk (and other) flash drives are really really slow even on USB2. A good hint of a fairly quick flash pen is if it's readyboost capable.

For example my 2nd tech has a Cruzer slice 16gb and it's dog slow. Whereas I have a Sandisk Titanium U3 8gb and it's far far faster.

Until we move over the USB3 / Tunderbolt etc apps etc may well be slower than off a HDD/SSD but the specific flash drive makes all the difference. If you need a fast drive always check the read/write figures.

Personally I can recommend the Sandisk Ti pens highly enough. We have 3 or 4 at home they've been abused, I've even stood on them a few times and not wrecked them (16 stone and always wear steelies).

[Shangri-laschild]

The one I was using came with U3 on it. I reformated the drive and did a fresh install. It seems to run better so far. Not as good as if I was running regular firefox on the computer but much closer. Haven't gotten any pop ups about the port and the drive not being the same speed though I know which pop up you're talking about.