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omer666

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 70

[Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

I have got a problem every time I copy a file to a USB 3.0 stick : it copies the file, but when it has finished (or so it seems, since I don't see any further progress on the progress bar or directly on the file size), I have to wait for some 5 minutes until it states that the file copy is finished.
Is this behavior normal? Does anyone have this?
It happens with a Kingston DataTraveler G4 32Gb formatted in FAT32, Nautilus 3.10, cp command-line in a terminal, on both Linux 3.14 and 3.13.

Last edited by omer666 (2014-04-11 10:27:28)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,568

Website

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Could you clarify, how does this happen when using cp on the command line?

Is the issue simply the time it takes to copy the file?  It sounds like your symptoms are all about an inaccuracy in Nautilus's progress indicator - but there is no such thing on the command line.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

omer666

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 70

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

For example, I just copied a 930Mb file. It took 4 minutes. During the last 3 minutes, I used ls command and it showed that the file size wasn't increasing any longer.

I precise that of course I use the USB 3.0 key on a USB 3.0 port...

[Edit] It does the same thing when plugged on USB 2.0... is there some problems with Kingston USB sticks on Linux? There is something that I really don't get...

Last edited by omer666 (2014-04-10 17:14:13)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Does the stick get mounted with the flush option (check by simply running mount on the command line)? It should, but the behavior you describe is typical for when the flush option is not used.

omer666

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 70

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Yes, it does show the flush option.

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Then what you see it normal. It has to do with caching - ls thinks the file has been completely copied because the entirety of it is in the cache, but the file is still being written out from the cache onto the stick.

The flush option should make this effect less noticeable, it instructs the system to flush out the cache as soon and as quickly as possible, but there can be discrepancies especially when copying large files, because we have tons of RAM nowadays (so lots of cache), USB sticks have gotten bigger (so we're copying larger files onto them) but they're still very slow devices.

omer666

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 70

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Hmmm I see!
Indeed I have some 16Gb of RAM so if it's related I'm not surprised. But isn't 4 minutes for less than a Gb a bit long for USB 3.0?

JGC

Developer

Registered: 2003-12-03

Posts: 1,664

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Usb 3.0 doesn't give any advantage when writing most usb sticks. Writing cheap NAND is slow, the interface is not the limit here.

omer666

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 70

Re: [Solved] Having to wait after file copy on USB 3.0 stick

Ok so this is solved.