Sandisk Extreme 64GB - Slower write speeds after system format

Sure, technology changes but there was no warning that came with the stick about formatting and worse than that SanDisk have zero tools to format or restore it to its former glory. Really the only way someone would learn not to format these sticks is by formatting them and then searching for a solution when it goes belly up. Otherwise there no way of knowing this specific issue (and it is an issue).

Like i said, i’ve got USB 2.0 sticks that now outperform the write speed on this stick, and this stick was not cheap. I’ve lost all trust for SanDisk now, as much as i like their products i cannot go back because of how terrible this has gone. I mean, where the hell is some formatting software from SanDisk? It doesn’t exist and I’m now moving on to better products, at least they will work as intended.

This is exactly what the issue is about. Formatting the factory filesystem has absolutely nothing to do with the slowing speeds and I don’t know why it’s being said that causes the problem. I’ve got 2 of these drives and one I formatted to NTFS and the other is still exFAT and both have slowed down in write and reads.

Using SecureErase in PartedMagic has restored it back to normal but surely the flash drive controller should be doing this automatically. I’ve already contacted the retailer I bought it from and requested to return them. You shouldn’t have to manually maintain the drive yourself to keep it working fast. It would have been a great USB drive if it weren’t for this issue.

@moogle

>>Using SecureErase in PartedMagic has restored it back to normal

when you said “it is back to normal” by using SE/PM, I’d like to ask you 2 questions on top of this:

  1. are you confirming the read/write speeds are back to the from factory speeds (up to 190 writting/up to 245 reading)?
  2. if yes #1,  what format have you choosen for to get them back (e.g. fat32, extfat, other)?

Thanks, 

@zakear wrote:

@moogle

 

>>Using SecureErase in PartedMagic has restored it back to normal

 

when you said “it is back to normal” by using SE/PM, I’d like to ask you 2 questions on top of this:

  1. are you confirming the read/write speeds are back to the from factory speeds (up to 190 writting/up to 245 reading)?
  2. if yes #1,  what format have you choosen for to get them back (e.g. fat32, extfat, other)?

Thanks, 

Hi zakear,

  1. Yes, I used CrystalDiskMark to test read and write speeds on two different 64GB drives. One was formatted to NTFS and the other was left as exFAT like when it came from the factory. The speeds were roughly about 32-34 MB/s read and 12-15 MB/s write on the sequential parts of the benchmark. Both drives were performing similarly poor after having been used for a year and filled up many times.

  2. After the SecureErase (I booted to linux and used hdparm instead of the gui tool as I couldn’t see my flash drive. See this page https://blog.oxplot.com/make-usb-flash-write-fast-again/ on what commands to use.) the drive no longer has a filesystem so I formatted it back to NTFS 4K cluster size using Windows 10.

I went and performed the CrystalDisk benchmark and speeds were back up to around 211 MB/s read and 139 MB/s write which seemed back to normal speeds.

I also tried copying a large file to the drive before and after secureerase in Windows 10 and before I was getting around 3-5MB/s write speeds, afterwards the drive was copying at around 95MB/s for about 10 mins (the time it took the transfer to complete) which seemed about right as I was copying from HDD -> Sandisk drive.

The drive was hot afterwards but back and performing normally. All these posts about ruining the factory partition/sector size is just rubbish. The drive uses SSD flash chips but I don’t think there is a controller embedded inside to automatically perform TRIM commands or do wear levelling, which is why the drive will slow down over time with use.

Maybe a majority of users who rarely use the drive to copy large files won’t see an issue, but if you use the drive too much it will slow down significantly.

2 Likes

Hi ! 

I’ve just formated my drive with the Windows tool in exFat (see screenshot below) and I got the same speed as you.

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Hi ! 

I’ve just formated my drive with the Windows tool in exFat (see screenshot below) and I got the same speed as you.

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moogle wrote:


  1. After the SecureErase (I booted to linux and used hdparm instead of the gui tool as I couldn’t see my flash drive. See this page https://blog.oxplot.com/make-usb-flash-write-fast-again/ on what commands to use.) the drive no longer has a filesystem so I formatted it back to NTFS 4K cluster size using Windows 10.

Its abit overcomplicated, why u use linux commands when u already secure erased your drive with partedmagic?
I did a secure erase with parted magic like you too, after that i formated my stick with SDFormatter with these options.

Format Type: Quick

Format Size Adjustment: On

Thats it my speed went up again.

The good thing about SDFormatter is he sets the correct alignment automaticly, u can check that with AS SSD Benchmark tool (see screenshot) if there is ok you are good, if there is BAD you are i guess u know it :smiley:

so i think the stick loses speed if there is a wrong alignment.

speed.jpg

speed2.jpg

Just wanted to let you guys know that secure delete via “hdparm” worked fine for me on Linux.

  1. hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass Nine /dev/X   <- Enable drive security
  2. hdparm -I /dev/X   <- Check if security is enabled
  3. hdparm --security-erase Nine /dev/X   <- Worked for me without --user-master u,  this will wipe all data in less than 30 sec
  4. hdparm -I /dev/X   <- Verify that security is disabled

dev/X = drive name, for example /dev/sdg

My speeds went from 10MB / sec to over 200MB / sec again :slight_smile:

Best regards,

IT-Technik Klimt

But don’t you then have to format the drive?  And for 64GB as exFAT?

Just off the phone with Sandisk support. Their USB sticks and memory cards are ment to be formatted. 
So, format them if you want for as much as you want. You won’t break it by doing so. 

Just like SSDs, no way you can physically break your USB disk or have it’s performance degraded by formatting it (however obviously you will loose data on it). Well, not as long as you format it 24/7 for a couple of years (wear out memory chips by writing data more times than it’s been designed to handle; and those are pretty generous nowadays anyways). 

So happy formatting, people!

If the drive performs slowly (or does not work at all) then you should contact the support.

I made secure eraze in Disk Utility on mac os with exFat option and 1 Security (it was about 1 hour) level and it works back fast as new!

Hi,

I just came accros this topic and want to add my findings.

I bought a SANDISK Cruzer Ultra Flair 3.0 128 GB, which didn’t let me copy files larger then 4Gb. (on windows and linux)

Trying to find an solution I read about the three file systems and their differences: Fat32, exFat and NTSF.

Two different windows computers showed that the usb-stick was formatted as exFAT.

As a test I tried to copy an .iso file from 4.7Gb to the stick. All attemps failed, a message stated:  the file is too large.

Then I  re-formatted (slow) the stick in a windows computer to exFAT.

After that I was able to copy the 4.7Gb .iso file to the usb-stick.

It looks like as if Sandisk  is using a modified exFAT  file system, perhaps to support their SanDiskSecureAccess environment.

(as a result, customers are not able to share easily  (high resolution holiday :wink:) movies among each other)

It would be nice to know if it  is a modified exFAT file sytem or not.

HIGHly unlikely it was a modified exFAT file system.  A counterfeit drive, maybe.

This USB sick was sold by a large company (Mediamarkt).  I don’t think they do sell counterfeit sticks.

I was not able to copy a 4.7Gb file on the stick in its  original exFAT file system. Reformatted it to exFAT in Windows.

Then I was able to copy a 4.7Gb file on the stick. Still I believe there is a difference in the file system.

I wonder if someone is able to reproduce this with a new usb stick.

Wait a minute…

I have a compressed disk image of the unmodified 64GB SanDisk Extreme data!
It was made as a reading test, and I never deleted it because a compressed mostly empty disk image compresses really well.

Though the result of the discussion is that the lack of a TRIM function causes the slowness, if you want to force it to TRIM by restoring it to the complete factory default, you could if this forum allowed me to upload a file as a new user :thinking:

I used my SanDisk Extreme 64GB USB 3.0 drive for a system back-up and it was reformatted into a 32gb drive. How do I reformat it back to 64 GB?

Windows 10 formats drives to exFAT. I would contact the vendor of the app you used and ask them why they reformated the drive. I’m surprised it was able to hold your backup with that file size limitation.

I backup my systems using the Windows Backup app built into the system.

I used it back-up an older computer which wasn’t windows 10. I don’t remember what APP I used or even if there was one. I just need to know how to reformat the flash drive so it will again have the 64gb capacity. When I try to reformat it on my Windows 10 computer there isn’t an option to format a 64GB flash drive even when I select the exFAT option. The only capacity size available is 32GB,

Oh! Formatting doesn’t change the size of a drive, partitioning does that. Sorry.

With Windows you want to use Disk Management to delete partitions/volumes and extend partitions/volumes.

Secure erase may be your only option as mentioned in one of the replies above. My 512Gb Extreme Pro is writing at around 220Mb/s on my system (from an extremely fast M2 hard drive), quite a bit lower than the quoted speeds. You will probably find your PC hardware is not capable of writing faster, time for an upgrade !