Guide | How To How to Get maximum Read Write Speed from USB Pendrive/External & Internal Hard Disk

[viktik]

To get maximum read-write speed from USB Pendrive/External & Internal hard Disk partition you need to Format it with “NTFS” File system and set “Allocation unit size” to 64 Kilobytes.

Note : Formatting the USB Pendrive/External & Internal hard Disk partition will Erase all the data in it. Backup the data in the USB Pendrive/External & Internal hard Disk partition before formatting it.

Don't do this in the partition in which Windows OS is installed otherwise Windows OS files occupy large space in that partition.

This is intended only to be done on USB Pendrive/External & Internal hard Disk partition which holds mostly large sized files ( greater than 64 KB ) like documents, ebooks, media files, softwares, photos etc.

Spoiler: Get maximum read Write speed from USB Pendrive

• First, insert the USB Pendrive to the computer.
• Copy all the files in the Pendrive to another location on the computer.
• Right click on the USB Pendrive as shown below and select “Format”

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• Set File System as “NTFS“
• Set “Allocation unit size” to “64 kilobytes“
• Click “Start“

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• Click “OK“

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• Click “Close“

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• Now you can Read Write files in USB Pendrive at much faster speed than before.

Spoiler: Get maximum read Write speed from USB External hard Disk

• First,insert the USB External Hard Disk to the computer.
• Copy all the files in the External Hard Disk to another location on the computer.
• Right click on the USB External Hard Disk as shown below and select “Format”

• Set File System as “NTFS“
• Set “Allocation unit size” to “64 kilobytes“
• Click “Start“

• Follow the instructions.
• After the Format has completed you will get maximum read write speed from USB External hard disk

Spoiler: Get maximum read-write speed from Internal hard Disk partition

Note : Formatting the Internal hard Disk partition will Erase all the data in it.

The internal hard disk in your computer may have multiple partitions. This technique should only be used in drive/volume/partition which will be used to store users data. Don’t use this tweak in System partitions in which Windows OS has been installed.

• As you can see below that internal hard disk has multiple partitions named ( C: E: G: H: I: )
• Out of them C: and E: partition has Windows OS installed. The user should not use this tweak in these partitions.
• G: H: and I: partition is used to store users data. So we can use this tweak on it.

• Formatting data partition I:
• Move all the files in the I: partition to another location on the computer.
• Select a data partition and right click on it.
• Select “Format“

• Set File System as “NTFS“
• Set “Allocation unit size” to “64 kilobytes“
• Click “Start“

• click “OK“

• Click “OK“

• Click “Close“

• Now you will get better Read Write speed from this newly formatted partition.
• Similarly, format other data partitions as shown above. Don’t forget to backup the data in the partition before formatting it.

 

[jamescv7]

Many people just format their flashdrive and not really know what is the purpose of allocation size, usually they set it by default (64 kb).

So blessing in disguise that it can get maximum read/write speed without knowing it.

 

[Sseneb]

Thanks for the tutorial, always good to know

Btw I tried it on a USB pendrive (which had allocation unit size set to 4096 octets), and now I'm getting freezes during copy on this USB pendrive. Copying still works but I don't know how many time I have to wait until the copy is complete, and I don't know the speed ! Any suggestions ? Maybe this is not adapted to ALL USB pendrives ?

 

[Deleted member 2913]

I click "Restore Device Default" & format USB.

Any disadvantages of formatting USB as NTFS?

What size USB is good/advantage to format as NTFS like 2, 8, 16, 32, etc... GB size?

 

[Sseneb]

Biggest disadvantage to formatting USB as NTFS would be compatibility I guess. As NTFS is Microsoft's proprietary filesystem, many devices would not recognize the USB (TVs, PS4/XBox, etc). There are workarounds for Mac OS & Linux though.

 

[viktik]

Currently, I am using to 16 Kilobytes as “Allocation unit size” in all partitions

 

[vgchat]

Just what about setting it to 64 KB maxes out the speed? Have you tried other format settings to verify your findings or is this just guess work?

 

[Evjl's Rain]

I click "Restore Device Default" & format USB.

Any disadvantages of formatting USB as NTFS?

What size USB is good/advantage to format as NTFS like 2, 8, 16, 32, etc... GB size?

it may speed up the USB speed a bit but if you have a crappy USB like mine (sandisk cruzer - max copy speed 3.6-4.5Mb/s) it won't improve anything, I tried all options
however, if you use NTFS, you have to "safely remove" everytime because NTFS uses system cache so if you don't safely remove, it may degrade the USB and potentially corrupt some data

for USB the best is to use fat32 or exfat (exfat is not compatible with win XP but supports >4Gb files) for maximum compatibility
NFTS on macbook, you can only read, you can't write, don't know if any app can help to copy into NTFS drive

If you have an external HDD, it's recommended to use NTFS or exfat as it improves speed a lot but not really practical for pendrives

 

[Dmitry_rus]

Some NTFS-related disktools assume that you use "standard" (4K) unit size. Using these tools on a such pendrive may cause unpredictable results.

 

[Vasudev]

Even exFAT sometime is faster than NTFS on drives >64GB. Sometimes R/W speeds depends on hardware too regardless of SW tweaks.

 

[Amelith Nargothrond]

Biggest disadvantage to formatting USB as NTFS would be compatibility I guess. As NTFS is Microsoft's proprietary filesystem, many devices would not recognize the USB (TVs, PS4/XBox, etc). There are workarounds for Mac OS & Linux though.

extFAT might be a good idea if compatibility is mandatory

Later edit: I found it to be more important that a flash drive is usable/compatible wherever you go than to be really fast. Though it's good to know what makes it faster and in what conditions.