August 2012

Testing usb flash drive speeds in linux

August 21, 2012 No Comments

I’m pondering a project which will need a reasonably fast write usb flash drive so I decided to root around in drawers behind cupbaords and under sofas to find some to test.

All are formatted as FAT32 and tested on my Debian linux box.

read test conducted using dd if=/dev/sde of=/dev/null bs=10000 count=10000
write test conducted using dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sde bs=1M count=100

Sandisk cruzer slice 8GB
http://www.sandisk.co.uk/products/usb-flash-drives/sandisk-cruzer-slice
r 100 MB copied, 6.01249 s, 16.6 MB/s
w 105 MB copied, 28.5709 s, 3.7 MB/s

integral Courier 4GB
http://www.integralmemory.com/product/courier-usb-flash-drive
r 100 MB copied, 6.60859 s, 15.1 MB/s
w 105 MB copied, 23.9367 s, 4.4 MB/s

Sony Microvault 4GB
http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/product/USM4GL/specifications
r 100 MB copied, 5.85735 s, 17.1 MB/s
w 105 MB copied, 11.8885 s, 8.8 MB/s

Integral AG47 4GB
http://www.integralmemory.com/product/ag47-usb-flash-drive
r 100 MB copied, 5.53511 s, 18.1 MB/s
w 105 MB copied, 13.9816 s, 7.5 MB/s

On The Move

Open Pandora

August 17, 2012 No Comments

Just stumbled across a new handheld device running linux descibed by the
creator as ‘A mixture between a PC and a gaming console. That’s why it has
gaming controls (Buttons, DPad and analogue nubs).’

Slightly bigger than a Nintendo DS it’s fast enough to emulate many other
systems, run a full desktop, access the internet via FireFox and play
games such as Quake3. Boasting an 800*480 screen and a claimed battery
life of 10 hours plus.

All sound good? you bet ya, the downside? there’s got to be one hasn’t
there and with this it seems to be the price costing a whopping 440 euros
for it’s entry level 430-MHz system. To me that seems steep by anyones
standards especially when I netbook or laptop can be picked up for around
the same price.

Read all about it here http://openpandora.org

On The Move