The USB flash drives, as is normal, are not all the same and there are the faster and slower ones, some with better performance than others. In addition to the speed differences between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, there are large variations even between flash drives of the same type in read and write speeds, which will not be as noticeable until they are used and measured. If you want to measure the performance of your USB stick, even comparing it with other flash drives on the market, to find out if it is still good or if it deserves to be changed, there are some simple free "benchmarking" programs for Windows PCs .
READ ALSO: Better and faster USB sticks to buy
1) USB Flash Benchmark is certainly the best of these tools, not only because it can calculate the speed of our USB stick, but also to compare it with other similar models to see if it is better to keep it or change it. The test tool, much more in-depth, makes 15 measurements to give a final result of the writing and reading speeds that can also be shared on the program website in order to provide another element of comparison.
2) USBDeview is a very useful small program that I had already talked about to improve the management of USB sticks and do speed tests.
This portable tool lists all connected USB devices, also lists those that have been used in the past and performs a performance measurement for USB sticks.
3) Parkdale is a lesser known tool for making a basic measurement or even a low level test on the flash unit, if you want maximum precision. To check the performance of a USB stick, the QuickAccess test, the quick test, is more than enough.
4) Check Flash is one of the most advanced test tools for knowing the performance and characteristics of a USB drive, more complex than the previous tools, to be used only if you want to do more detailed tests.
5) Crystaldisk is a program that I have already talked about as one of the best to check the health and performance of the hard disk, which also works with SSD drives and USB sticks. Although the program is very popular and can be used for PC disks, it is not the most detailed one on this list in performance measurements.
To improve the performance of a USB stick, before buying a new one, there are at least two configurations that you can try:
- Format the USB in exFat instead of in NTFS.
- Clean and recover space on the USB stick to be formatted.
