Usb flash drive and music

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I have been using USB flash drives for a long time to store and play music. I store it and play it in MP3 format because of it’s relative simplicity and it sounds ok. The music is transferred from my laptop to the thumb drive and I play it on my Denon sound system or in my car.

Some USB drives claim to be better than others and the prices vary accordingly. Over the years I’ve found that yes, some do play better than others but sometimes it’s just a matter of luck and even some of the cheapies play as well if not better than the others..

What I want to know is if there’s such a thing as a USB drive that does work with music? I’d like to know because I’ve found that unless you’re prepared to pay big bucks they’re all the same pretty much. Some handle music well and some don’t.

 

 

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You know I’ve got a drawer full of thumb flash drives, and they all work just fine on music. Never had any problems at all. And, the quality is the same on all of them.

I tend to like the smaller versions like the Samsung fit thumb drive.  but I’ve used SanDisk Flairs even an old Kingston.

Can you talk a little bit more about what specific problems you’ve run into?

One thing you should keep in mind, is that USB thumb flash drives are not a permanent solution for long term archive storage.

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I have a 32GB SanDisk flash drive in my car with music (flac, mp3) and videos (avi, mkv, mp4).
Never had listening/watching problems.

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Yes, there is a difference between flash drives.

About 2-3 years ago the way data was stored in the integrated circuits of the flash drive was changed and this resulted in a decrease in data deterioration, which means the long term storage of the drives has significantly changed.  No one knows how long the drives will hold data.  It used to be 7 -10 years, but with data deterioration 1/10th of what it used to be, you do the math.

Through all these changes, the quality of a flash drive is measured by the number of writes to the drive.  Flash drives range from 10,000 to 100,00 writes, so some flash drives are 10 times better than others.

For a USB music stick that you load your music and just play it (very few writes to the drive), any stick will do the job.  For a flash drive you put an OS on (many writes), get a drive that has a high number of writes.

The biggest problem with a music flash drive is leaving it in the car to get hot.  Flash drives do not like heat or trash in the port connection.

 

HTH, Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

2 users thanked author for this post.

SueW, Charlie

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Drcard:)) wrote:

The biggest problem with a music flash drive is leaving it in the car to get hot. Flash drives do not like heat or trash in the port connection.

This is true but a flash drive fits very well into your shirt pocket, so you can take it with you.  I have mainly used PNY flash drives (old and new) and never had any problems. I have wondered about any wear on them playing mp3’s on my car radio’s usb port.

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake as soon as you make it again.

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Drcard:)) wrote:

The biggest problem with a music flash drive is leaving it in the car to get hot.

The only time mine leaves my radio is when I’m editing it.  I live in central Florida, and have been using the current 16GB drive for a bit over three years.

I like the small size of these drives, not much chance of accidentally breaking it off.  I format FAT32 and have never had issues.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We were all once "Average Users". We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do to our systems, we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

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Microfix

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My little cheapo PNY with the purple cover has been going for 10 years.  I’ll add that some of these thumb flash drives get real hot.  The Sandisk “Flair” for example, is like a miniature heater.  It works, but I’m not sure if that’s a “wear and tear” issue.

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Mike wrote:

You know I’ve got a drawer full of thumb flash drives, and they all work just fine on music. Never had any problems at all. And, the quality is the same on all of them.

I tend to like the smaller versions like the Samsung fit thumb drive.  but I’ve used SanDisk Flairs even an old Kingston.

Can you talk a little bit more about what specific problems you’ve run into?

One thing you should keep in mind, is that USB thumb flash drives are not a permanent solution for long term archive storage.

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated. I’m afraid I didn’t ask the right and I apologise for that. I should have used another topic heading.

I download a lot of music for personal use and have way more than I need, call it an obsession. Well to me it’s like a recording. I choose the music I like and I record it.

When I chose my sound system I chose one that plays Cd’s (got plenty of them too) and has random playback. Random is very important to me because I like to mix it up, just like listening to the radio, only I get to choose the music. I also wanted good sound quality and that’s why I spent a little extra and bought the Denon.

So now I get to the question that I should have asked; Why does random work well on some flash (USB) drives and not so well on others? When I put a flash drive in the Denon it will often replay the same song not long after I’ve started it. There may be 20 or more folders each containing  up to 20/30 music files. It’s like the player gets confused and only selects files from a certain number of folders.

As an example I’ve been listening to a Flash drive for a about 4 or 5 hours which has about 10 0r 12 folders on it and I haven’t heard anything from the Eagles folder yet. On another day you’ll get quite a lot.

Maybe it’s because the random is only a small part of all the other functions that my player has to offer and that could be why random seems to play better in the car.?

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The order in which songs play from flash drive folders is determined mostly by the device that is playing the songs.  The player controls the selection of songs played randomly and not the flash drive.  That being said, the format of the flash drive and how the files were placed on the flash drive can influence how the player performs this function.

Most players that allow USB flash drives use older FAT or FAT32 formatting on the flash drives (to make sure it plays older music sticks).    If the flash drive is formatted in another format, the player may have trouble locating the files in the File Allocation Table that is different in different formats.  Thus, the flash drive format can prevent the random function from working properly.

How each individual player performs the “random” function differs, but it mainly based upon how many files or folders it can select as a base for its random function.  The selection can be based upon: creation date of the files, or when the files were recorded to the drive, or when the files was last accessed.  These are all properties of the files and folders on the drive.  If your manual on your player doesn’t tell you how it performs this function, then do a little investigation.

Of the songs that do play, what of these properties do they have in common.  Of the songs that you notice that don’t play, what of these properties does not match the songs that do play.  This will give you insight as to what setting(s) are being used.   Chances are high that the Eagles files were added on a different date.

The solution is simple:

Format the drive to FAT32 as nearly every player (< 10 years old) out  there can use this format.

Place all the song files and folders into a folder on your PC hard drive.  When the folder has all the songs you want, copy everything in the folder and paste into another folder on the PC (this gives every file the same creation date).  When transferring the files to the flash drive, transfer these copies with the same creation dates at the same time; giving all the files the same date of being created, accessed, and modified.

Usually this method allow the random function to select all files in its data base to randomly choose from.

HTH, Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

2 users thanked author for this post.

oldguytoo, SueW

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Usually the player loads the File Allocation Table into memory which could be restricted by the number of audio file / size of File Allocation Table and size of player’s memory.
So, if not whole of File Allocation Table has been loaded the random function may not include all audio files.

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I get worse MPG with a fat32 music loaded micro sandisk usb in the car mediaplayer.
Never had any playback issues using fat32 either.
Saw this recently and thought it may be worth a mention for modern in-car media players.
https://www.bureausoft.com/format-usb-for-car-stereo.html

Keeping IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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Alex5723

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My in-car 32GB flash drive is formatted to NTFS. The flash drive contain 3600 files of music and video.
Each music album & video file has its own folder, all music files are tagged with using portable Mp3tag.

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Microfix

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ditto for mp3tag a valuable portable app for music lovers, I’d STILL be typing metadata without it.

Keeping IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

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Add an “l” to read “html” because the link does not work (for me anyway) without it.

Out of place, reply to post with bureausoft url.

Oooops, wrong again, reply in right place. Where did the Remove button go?

 

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FTFY!

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How?

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Added the “i” to html so the link works.

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Add an “l” to read “html” because the link does not work (for me anyway) without it.

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Drcard:)) wrote:

The order in which songs play from flash drive folders is determined mostly by the device that is playing the songs.  The player controls the selection of songs played randomly and not the flash drive.  That being said, the format of the flash drive and how the files were placed on the flash drive can influence how the player performs this function.

Most players that allow USB flash drives use older FAT or FAT32 formatting on the flash drives (to make sure it plays older music sticks).    If the flash drive is formatted in another format, the player may have trouble locating the files in the File Allocation Table that is different in different formats.  Thus, the flash drive format can prevent the random function from working properly.

How each individual player performs the “random” function differs, but it mainly based upon how many files or folders it can select as a base for its random function.  The selection can be based upon: creation date of the files, or when the files were recorded to the drive, or when the files was last accessed.  These are all properties of the files and folders on the drive.  If your manual on your player doesn’t tell you how it performs this function, then do a little investigation.

Of the songs that do play, what of these properties do they have in common.  Of the songs that you notice that don’t play, what of these properties does not match the songs that do play.  This will give you insight as to what setting(s) are being used.   Chances are high that the Eagles files were added on a different date.

The solution is simple:

Format the drive to FAT32 as nearly every player (< 10 years old) out  there can use this format.

Place all the song files and folders into a folder on your PC hard drive.  When the folder has all the songs you want, copy everything in the folder and paste into another folder on the PC (this gives every file the same creation date).  When transferring the files to the flash drive, transfer these copies with the same creation dates at the same time; giving all the files the same date of being created, accessed, and modified.

Usually this method allow the random function to select all files in its data base to randomly choose from.

HTH, Dana:))

Hi Drcard:)) (?)   Many thanks, I think we’re finally getting somewhere; at least I am. May I say that I really like your website.

It’s taking quite a while but I think I’m finding a way to resolve the problem in a not too complicated manner with my limited techno knowledge. What you’re saying about keeping uniform dates in the folders makes sense. I’m listening to a music folder (with sub folders) that I’ve modified the way you suggested but I won’t know for a while.

I’m having to use the  app “Attribute Changer” to unify the dates because transferring the files into a new folder on my pc, as you suggested, doesn’t seem to be working. Does it matter what the date is as long as they are all the same (old or current) in each folder?

Would it help if I tell you that all the music on my flash drive comes via my PC or from my HDD where I save all of my music. Most of the folders contents are put together by myself and already have the same dates. I don’t have a phone with data so I don’t use Android or Apple, just Windows..

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oldguytoo wrote:

Drcard:)) wrote:

The order in which songs play from flash drive folders is determined mostly by the device that is playing the songs.  The player controls the selection of songs played randomly and not the flash drive.  That being said, the format of the flash drive and how the files were placed on the flash drive can influence how the player performs this function.

Most players that allow USB flash drives use older FAT or FAT32 formatting on the flash drives (to make sure it plays older music sticks).    If the flash drive is formatted in another format, the player may have trouble locating the files in the File Allocation Table that is different in different formats.  Thus, the flash drive format can prevent the random function from working properly.

How each individual player performs the “random” function differs, but it mainly based upon how many files or folders it can select as a base for its random function.  The selection can be based upon: creation date of the files, or when the files were recorded to the drive, or when the files was last accessed.  These are all properties of the files and folders on the drive.  If your manual on your player doesn’t tell you how it performs this function, then do a little investigation.

Of the songs that do play, what of these properties do they have in common.  Of the songs that you notice that don’t play, what of these properties does not match the songs that do play.  This will give you insight as to what setting(s) are being used.   Chances are high that the Eagles files were added on a different date.

The solution is simple:

Format the drive to FAT32 as nearly every player (< 10 years old) out  there can use this format.

Place all the song files and folders into a folder on your PC hard drive.  When the folder has all the songs you want, copy everything in the folder and paste into another folder on the PC (this gives every file the same creation date).  When transferring the files to the flash drive, transfer these copies with the same creation dates at the same time; giving all the files the same date of being created, accessed, and modified.

Usually this method allow the random function to select all files in its data base to randomly choose from.

HTH, Dana:))

Hi Drcard:)) (?)   Many thanks, I think we’re finally getting somewhere; at least I am. May I say that I really like your website.

It’s taking quite a while but I think I’m finding a way to resolve the problem in a not too complicated manner with my limited techno knowledge. What you’re saying about keeping uniform dates in the folders makes sense. I’m listening to a music folder (with sub folders) that I’ve modified the way you suggested but I won’t know for a while.

I’m having to use the  app “Attribute Changer” to unify the dates because transferring the files into a new folder on my pc, as you suggested, doesn’t seem to be working. Does it matter what the date is as long as they are all the same (old or current) in each folder?

Would it help if I tell you that all the music on my flash drive comes via my PC or from my HDD where I save all of my music. Most of the folders contents are put together by myself and already have the same dates. I don’t have a phone with data so I don’t use Android or Apple, just Windows..

Would using mp3tag help? to unify the music files and hence the random order for playing? I’ve never had anything to do with it, just thought I’d ask

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The player that you play this USB stick will read all the files (songs) locations, so you can find and play a specific song.  The random song selection is a function of the player.  This random function works differently on different players.  The player first has to create a list to randomly select songs from.  The player may have a limit of how many songs can be on its constructed random list.  Some players utilize creation date to prioritize which songs make the random list, others use placement on drive (first on).

The solution given was to help even the selection of all songs for the random list.  Your comments indicates a very large number of songs.  How many songs?  What size is the USB stick you are using?  What year/make car is the stick playing in?  Newer cars can use the exFAT format.

I’m having to use the  app “Attribute Changer” to unify the dates because transferring the files into a new folder on my pc, as you suggested, doesn’t seem to be working.

You have to Copy and Paste and do not use Move.

mp3tag would not help with the random function.

I suspect that the number of songs on your stick are too many for the player’s random function to include all the songs.

If that is the case, then one solution may be to use two Explorer windows to drag and copy songs like the most from different folders to create your own giant mix folder, which could be many hours of music.  Playing that folder in shuffle mode will randomly play the songs you want to hear most.

HTH, Dana:))

HTH, Dana:))

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z1 8 levels

Drcard:)) wrote:

The player that you play this USB stick will read all the files (songs) locations, so you can find and play a specific song.  The random song selection is a function of the player.  This random function works differently on different players.  The player first has to create a list to randomly select songs from.  The player may have a limit of how many songs can be on its constructed random list.  Some players utilize creation date to prioritize which songs make the random list, others use placement on drive (first on).

The solution given was to help even the selection of all songs for the random list.  Your comments indicates a very large number of songs.  How many songs?  What size is the USB stick you are using?  What year/make car is the stick playing in?  Newer cars can use the exFAT format.

I’m having to use the  app “Attribute Changer” to unify the dates because transferring the files into a new folder on my pc, as you suggested, doesn’t seem to be working.

You have to Copy and Paste and do not use Move.

mp3tag would not help with the random function.

I suspect that the number of songs on your stick are too many for the player’s random function to include all the songs.

If that is the case, then one solution may be to use two Explorer windows to drag and copy songs like the most from different folders to create your own giant mix folder, which could be many hours of music.  Playing that folder in shuffle mode will randomly play the songs you want to hear most.

HTH, Dana:))

I currently have approx. 150GB’s of music stored on my 1 Terabyte HDD: all brought about by an obsession to find and store music. I store it all in MP3 @320 kbps which is easiest and sounds pretty good with the aid of my Denon.

I don’t play music off the hard drive. It’s all played on the thumbnail drives, of which I have a good handful.

I have 2 x 64GB’s which have less then 20GB’s on each of them. (125 folders and 2200 files approx). They seem to play ok. They’re both Kingston and I found over the years that certain brands and their quality seems to make a difference.

I don’t normally put more about than around 10GB’s on my 16GB drives so as not to overload them and I have 2GB, 4GB 8GB’s drives as well

Below is some information copied from the Denon manual which might illustrate the capacity of the Denon to play music in random order. It would seem, to me, that it has a large capacity.

The limits on the number of folders and files that can be displayed
by this unit are as follows:
Media
Item USB memory devices
Memory capacity FAT16 : 2 GB, FAT32 : 2 TB
Number of folder directory levels
z1 8 levels

Drcard:)) wrote:

The player that you play this USB stick will read all the files (songs) locations, so you can find and play a specific song.  The random song selection is a function of the player.  This random function works differently on different players.  The player first has to create a list to randomly select songs from.  The player may have a limit of how many songs can be on its constructed random list.  Some players utilize creation date to prioritize which songs make the random list, others use placement on drive (first on).

The solution given was to help even the selection of all songs for the random list.  Your comments indicates a very large number of songs.  How many songs?  What size is the USB stick you are using?  What year/make car is the stick playing in?  Newer cars can use the exFAT format.

I’m having to use the  app “Attribute Changer” to unify the dates because transferring the files into a new folder on my pc, as you suggested, doesn’t seem to be working.

You have to Copy and Paste and do not use Move.

mp3tag would not help with the random function.

I suspect that the number of songs on your stick are too many for the player’s random function to include all the songs.

If that is the case, then one solution may be to use two Explorer windows to drag and copy songs like the most from different folders to create your own giant mix folder, which could be many hours of music.  Playing that folder in shuffle mode will randomly play the songs you want to hear most.

HTH, Dana:))

Number of folders 500
Number of files z2 5000
z1 The limited number includes the root folder.
z2 The allowable number of files may differ according to the USB
memory device capacity and the file size.

I would to ask just one more question if you don’t mind. I’m thinking of changing the creation date on more files the way you showed me. Do you think downloading a program to make it quicker and easier would be warranted?

Thank you again for your very helpful advice.
Have a very Merry Christmas

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