bigmurali wrote:I remember back in 1996 buying a 250MB hard-drive for $175 and was happy I got an "awesome deal"

I remember when a computer guy told me that I would NEVER need more than 8mgs of ram.
Now we just need some really old guy sayin how he remembers when bread cost a nickle.

What you REALLY need (my opinion) is a Box.net and/or Dropbox acct.

Being able to access those files from a PC/MAC, tablet or any modern mobile phone, makes losing USB keys a thing of the past. Especially working with files as small as documents. :-)

djrmsn wrote:When I travel, I put all travel related files (photos, journals, scanned brochures, etc.) on a souvenir keychain and attach a thumb drive. So far so good BUT I have twice lost documents on other drives when detaching and somehow bend the USB connection. I am since quite hesitant to use thumb drives at all. I could back up ALL of my photos on this and put in safety deposit box so using it over and over would not be a problem and I'll have offsite backup.

My dad and I both bought the Centon 64GB Data Stick Pro last time it was on Woot and we both had the same results: VERY slow read/write times and data corruption, right out of the box. I'll never buy anything from Centon again.

radi0j0hn wrote:Plus you could take old ones, staple them together, spray paint them gold and make Christmas wreaths from them.

Ha! Wow... my mom worked with punchcards and we ALWAYS had silver and gold punchcard wreaths around. What a crack up...

tapps wrote:hey.. remember when whole computer hard drives were much, MUCH less than that?

I'll do you one better - my second job was at a company with about 200 employees. They ran an IBM System 38 with a total storage of 2.2G housed in a drive about the size of a washing machine. This was around 1990, a mere 20 years ago.

My first job was with a computer with a 10 meg harddrive and 2 floppies (640k memory).

First time I'd ever used a harddrive. (1987)

jandrese wrote:The caveat is that he was transferring zeros to the device. Since he was going faster than the rated speed, we can only assume that there was some compression happening somewhere. Either that or he has magic USB ports that push 11MBps of data over a 3MBps link.

I would be interested to see the same test repeated with a file generated from /dev/urandom instead of /dev/zero.

It's also possible his OS is buffering up the write and dd is returning early before the bits are actually on the drive. Might want to check if the stick is mounted async or sync. Async is dangerous on a USB drive because people are bad about just yanking them out whenever they feel like, regardless of the number of outstanding buffers still waiting to be written out to the drive.

Computers take significant time to generate from /dev/random, that would be a completely worthless test to copy straight from there. That's why I was just going from zero. Also, the OS isn't buffering it, I can view direct IO speeds in activity monitor. But here you go anyway.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/dev/random of=rndfile bs=1024000 count=256 ; date
Wed May 16 15:18:42 CDT 2012
256+0 records in
256+0 records out
262144000 bytes transferred in 33.567270 secs (7809512 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:19:15 CDT 2012

(as expected, it could only generate 7mb/sec of random data to the internal hdd)

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=rndfile of=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile2 ; date
Wed May 16 15:20:44 CDT 2012
512000+0 records in
512000+0 records out
262144000 bytes transferred in 28.440215 secs (9217371 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:21:12 CDT 2012

9.2MB/sec. It is a little slower, probably due to the additional file i/o of reading rndfile, which was unnecessary when reading from zero, which is why I was doing it in the first place, to prevent internal hdd influence in the test. But it's pretty minor for reading. I'll be sure to use capital B this time to help those that can't count decimal places.

I took that file and copied it 4x to another larger file, rndfile1g, for testing, because I was too impatient to wait for 1gb of random data.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=rndfile1g of=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile ; date
Wed May 16 15:26:12 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 105.852448 secs (9906016 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:27:58 CDT 2012

9.9MB/sec, a little faster, again as expected. But this was creating a file too. I'll repeat the test to overwrite the file, which may actually be a little faster. Theoretically the BEST way to do this is a direct block write, but I really don't feel like reformatting it.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=rndfile1g of=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile ; date
Wed May 16 15:28:07 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 94.007138 secs (11154217 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:29:42 CDT 2012

11MB/sec, a slight improvement again as expected. Now repeating with reads.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile of=rfile3 ; date
Wed May 16 15:30:47 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 60.143104 secs (17434684 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:31:48 CDT 2012

Read speeds slowed down to 17MB/sec here, this I was not expecting. I will repeat the test with an overwrite to see if it was file creation i/o that slowed it down.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile of=rfile3 ; date
Wed May 16 15:33:18 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 28.833711 secs (36366321 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:33:47 CDT 2012

36MB/sec, an unexpected surprise jump in read performance. Once more to null:

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile of=/dev/null ; date
Wed May 16 15:34:18 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 5.457242 secs (192143943 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:34:24 CDT 2012

Interesting, back down to 19MB/sec. It reads faster to a file than to null. Another unexpected surprise.

I don't know where you're getting your "3MBps" quote from, but clearly that is not a limit for me here. Nothing I did got anywhere near that slow. What computer are you using? USB2 is typically rated at 480mbps (yes b) which should be up in the 50's for MB/sec but it's been my experience that pretty much all the good USB hardware performs at 39MB/sec read and write. (OWC mercury enclosures, they rock) The fair stuff does 36MB/sec, cheaper gear goes around 26MB/sec, and the crap creeps along at 18MB/sec. (those are the cheap "3 in 1 usb to bare HDD" adapters and many of the usb docks, they apparently use very cheap USB bridge chips, I've done extensive testing) From the research I've done this is due to the overhead involved with USB because the protocol wasn't designed to be used for large data transfer. Firewire400 (400mbps) goes at a consistent 39MB/sec also, fw800 does 79MB/sec for me here, again both read and write (to non flash media) So I have to assume this "3mbps" limit you either have on your computer or read somewhere about this centon, and it's not the case for mine.

I have a few centon baseball logo drives, they suck

cjpowers wrote:I'll do you one better - my second job was at a company with about 200 employees. They ran an IBM System 38 with a total storage of 2.2G housed in a drive about the size of a washing machine. This was around 1990, a mere 20 years ago.

1992 - Worked for a large bank. They had a disk "farm" so large that you couldn't recognize someone at the other end of the room. I was a programmer, and the operations manager boasted that they were nearing a terabyte of storage. We all said "wooooow"....

This product is the pits. No matter how I formatted it, it would have taken days to back up my Mac. It seemed to work ok, but slowly, on a PC. It is not worth $10 much less this price.

Spend an extra $10 and save yourself a lot of trouble.

virtual1one wrote:Computers take significant time to generate from /dev/random, that would be a completely worthless test to copy straight from there. That's why I was just going from zero. Also, the OS isn't buffering it, I can view direct IO speeds in activity monitor. But here you go anyway.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/dev/random of=rndfile bs=1024000 count=256 ; date
Wed May 16 15:18:42 CDT 2012
256+0 records in
256+0 records out
262144000 bytes transferred in 33.567270 secs (7809512 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:19:15 CDT 2012

(as expected, it could only generate 7mb/sec of random data to the internal hdd)

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=rndfile of=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile2 ; date
Wed May 16 15:20:44 CDT 2012
512000+0 records in
512000+0 records out
262144000 bytes transferred in 28.440215 secs (9217371 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:21:12 CDT 2012

9.2MB/sec. It is a little slower, probably due to the additional file i/o of reading rndfile, which was unnecessary when reading from zero, which is why I was doing it in the first place, to prevent internal hdd influence in the test. But it's pretty minor for reading. I'll be sure to use capital B this time to help those that can't count decimal places.

I took that file and copied it 4x to another larger file, rndfile1g, for testing, because I was too impatient to wait for 1gb of random data.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=rndfile1g of=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile ; date
Wed May 16 15:26:12 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 105.852448 secs (9906016 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:27:58 CDT 2012

9.9MB/sec, a little faster, again as expected. But this was creating a file too. I'll repeat the test to overwrite the file, which may actually be a little faster. Theoretically the BEST way to do this is a direct block write, but I really don't feel like reformatting it.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=rndfile1g of=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile ; date
Wed May 16 15:28:07 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 94.007138 secs (11154217 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:29:42 CDT 2012

11MB/sec, a slight improvement again as expected. Now repeating with reads.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile of=rfile3 ; date
Wed May 16 15:30:47 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 60.143104 secs (17434684 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:31:48 CDT 2012

Read speeds slowed down to 17MB/sec here, this I was not expecting. I will repeat the test with an overwrite to see if it was file creation i/o that slowed it down.

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile of=rfile3 ; date
Wed May 16 15:33:18 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 28.833711 secs (36366321 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:33:47 CDT 2012

36MB/sec, an unexpected surprise jump in read performance. Once more to null:

apple:~ nfisher $ date ; dd if=/Volumes/Service\ Data/rndfile of=/dev/null ; date
Wed May 16 15:34:18 CDT 2012
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes transferred in 5.457242 secs (192143943 bytes/sec)
Wed May 16 15:34:24 CDT 2012

Interesting, back down to 19MB/sec. It reads faster to a file than to null. Another unexpected surprise.

I don't know where you're getting your "3MBps" quote from, but clearly that is not a limit for me here. Nothing I did got anywhere near that slow. What computer are you using? USB2 is typically rated at 480mbps (yes b) which should be up in the 50's for MB/sec but it's been my experience that pretty much all the good USB hardware performs at 39MB/sec read and write. (OWC mercury enclosures, they rock) The fair stuff does 36MB/sec, cheaper gear goes around 26MB/sec, and the crap creeps along at 18MB/sec. (those are the cheap "3 in 1 usb to bare HDD" adapters and many of the usb docks, they apparently use very cheap USB bridge chips, I've done extensive testing) From the research I've done this is due to the overhead involved with USB because the protocol wasn't designed to be used for large data transfer. Firewire400 (400mbps) goes at a consistent 39MB/sec also, fw800 does 79MB/sec for me here, again both read and write (to non flash media) So I have to assume this "3mbps" limit you either have on your computer or read somewhere about this centon, and it's not the case for mine.

If your specs are right, what reason would the manufacturer list the read and write speed as 3 MB/s? Do they want to just fool everyone into believing that their product is actually worst than it performs? It would be kind of silly to underestimate the true potential of your own product. Usually people overestimate how well their product performs- maybe you should work for Centon.

Mescalero wrote:I remember when a computer guy told me that I would NEVER need more than 8mgs of ram.
Now we just need some really old guy sayin how he remembers when bread cost a nickle.

I remember when bread cost a nickle and when gasoline was 19 cents a gallon . . .

Great price. Terrible brand.

I would have bought this if I hadn't already experienced a couple run-ins with "Centon" USB sticks.

I bought two of them around the same time. I can't remember the drive size, but they both experienced complete failure within a short time frame (a little over a year). My boss also had a lot of work files saved to one and I had to use data recovery tools to save some vital work documents. Some computers wouldn't read the drive at all.

This drive would probably be "okay" for media files, but I strongly advise against trusting it with safe guarding any critical information.

CraigSam wrote:I'd buy this if it was USB 3.0...

For a higher price, surèeeeeeeeee. I would have bought 3 if they weren't sold out.

ATMA wrote:So this 64gb Jump Drive will work with the Iconia? I have the A500 and am wondering if it will read this deal?

My mom has been using it for several months, I put text files and movies on it and the free version of ES File Explorer which is what she uses to browse to and open files on her Centon 64GB drive. Honestly don't recall having to do anything special with the drive or tablet but a quick Google search should outline anything you really need (IF ANYTHING).

Can someone tell me how to order this item. I dont see where I can do this. HELP

Wow the comments about the quality/reliability of Centon thumb drives are not very encouraging at all. I ordered mine Tuesday night.

I hope the quality has improved or that maybe they were isolated cases. I wouldn't expect woot to be selling a piece of crap unreliable product that isn't worth 1/3 of what you pay for it like it seems people are insinuating.

nafasi wrote:Can someone tell me how to order this item. I dont see where I can do this. HELP

If you're not familiar with how Woot works, read the FAQ's. You should see links at the bottom of the page.

The short version is that Woot normally sells one item per day, and the Centon drive was on sale Wednesday, so it would be too late to order it now. Aside from that, they actually sold out of them Wednesday morning, so it was already too late at that point.

never trust any memory stick storage...let alone cheap ones, this is considered throw away type stuff, and it fills certain roles.


its just not a very good way to safe guard anything though.

but its easier to mail someone 64gb in a padded envelope than to upload that much from most isp for instance.

as for ssds, those have wear leveling and much much faster flash/controllers.

Just recieved mine and it is NOT formated for MAC right out of the box. I had to format it myself. Advertised wrong!

Mescalero wrote:I remember when a computer guy told me that I would NEVER need more than 8mgs of ram.
Now we just need some really old guy sayin how he remembers when bread cost a nickle.

I actually upgraded my old Apple ][ from 16K of ram to 64K and changed the ROM from Integer BASIC to Floating point Basic.

Those were the days!

Can't get this to work. Everything I try to save I get an error message. Help.

Mine won't work!! What am I doing wrong?

Mine got about 1 gb on it then became read only. Can't get it writable.

I put this drive into my Macbook Air, formatted it using disk utility and it is DEAD. No computer will do anything to it. It shows up in disk utility on the peanut-butter jelly time and in disk management on the PC, but I can not access the drive to format it or anything. Any suggestions? I guess I have to return it?

Glendale wrote:I put this drive into my Macbook Air, formatted it using disk utility and it is DEAD. No computer will do anything to it. It shows up in disk utility on the peanut-butter jelly time and in disk management on the PC, but I can not access the drive to format it or anything. Any suggestions? I guess I have to return it?

mine says write protected when it isn't

I have not received mine yet. Is anyone else still waiting?

cenders wrote:I have not received mine yet. Is anyone else still waiting?

My brother got his more than a week ago, but I'm still waiting... :-(

Very slow!

ronnfolk wrote:Very slow!

Failed right out of the box. Started writing MP3's to it, and the copy failed. Then went to reformat, and that failed. Now no matter what computer I put it in, it comes up as USB device, but no disk is present. Diskpart won't even partition it...same deal on 3 different computers. Not happy with this Woot.

Failed at first use. Copied part of the data from another stick, then froze with "Write Protect" error. Shows 21GB used, but Windowz shows blank for directory.

Nothing I've tried will unlock it. Sent RMA 25th of May, no hear back yet.

First Woot! If this is the way the company does business, then it will be the last!

rickn8or wrote:Failed at first use. Copied part of the data from another stick, then froze with "Write Protect" error. Shows 21GB used, but Windowz shows blank for directory.

Nothing I've tried will unlock it. Sent RMA 25th of May, no hear back yet.

First Woot! If this is the way the company does business, then it will be the last!

Sorry about that. Our records show we responded to you the same day of your email 5/25 with some options. I'm sending a copy of the email we sent via PM.

rickn8or wrote:Failed at first use. Copied part of the data from another stick, then froze with "Write Protect" error. Shows 21GB used, but Windowz shows blank for directory.

I'm having the same "write protect" error. I know I could perform a low level format and that it might fix it, but frankly it's not worth the time. It would take 4 days to zero out this drive.

kkshields wrote:Sorry about that. Our records show we responded to you the same day of your email 5/25 with some options. I'm sending a copy of the email we sent via PM.

I have received NO e-mails from Woot! since I sent the original one. Reply to: (mod: email removed)

Finally got around to trying to use this little guy and it was DOA.

Attempted a low-level format and OS complained that the device isn't seekable; GParted is showing a capacity of 18,302,629 TB.

1 dud out of 11 woot!s isn't bad... I guess. Still, I'm out $35.

Bought it on may 16 like everyone else. had to reformat it a month later and today ? now it's write protected. the forums give no real help. Centon gives no real hope. WHAT A PIECE OF CRAP. I had business files on this drive and it REALLY has put me out today. Junk.

Piece of Crap! Bad right out of the box locked and there is no way to unlock