Calibre Libraries on USB Stick

[Tanjamuse]

Hi.

What kind of write/read speed would be optimal if I need to keep my Calibre libraries on an USB Stick?

I need to both edit metadata and read what's in the libraries.

Thanks and stay safe out there.

[theducks]

The only time it needs goodly speed is during the initial load.
(OS) Copying an existing Library into the EMPTY (of books) Library folder area will save some time and wear and tear (rewriting the metadata.db) since it is a slam dunk rather than an Add
Book Reading is not an issue. It is the same kind of storage as in dedicated readers.
You just want QUALITY. Failures are a real bummer (keep your Library backed up. Flash do fail or get lost)

Have you considered a pocket sized (eg Passport ) HD? PURRRformance for $60 (and gobs of extra space for your tunes, Audio Books)

[stumped]

the obvious questions are how big is your library, and how patient are you

writing 5Gb of anything to a typical USB stick is 30 - 60 mins, and a cheap/small one will do its best to overheat and throw an IO error at about 4.9Gb
After that just be aware that almost every interaction - add, edit.. causes a rewrite of the same single metadata.db file and if that fails its bye buy library. So if you plan to edit or add say 10 books per day, that's ~3,500 rewrites of the same file
ask yourself - do you feel lucky.... or buy a pocket sized spinning drive, like the man said. Also, your average cat is less likely to mistake a HD for a mouse, then a mouse sized morsel of a USB stick. [ same goes for vacuum cleaners]

[Tanjamuse]

I already have an external hdd but it seems to be very slow, or sleeps unless something's running from it in less than a minute (or so it seems).

[stumped]

its good that external USB drives sleep. saves wear, saves power. but the available settings on my WD passport drives are between 10 and 30 mins

run a disk checking utility over your drive, see what if anything it finds. and read the documentation for sleep settings. What make is it, and how old ?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Tanjamuse

I already have an external hdd but it seems to be very slow, or sleeps unless something's running from it in less than a minute (or so it seems).

Strange. I have several external drives, some of them several years old, and they're all very fast, without exception. Now my flash drive is extremely slow compared to them, and error-prone. Of course I have a very large library, 30 GB or so.

[Tanjamuse]

Where do I change how quickly it sleeps?

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Tanjamuse

Where do I change how quickly it sleeps?

there are 2 places
1. control panel power options advanced... change when hard drive sleeps. I would set that to never and then control with method 2, below
2. each major USB drive manufacturer usually bundles some free utilities, one of those will give you access to when /if the drive powers won if idle. ( another, for my WD passport drives, controls when the light glows )
if you don't have that, google the drive manufacturer web site and see if you can find one. Or google search on something like [name and make of drive ] usb drive sleep options.
I have never hears of a USB drive that shuts down after only a minute though; I wanted the drives I use for plex media server to go dark/quiet as soon as there was nothing streaming. but the shortest setting I could get with both toshiba and WD was 10 minutes

if #2 is no good, then maybe set a value with method 1, but I think that windows applies the same setting to all drives. Before I switched to SSD, I wanted my C drive to be always on, otherwise there is a noticable delay when a spinning drive has to spin up + I read that parking/sleeping the drive many times a day is more wear and tear than using always on.

PS also in power options, there's a setting for whether windows can suspend USB ports that are idle. dunno if that affects drives, but turn that off also, for good measure if you like

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Tanjamuse

I already have an external hdd but it seems to be very slow, or sleeps unless something's running from it in less than a minute (or so it seems).

2 Places could affect this:
1) (optional) USB port Power Options: (device manager: USB port properties. good luck figuring out which one )

2) Opt Drive utilities (if installed) may have power
3) Power options: Advanced: (see images)

Another thing: Avoid using (multiple) High data volume devices on the same USB Hub. HD, Video are data intensive. Mouse and Keyboard are the slowest.
everything else is someplace in between.

[stumped]

another reason for never putting USB HD on a hub is power draw. a USB 2 port only delivers 0.5amp and a hard drive can take up to 0.49 . so it will not share well
give it its own port

USB3 drive in a USB3 port will be far better anyway ( does anyone still buy usb2 drives ? )
I have never used a USB3 hub so no comment on those

usb3 drive in usb2 port may call for more power than port can supply..

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by stumped

another reason for never putting USB HD on a hub is power draw. a USB 2 port only delivers 0.5amp and a hard drive can take up to 0.49 . so it will not share well
give it its own port

I use a 'Y' cable with my shirt pocket 80G hdd - both are ancient, both work fine.

Stay inside

BR