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1
Do USB pendrives/sticks have random access (i.e. accessing one block will take equal amount of time, regardless of the previous block read) characteristic?
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Do USB pendrives/sticks have random access (i.e. accessing one block will take equal amount of time, regardless of the previous block read) characteristic?
4
No, the access is not truly random since USB flash drives use NAND flash, according to Wikipedia:
With flash memory, only the NOR type is capable of true random access, allowing direct code execution, and is therefore often used instead of ROM; the lower cost NAND type is commonly used for bulk storage in memory cards and solid-state drives.
And:
NAND flash memory forms the core of the removable USB storage devices known as USB flash drives, as well as most memory card formats and solid-state drives available today.
3
Reads should all take the same time. Writes are another matter; flash is split into fairly large blocks, and you have to erase all of a block before it can be written to.
Do you want to know if the access is random, or are you just wondering about performance? – stone – 2011-03-01T18:54:35.863