What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

[tecchie]

Good Morning

Just trying to get some input on the brands of thumb drives techs have been using for Kyocera firmware upgrades. We never had an issue before but are noticing not all usb's are the same. Some brands don't work. We format them all to fat 32. If we can find one brand thats reliable that we can purchase in bulk. Thanks in advance.

[davidmtupper]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

I usually have good luck with Kingston and Sandisk, any major brand name should work. I would stay away from the generics and ones that are available under a dozen different names with the same picture on Amazon.

[bsm2]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

Usually small drive seem to work better

[blackcat4866]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

Usually small drive seem to work better

That's been my rule: Use the smallest drive that will still hold the firmware.

Also remember that copier technology is often 7 years behind the times, so many of your machines are USB2 ... not USB3. And most machines do not like partitioned drives or external hard drives.

If I have a drive that isn't working, I'll format it on my PC to FAT32, then copy the firmware back onto the stick.
Some of the older Toshibas used FAT formatting. HP has their own proprietary formatting software for preparing the stick for firmware. I can't tell you exactly what it does though.
=^..^=

[Samanator]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

I usually buy 2GB or 4GB sticks from Amazon in groups of 6 to 10. Their cheap and work well for firmware upgrades on a variety of devices. When one stops working, I give it a toss. I mostly loose them by lending them to other techs. They never seem to come back.

[blackcat4866]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

LOL! I usually lose them to the washing machine or leaving them in customer machines.

Since I stated putting them on a bright neon green lanyard, I hardly ever lose them. =^..^=

[kola28]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

I ALWAYS USE SANDISK CZ80 for fw upgrade and format it to fat32

[sparkycivic]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

I have an adata uv128 32gb stick that stopped working fast after a few uses, and barely able to write data anymore.

The only other problem I've had with usb storage on copiers has been The old fs-c8520-style machines cannot read larger than 8gb or so devices.

[Samanator]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

And this is exactly why I use only cheap no larger than 4 GB sticks, sparkycivic. I have yet to encounter firmware that required something larger that 4 GB.

From time to time I will reformat them to FAT 32 instead of erasing the data I've put on one. Maybe it makes them last longer, I don't know.

The current batch I have I think are three years old.

Like I said earlier, I mostly loose them from lending them out.

[tecchie]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

Just wanted to wrap up this post. Thanks for all the suggestions. All of it was great info. My issue was that the thumb drive was too big. Stick with the small ones and format fat 32. Thanks again.

[copier tech]

Re: What Is Best Brand Thumb Drive for Firmware Upgrades

LOL! I usually lose them to the washing machine or leaving them in customer machines.

Since I stated putting them on a bright neon green lanyard, I hardly ever lose them. =^..^=