100% compatible USB sticks, Pioneer verified.

I am interested in this as well.

We are currently compiling this list.

one of my sticks died while gigging in a club and since it was on old non nexus cdjs there was no emergency loop and the music stopped.

not only i am interested in a compatibility list, but also on advice on the most reliable models/makes of usb sticks

Following...

I need a large usb stick as my format is Aiff

All the Sandisk extreme pro Usb 3.0 & 3.1 are very good (Sandisk extreme go slower but oké) both series are very compatibel with very fast read en export speed.

Avoid the corsair stealth series, very slow & sometimes not usable with cdj's (error).

But the corsair voyager GS & GT series are good.

Corsair Voyager GTX Usb 3.1 very good en very fast!!

But my favorites are the small pocket SSD Trancend ESD400K Extreme, the 128Gb & 256Gb are working out of the box with rekordbox on windows & mac, no need to format because they are FAT32 formated.

The ssd's don't need much power and are working with al cdj models i tested. Price quality is very good !!

Samsung, Sandisk, Kingston, Transcend

The only brands i buy that i know works on every setup i own or use.

Theres no real need to buy the more expensive memories like Extreme or Pro.

As it only regard the export speed in RBX and not the read speed on CDJ / XDJ

I Use several types of USB, SD and SSD. Samsung makes the most reliable SSD to my knowledge when trying and testing for a new storage lineup.

My number one protip. Change devices often as the memories gets hot and melts or breaks. Especially in warmer climate.

i have not yet had this problem with SSD or Harddrives with normal cables. So maybe thats the way for you to go.

But buy two so you can rock a backup in case of one breaks down or gets stolen!

I love the Samsung T5 SSD series. Fast, small and worth every penny!

Dear Pioneer is there maybe a list already? Where could I find this? Thanks

Unfortunately there is no list - we were attempting to gather real-world test results and feedback from users, but there are simply too many varieties of units on the market that it proved to be a near impossible task. Instead, I'll recommend the three drives I personally use because I have tested them and have had amazing results:

- SanDisk Extreme Pro USB3

- Corsair Voyager GTX

- Samsung T5 SSD

Spend as much as you can afford to get the best quality drive, as the write speeds for both large AND small files make a huge difference to performance and export times.

I use Traktor Pro, not Rekordbox. I also use .aiff files with a G-Drive via my laptop. Recently I have wanted to carry high capacity usb sticks for music file backup should any software issues come up at any gigs where I'm using either a pair of CDJ2000 (which I own at home), or CDJ2000nexus, or CCJ2000nexus 2 (usually at the clubs)

Can anyone tell me if a pair of these sticks would be appropriate for any of those 3 generation CDJ 2000s?

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDCZ880-256G-G46-Extreme-256GB-Solid/dp/B01N7QDO7M/ref=pd_bxgy_147_2/140-3449079-3136017?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01N7QDO7M&pd_rd_r=109ee6b9-e5e6-41eb-83b2-90d2ffd25b8e&pd_rd_w=4mPIJ&pd_rd_wg=fnp9D&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=BC710AERT0FWQ2RVV1SC&psc=1&refRID=BC710AERT0FWQ2RVV1SC

That one is good

Hi Pulse,

Based on your comments I just bought Corsair Voyager GTX 256gb to use them with CDJ-850.

They don't work with recordbox. I get error 8306 with every song. All songs are on the usb drive however. They play fine without recordbox.

USB is MBR and FAT32 formatted. Firmware of CDJ-850 is up-to-date.

How can I make recordbox work?

Thomas

Hi Pulse,

I followed your advice and bought the Scandisk Extreme Pro USB 3 128GB stick.

Export time was fantastic.  Formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32) which as far as I know is a compatible format.  Tried in 2 separate players, both XDJ1000 mk2 and neither picked up the usb.  Both just said No USB.

I always take a spare USB with me, which was the exact same make and model, same issue, neither player would change from No USB.

Any suggestions?  I've just made the move to Rekordbox for gigs from Traktor and between slow exports on some USB to quality USB sticks not being recognised I'm starting the think the hassle of setting up Traktor is worth it

Hi hi Kenny - I had the same issue with a 500 gb one, did uni get it to work 

Dare I say it, the problem is not with the memory sticks, it's with the Pioneer decks. Just bought a brand new XDJ1000Mk2, set up 2 different usb sticks on the pc with Rekordbox.
It seems arbitary whether my playlists will be displayed when I plug them into the XDJ. I sometimes have to power the deck off and on a couple of times before the playlists are visible.
These are Philips usb sticks. It won't read a Kingston Data Traveller at all. It won't even read a Pioneer mobile ssd.
ALL of these can be read reliably by ANY computer, laptop, stereo, or even by my car stereo!

Pioneer this isn't good enough for a £1000+ deck!

@Tony > It all comes down to compatibility between the host chipset and the memory controller in your USB drive. Unfortunately the host of the XDJ is a bit more picky than your car stereo.

Precisely, but make no mistake that is an unnacceptable design fault, particularly in such an expensive piece of equipment. Even the cheapest £10 music player on ebay wouldn't suffer from it.
I understand a chipset cannot be changed on a current production model, I hope future models use better chipsets.
Can nothing be done to change parameters to make tolerances wider in a firmware update?

Sorry, but it's the opposite of what you're thinking -- the cheap eBay player doesn't need to have reliability; if it craps out because of incompatibility, you won't find out until mid-playback.

Ah ok, I guess that kind of makes sense if it fully tests reliability before deciding it will allow the usb stick.
I still don't quite understand why sometimes it can see the tracks in folders but not the playlists, until its turned off and on a couple of times? It's very frustrating not to know if it will read your playlists (or if you may need to power cycle it once, or maybe twice) every time you plug the usb stick in with trepidation.
Will persevere with different brands of usb stick to see if I can find one that appears reliable.
Are the XDJ1000Mk.2 usb3 or usb2 speed by the way? I assume usb3 but haven't seen that confirmed?

Ok so real world tests, I have a bunch of usb sticks around, tried a few, here's the most reliable recipe so far..

Kingston Data Traveller 32Gb USB3

On the PC > Format, Choose options FAT32, Reset Allocation unit size to Default, Don't do a quick format, do a full low-level format. It takes longer but this method so far seems reliable.

Then just exported playlists from Rekordbox to the device.

Fingers crossed and all that but so far it's loaded successfully in the player with playlists visible every time.

@Tony > All products prior to the CDJ-3000 are USB2; the maximum theoretical throughput of the USB2 pipeline (40MB/s) is FAR more than is needed by four WAV files at the highest supported bit/sample rates. We recommend using USB3 drives simply for their write speed so you're not waiting around for rekordbox to export music to the drive.

That makes sense, I did find a big difference in export times. The Usb3 stick also loads much quicker when inserting into the player (it flashes for a couple of seconds then it's ready, the usb2 sticks typically flash for 6-8 seconds longer before they're ready to play).

Have anyone tried this one (128G) on XDJ's?

SanDisk Extreme PRO Solid State USB Flash Drive USB 3.1: Amazon.de: Computers & Accessories

the sandisk extreme pro 3.2 128gb and corsair voyager gtx 128gb work on the xdj-rx2, rx-xz and the cdj 3000. Doesn't work on the cdj2000 series (maybe nexus 2). currently chatting with someone from support

@Koen > We cannot guarantee functionality of USB3.x devices on older CDJ-2000/NXS/NXS2 players, and sometimes it's just whether the drive is formatted FAT32 or HFS+. Sorry!

it's just really shit that i've bought two new usb's which got recommended at a few places/forums which both won't work. They are fat32 formatted though

@Koen > Sorry, even if I recommend a very specific model doesn't mean that the internals of that product won't change. There was a very relevant video posted about this yesterday by Linus Tech Tips; although it discusses M.2 SSDs specifically, the same thing happens with other products all the time, including USB drives. If the manufacturer changes the memory manager on the drive, it can have a real impact on compatibility.

alrighty, gonna check it out

@Koen. i stopped using sandisk extreme. It ejected itself a few times from my macbook pro, it really jumped itself out of the usb port, that happened a few times. My opinion: i don't use any usb anymore that can slide the usb in/out, if u understand what i mean.

@Koen Have you tried a low level fat32 format on the drives (not a quick format). It will take a long time (just let it run overnight if you have to). That process made a couple of USB3 drives work for me.

I have a new transcend storejet esd370c 3.1 gen2 500gb mbr fat32 , first time I used it at a gig 2 weeks ago was with cdj3000 and worked perfect. I had a gig the other day on 2000 nexus and it was not recognized some error nr and on nexus 2 showed format usb, such a problem to have this at a gig. I got a ssd bcz usb stick is too small and hdd break so easy. The ssd has no issue with other devices. Can it be a firmware update?