Problems with 3.1 USB sticks on Rekordbox and CDJs

Hello,

Perhaps this problem might have been discussed before in a way or other, but I can't find a clear answer throughout these topics, so perhaps someone could give me a hand with this. Thanks.

I was using two ADATA 32GB UV150 3.0 sticks for about three years and I haven't encountered a single problem with them while DJing on the CDJs, or when using them with Rekordbox. A month ago, I've decided to do an upgrade so I've bought te same model, this time the 64GB 3.1 ones. Unfortunately I didn't format them on FAT32 after unsealing because I forgot about this important thing. I don't know how they come when they're new, but I was able to upload playlists from Rekordbox on them straight after plugging them on my laptop. The surprise was they were moving so so slow. I actually had to wait more than 24 hours to upload about 30GB of music through Rekordbox on one of them. But I said maybe that's the real time... And it was only when I actually played that weekend at this venue when I've found that the loading of the tracks on the CDJs was also very slow. I've sent them back because the material and how they were assembled was not the best thing, and I've bought a new stick, this time a Kingston DataTraveler 100 GR 64GB. Same story, tremendous time to wait to upload the music, only this time when I've started playing at the club, the playlists weren't recognized on the CDJs at all. The only thing I could see was the content. After playing for about three hours, I've turned the CDJ off/on and suprise, the playlists were visibile this time. But the same thing, loading was very slow.

I came back home and installed this MiniTool Partition Wizard software, because on Windows, the only option for formatting this Kingston stick was either NTFS or exFAT. So this application allowed me to format it on FAT32, I did that and things seemed to come back to normal but very slow again while uploading the playlists. Same amount of time to put 30GB on them (almost a day). And the biggest surprise was that this time, the CDJ couldn't read the USB stick at all. It prompted me with "Format USB"... :/ I've tried to format it on a friend's laptop who's using a MAC, but the formatting on FAT32 failed there.

So, can someone tell me what seems to be the problem here? Why I am encountering all these issues with new USB sticks, why does everything move so slow, and how come that when connecting these sticks to the CDJs, all this issues appear? Thanks a lot.

Alexandru Draganescu March 12, 2019 00:22 Answered

Official comment

First and foremost, let's talk about USB device speeds... see this video for an explanation about rekordbox exports, and detail on how not all USB3 devices are capable of the same read/write speeds.

Secondly, you're correct that it was likely due to the fact your device was not formatted FAT32 or HFS+ that it couldn't be read by the player. While we know the Corsair Survivor series drives are potentially problematic and may not be recognized, even when formatted correctly, there's something about their chipset and certain hardware units which aren't compatible, so based on that, it's entirely possible there are other USB devices with the same or similar problems. Bottom line - not all USB drives are going to work in every Pioneer DJ product, we simply can't test them all or guarantee them to work.

Pulse March 12, 2019 17:05

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Date Votes

2 comments

The fact that I can't easily find the read and write speeds of the ADATA is already a red flag for me.

I'm also unable to find the read and write speeds Kingston DataTraveler 100 GR.

When a company advertises fast speeds through 3.1 it can still be slower than the recommended USB sticks (Sandisk Extreme Pro being one of them).

Also check if your computer actually supports 3.0/1. with older Macbooks I know that plugging the stick in the port closest to the screen yielded faster speeds.

Ves March 12, 2019 00:39 0 votes