Improves USB Drive Performance in Windows 7

Microsoft has released a hotfix for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 designed to boost performance and speed of USB storage devices such as Flash drives and USB hard disks. The hotfix KB2581464 introduces a new feature in the aforementioned operating systems that enables you to increase the maximum transfer size of USB storage devices from 64 kilobytes (KB) to 2 megabytes (MB). According to Microsoft, this can improve performance for some USB storage devices.
The update will not be served through Windows automatic update service, and is only available for download from Microsoft Support website.
After you install this update, to increase the maximum transfer size of USB storage devices, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press Enter.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbstor\VVVVPPPP VVVV represents device descriptor idVendor in hexadecimal.
   PPPP represents device descriptor idProduct in hexadecimal.
3. Click Edit, point to New, and then click DWORDValue.
4. Type MaximumTransferLength, and then press Enter.
5. Click Edit, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type a value to specify the maximum transfer size between 64KB and 2MB. For example, you select Decimal and type a value between 65535 (64K) and 2097120 (2M).
7. Exit Registry Editor.

Although the hotfix is supported by Microsoft, users are advised to apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing problems with USB storage drives. If you are not severely affected by this problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.
Additional information and download link for the hotfix is available on this page.