If your running a x64 bit Ubuntu or other Linux and find USB transfers hang at the end apply this fix:
echo $((16*1024*1024)) > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_bytes
echo $((48*1024*1024)) > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_bytes
I suggest you edit your /etc/rc.local
file to make this change persistant across reboots.
sudo nano /etc/rc.local
Go to the bottom of the file and leave a space then paste in those two lines.
Save the file with ctrl + x then press y.
To revert the changes enter this in console and remove the lines in /etc/rc.local
echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_bytes
echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_bytes
More info and references: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/107703/why-is-my-pc-freezing-while-im-copying-a-file-to-a-pendrive/107722#107722
thanks for this, i had issues with usb sticks being read-only and very slow speeds, now i think with this fix and opening my file manager (krusader) in root mode my problems are hopefully fixed.
update: i have managed to fix my issues copying files to usb stick with the help of this page and also formatted the usb stick with gnome disk, it's not a big deal for me as i'm the tinkerer type but things like this might make people think twice about switching to linux and i think saner defaults are needed.