Comment 9 for bug 321862

I'm very sorry to say that I just reproduced something very similar to this.
Copying files from an external disk (in FAT32) to a 16GiBs USB pendrive (also in FAT32) slows down to something close to 2MiB/s.

$ uname -a
Linux blubug 2.6.28-11-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 8 04:39:23 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.28-11-generic (buildd@crested) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) ) #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 8 04:39:23 UTC 2009

$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu jaunty"

$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu jaunty"

$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB, 16064184320 bytes
5 heads, 32 sectors/track, 196096 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 160 * 512 = 81920 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 51 196096 15683648 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdc: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1188663d

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 77825 625129281 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)