Hello all. Got my Sync1 to 3 upgrade done. Thanks so much to this forum and everyone that puts stuff online here to help!

USB Tip:

I used a Verbatim from Office Depot here in Canada. A bit hard to find now but here's the manufacturer's web site:
https://www.verbatim.com/prod/usb-dr...ive-sku-98365/

It was "ok" but very annoying on how it took forever to load up, was intermittent loading, and forget about doing a Random play and the skip a track. Laggy would be putting it politely.
Because I added a new album to the drive(Trews if you must ask I figured it was a good time to try a few things. Here's what I did- Check Disk then Defrag.

Windows 7 computer- Goto Computer where you can see the drive- Right click your USB drive- Click Properties - Goto Tools Tab - Click Check Now in Error-checking - Make sure both options are clicked and Start.
When done, go back to Tools tab(should still be there) - Click Defragment now - Select your USB drive(Click once) then click Defragment Disk. Windows will run an analyze-ation and then start the defragment process. You can run this a couple of times if you like. Should be very quick if everything is good/organized on the drive.
Apple folks can step in here for their version.

End result was a night and day difference. No weirdness on startup. Sync 3 always finds drive. Random(ish) works perfectly with no delays. Skipping forward and back is practically instantaneous.

I know this isn't a major thing but it can be very annoying.

Hope this helps someone!