Different speed on empty and near full microdrive

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast, sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

I would like to know if there any of you microdrive user ever experienced the same thing ?

Thanks!

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

Click to expand...

What probably happens is...

On an empty drive, to optimize performance, data is written to drive using contiguous sectors/blocks... skipping smaller areas on partially used tracks if necessary. As the drive fills up, the remaining free space is scattered all over the drive... new files will have to be stored "in pieces" to fill in these gaps... thus impacting performance. Defraging the drive will theoretically regain some performance.

aosty said:

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

Click to expand...

What probably happens is...

On an empty drive, to optimize performance, data is written to
drive using contiguous sectors/blocks... skipping smaller areas on
partially used tracks if necessary. As the drive fills up, the
remaining free space is scattered all over the drive... new files
will have to be stored "in pieces" to fill in these gaps... thus
impacting performance. Defraging the drive will theoretically
regain some performance.

Click to expand...

I think it is make sense. Fragmented disk. Will CF 1 have the same problem ?

unlikely to be noticable. The loss of performance on a disk (micro or otherwise) is due to the time taken for the read/write heads to move about the disk surface.

On a solid state device (memory card), fragmentation can still occur, but unless the card is using some type of fast read/write system whereby data must be in contiguous blocks, then reading/writing speeds should not be impacted by fragmentation.

Bram Pribadi said:

aosty said:

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

Click to expand...

What probably happens is...

On an empty drive, to optimize performance, data is written to
drive using contiguous sectors/blocks... skipping smaller areas on
partially used tracks if necessary. As the drive fills up, the
remaining free space is scattered all over the drive... new files
will have to be stored "in pieces" to fill in these gaps... thus
impacting performance. Defraging the drive will theoretically
regain some performance.

Click to expand...

I think it is make sense. Fragmented disk. Will CF 1 have the
same problem ?

Click to expand...

Any disc media will be faster on the outside. There are different techniques. They either keep the RPM constant or they keep the read rate constant. With harddisks, you spin with the same RPM (CD's can be different). This means if your files end up on the outside of the disk as opposed to the inside the speed will be noticeable different.

I dont know which system MD's use to write but I would assume its Inside to outside side one and then inside to outside side 2.

This means an almost full MD' will be faster than an empty one (unless it has a different write philosophy)

Also as noted before fragmentation will slow the drive down. A format will fix this.

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

I would like to know if there any of you microdrive user ever
experienced the same thing ?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Simon Glynn said:

unlikely to be noticable. The loss of performance on a disk (micro
or otherwise) is due to the time taken for the read/write heads to
move about the disk surface.

On a solid state device (memory card), fragmentation can still
occur, but unless the card is using some type of fast read/write
system whereby data must be in contiguous blocks, then
reading/writing speeds should not be impacted by fragmentation.

Click to expand...

Agreed... with solid state storage, there will be some impact on performance but it will be negligible compared to a spinning disk with moving heads.

Simon Glynn said:

Bram Pribadi said:

aosty said:

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

Click to expand...

What probably happens is...

On an empty drive, to optimize performance, data is written to
drive using contiguous sectors/blocks... skipping smaller areas on
partially used tracks if necessary. As the drive fills up, the
remaining free space is scattered all over the drive... new files
will have to be stored "in pieces" to fill in these gaps... thus
impacting performance. Defraging the drive will theoretically
regain some performance.

Click to expand...

I think it is make sense. Fragmented disk. Will CF 1 have the
same problem ?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Thanks for all the comments!

Any of you know is there any review or test regarding the writing speed of md from empty to full ?

Thanks!

Mad Hatter said:

I dont know which system MD's use to write but I would assume its
Inside to outside side one and then inside to outside side 2.

This means an almost full MD' will be faster than an empty one
(unless it has a different write philosophy)

Also as noted before fragmentation will slow the drive down. A
format will fix this.

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

I would like to know if there any of you microdrive user ever
experienced the same thing ?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

I would like to know if there any of you microdrive user ever
experienced the same thing ?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

These few days I felt that the 256Mb Apacer Photo Steno I just bought is getting faster. So I made a rough measurement, and found out that when the CF1 getting, full the writing speed become faster.

My rough measurement using my Canon G2:

Empty Media:

256Mb Apacer Photo Steno, max res ISO 400 RAW
From shutter released to preview on LCD display: 2 seconds
From shutter released to buffer finished flushing: 5 seconds

IBM Micro Drive 1Gb, max res ISO 400 RAW
From shutter released to preview on LCD display: 3 seconds
From shutter released to buffer finished flushing: 6 seconds

70% Full Media:

256Mb Apacer Photo Steno, max res ISO 400 RAW
From shutter released to preview on LCD display: less than 2 seconds
From shutter released to buffer finished flushing: 4 seconds

256Mb Apacer Photo Steno, max res ISO 400 JPEG
From shutter released to preview on LCD display: less than 1 seconds
From shutter released to buffer finished flushing: 3 seconds

While microdrive getting slower when it is full, the CF is getting faster.

Regards.

Bram Pribadi said:

Any of you know is there any review or test regarding the writing
speed of md from empty to full ?

Click to expand...

I havent heard about it. However there should be benchmarks available that test that. check on http://www.heise.de

I dont think there will be dramatic differences between outside and inside sectors on a MD

Bram Pribadi said:

Thanks!

Mad Hatter said:

I dont know which system MD's use to write but I would assume its
Inside to outside side one and then inside to outside side 2.

This means an almost full MD' will be faster than an empty one
(unless it has a different write philosophy)

Also as noted before fragmentation will slow the drive down. A
format will fix this.

Bram Pribadi said:

I have 340Mb and 1Gb Microdrive, use it in Canon G2. I feel that
sometime the writing speed of the microdrive is pretty fast,
sometime noticeable slow.

My friend that using 1Gb microdrive for his D60 also experienced
the same thing. He said that if the microdrive is empty, just
formated, it is faster than when it is almost full.

I would like to know if there any of you microdrive user ever
experienced the same thing ?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

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Click to expand...