Speed, Using different file paths

[rayvt]

I've been dismayed with the speed of the mkiso step, so I tried some timing tests.
Copying a 720MB vob to a path or drive letter that is on the same physical disk as the source took about 5 minutes. But copying it to a different physical disk took only about 2 minutes. Makes sense, because if it's the same drive the head are going to be seeking back and forth continually. (Note that the timing measurements can be bogus if you have write-caching enable for a drive. The "copy" command reported it was finished on 16 seconds, but the disk wrote for another 1:45 as the cache was being flushed out to the disk. The bogus timing will vary, depending on how much RAM your computer has. Mine has 1GB.)

I manually re-ran mkisofs. When the destination drive was on the same physical disk as the source (the DVDFILES path) it took 27 minutes. When it was to different physical disk it took only 20 minutes.

In a full rebuild to ISO, there are 3 major steps where the data is moved during the transform.
1) Original source --> mpeg (directory D2VAVS)
2) mpeg --> VOBs (directory DVDFILES)
3) DVD directory (IFOs and VOBs) --> ISO file

The "enable output directory" option allows the 2nd step to use a different physical disk for source & destination. Step 1 inherently has this ability, because you have specify both source and destination ("working path") disks.
But now with the addition of the "create ISO file", we need the ability to have step 3 be different disks, too.

Note that this can be done with only 2 disks.
E.g., D(ripped) --> E(mpegs) --> D(VOBs & IFOs) --> E(iso)

jdobbs, could you add this additional option?
Thanks.

BTW, it might also be useful if DVDRB had an option to delete the files in the D2VAVS directory after it successfully creates the VOBs and IFOs in the DVDFILES directory. If you do the create iso step, you have files totalling 4-5 full DVDs on your hard drive(s)!

[jdobbs]

27 minutes????

Something is wrong on your system. Is it badly fragmented? MKISOFS never takes more than about 5 minutes on my system (same source and destination disc) -- and that's on a standard 7200rpm IDE drive, nothing fancy.

My guess is that your disc is close to capacity. Microsoft has a problem in that area. When a disc gets close to its capacity the overhead of clearing space for each write actually takes more time than the write itself.

[rayvt]

Nope, I ran the tests on several disks with similar timings. No disk is more than half full. Most have 100+ GB free. I have 5 drives, split this way:
C,D,E (250GB ide)
F (300GB SATA)
G & Linux (200GB ide)
H (250GB ide)
I (300GB ide)

Did you check to see if you had write caching enabled or disabled? Mkisofs cannot be faster than merely copying the files from one place to another. How long does that take on your system?

FWIW, I just tried copying a 633MB iso file with Windows Explorer drag-and-drop, same disk. When it's done, right-click on the new file, look at properties. Create time is when it started, access time is when it finished. The difference between the two times was 7:20. This is on my work machine, a Pentium 4, 3.20GHz 1.00 GB ram.

[jdobbs]

Well.... As I said, on my computer it takes about 5 minutes. The entire REBUILD phase which includes the ISO write only takes about 20 minutes, and from all the reports and posted log files I've seen (I've seen a lot of them) that seems to be about average.

Here's an example of a movie that I just happened to have tested last night:


[21:36:05] Phase III, REBUILD started.
- Copying IFO, BUP, and unaltered files...
- Processing VTS_01
- Reading/processing TMAP table...
- Rebuilding seg 0 VOBID 1 CELLID 1
- Rebuilding seg 1 VOBID 1 CELLID 1
- Updating NAVPACKS for VOBID_01
- Rebuilding seg 2 VOBID 2 CELLID 1
...
- Updating NAVPACKS for VOBID_15
- Updated VTSM_C_ADT.
- Updated VTSM_VOBU_ADMAP.
- Updated IFO: VTS_01_0.IFO
- Correcting VTS Sectors...
- Building ISO Image...
- ISO Image successfully created.
[21:57:52] Phase III, REBUILD completed in 21 minutes.

[MCFish]

FWIW, I just tried copying a 633MB iso file with Windows Explorer drag-and-drop, same disk. When it's done, right-click on the new file, look at properties. Create time is when it started, access time is when it finished. The difference between the two times was 7:20. This is on my work machine, a Pentium 4, 3.20GHz 1.00 GB ram.

Something is utterly wrong...
On my old athlon 1ghz copying a 700mb iso only took 56 sec(to same disk) and it was not idle at the time.

[jdobbs]

Taking 27 minutes to write a 4.32GB file would indicate a write speed of less than 3MByte per second. That's much slower than a fast ethernet connection... modern SATA drives have sustained transfer rates up around 65MByte per second.

As a comparison -- how long does it take to rip a 4.37GB DVD from your DVD drive? On mine it takes about 7-8 minutes and a dual layer takes about 15 -- and DVD drives are slow compared to a hard disc.

[jdobbs]

Mkisofs cannot be faster than merely copying the files from one place to another. How long does that take on your system?I just did a test. A simple copy, using Windows Explorer, for a 4.32GB ISO file took 3 minutes and 35 seconds. This is on a standard ATA 7200 MAXTOR drive. I was reading and writing to/from the same drive.

[Trahald]

how much memory do you have jdobbs?

@mcfish
make sure you account for write behind cache like rayvt did.. ie.. when windows says its done copyin the file.. make sure that you dont stop your counter until your drive light stops going.

[jdobbs]

512MB on that system. I purposely keep that computer middle-of-the-road so it represents a typical user. It's an Athlon XP 3200 w/512MB of PC3200 memory. It is running at the standard clock rate and has a 200GB ATA Disc (7200rpm, 8MB cache).

@rayvt

Check your virus software configuration. If its set up so it watches disc activity it can slow your computer down dramatically.

[MCFish]

make sure you account for write behind cache like rayvt did.. ie.. when windows says its done copyin the file.. make sure that you dont stop your counter until your drive light stops going.

ugh, i cant see my drivelight. its on another floor....

[Jack'n'xbox]

I had a problem with a hard drive before that sounds a lot like what’s going on here.

I had just received my new pc with sata drives so I tested it against my older pc ata drives. I transferred an image from one drive to the other to test each pc's speed. Well the older pc won??? So I went back to the store to talk wit the guy, it turns out that the new pc's sata drive was the problem and it was replaced. They told me that it was also making a clicking noise.

Other then the speed issue I had no idea that there was a problem with the drive.

[Rockas]

@rayvt
I don't know the name for it in english but have you checked the pwoer of the "energy unit" (that box inside the PC box with a fan and where you plug it to electricity cable :D - sorry I really don't knw the name of it in English)... I'm asking you this 'cause some times people keep adding "stuff" into the PC box but forget about the power supply.

You have 5 HDDs
I think I won't be wrong if I say you also have 2 DVD Readers/writters
You may have a Sound Card... ethernet card... usb ports... VGA... TV Card... Capture Card... well... you can have plenty of other stuff but my point is that you must be carefull about the "box" I told you about... check its power... it usually has it on a sticker on the side (inside the PC case).

Sorry for my english... if someone can explain this better... be my gest :D

[jptheripper]

power supply unit (PSU)

yeah its amazing how many times a strained to capacity PSU can be the problem. I have seen inadequate/failing PSUs cause blue screens, slow write times, random reboots, almost every computer problem.

[cobo]

@rayvt
Are your drives operating in UDMA mode5?

To get to the UDMA setting in XP:
Start->Control Panel->Performance and Maintenance->System->Hardware (tab)->Device Manager (button)->IDE ATA/ATAPI Contollers->Primary (Secondary etc.) IDE Channel->Advanced Settings (tab)
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode:Ultra DMA Mode 5

If DMA isn't available look for a setting in the BIOS or use a utility from the drives manufacturer to set the DMA mode, or try deleting your IDEs in Device Manager and let Windows reinstall them.

You may also have to set acoustic mode management to performance or fast to enable the highest UDMA mode for your drives. Again look for a setting in the BIOS or use a utility from the drives manufacturer to set the acoustic mode.

[Carpo]

not that it will help here but there is a supposedly faster version of mkiso with new pgcedit - might help shave a few secs off that 27mins :sly: