SD Card Format

RichDem · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2004 3:21 pm Post subject: SD Card Format

I have just done a clean re install of Navigator 2 after a hard reset to clear out some of the junk on my 3950. I have just downloaded Storage Tools and was wondering when you format an SD card which are the best settings to use. i.e Fat 32 & 2kb cluster size. I have also installed the HP SD driver update. Previously everything worked fine, I was just wondering if I could make reading and writing the SD card any faster.

Looking forward to Navigator 3!!!!

Richard :D

lbendlin · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2004 3:52 pm Post subject:

It's a bit of black magic there - different settings work for different people. You never really know what chunks the navigation programs will be reading off the disk - but 2KB cluster size seems a bit low to me. You may end up wasting space with the FAT
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Lutz

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RichDem · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:42 am Post subject: SD Card Format

Hi Lutz,

Thanks for the reply, the figures I used were just plucked out of the sky, when I installed storage tools I discovered my SD card was using FAT32 with a sector size of 512 Bytes and a cluster size of 16 KB.

Are these the optimimum settings? If anyone else is reading this that has any different settings I would be interested to hear the results.

Regards

Richard

lbendlin · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2004 3:14 pm Post subject:

It very much depends on how much data you have on your card. If you have a multitude of very small files (let's say 5KB each) then a cluster size of 16KB is wasting 11KB per file. Realistically though you will be using the card to store maps of many MB size. So you could even have a cluster size of 1MB (if that were possible) The bigger the cluster size the less space the FAT and its copy are occupying, and the quicker the read operations will work. So 16KB sounds good, was there an option for more? I am not sure what the maximum supported size is on the pocketPC though, but it would be worth exploring that limit.
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Lutz

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TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

RichDem · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2004 8:18 pm Post subject:

Hi Lutz,

When using storage tools the maximum cluster size you can select when formatting a card is 32KB. I have a company 3950 so today I used it's SD card and formatted it using 32KB clusters as apposed to 16KB on my own Ipaq's SD card. Then copied the map data to the new card. I haven't had a chance to try it yet so I will let you how it goes. I assume that FAT32 is the best file system to use, the other options are FAT12 & FAT16.

Regards

Richard

RichDem · Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2004 2:32 pm Post subject:

To anyone who is reading this,

I have just downloaded a piece of software called Pocket Mechanic from www.handango.com it has a free 10 day trial and has a whole host of features including the ability to benchmark cards, I found that out of my 2 SD cards one has a read score of 3x where as the other card only manages a read score of 1x. I am going to register the program for only $14.95 it is a bargain.

The latest version 1.43, there seems to be 2 versions on the website so download the latest as a trial.

Regards

Richard

Exeriaa · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 03, 2004 Posts: 8

Cool :D Thats a real nice tip of software! I was looking for a memory card benchmarking software a while ago but gave up.

THANKS!

Stevie · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 1:53 am Post subject:

Tried the software.

Foolishly let it tidyup my registry and stopped my Ipaq synching. Good job I use Sprite backup all restored now. Done many backups but this was first restore.

DavidW · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 10:10 am Post subject:

The registry cleaner is new, and personally I wouldn't trust it. I'm glad that Sprite Backup came to the rescue!

To be fair, though, Anton is working hard at developing Pocket Mechanic - and I think it's a pretty good program for the money (particularly as I got it at half price because I already have some of his other programs).

David

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