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[NickM]

What's the best file synchronisation software to use to keep a replicated copy of MP3 & APE's on a backup HDD?  And on the same subject, what is the best block size to use when formatting a HDD just for MP3 & APE?
Thanks, nick

[NickM]

I'm SURE that someone does MP3 file back-up's !
I know it's a bit of a boring discussion subject, but there must be a copy guru out there somewhere...
nick

[IanG]

Have a look at the freeware version of SynchBack - http://www.2brightsparks.com/


As to block sizes, I don't know what's best, but I doubt that there's much real difference given the speed of modern drives and the data rates you need.  For a more considered answer you'd need to think about how you're going to use the drive - will you be deleting / replacing many files or just adding them? 

Ian G.

[NickM]

Thanks Ian.
 
As for the block size, I would have thought there are two different tasks taking place; one adding new files and the second, editing tags.  Not sure how block size will affect drive efficiency when the tags are edited.

nick

[GHammer]

Block size is going to make more a difference in 'wasted' space on your drive and in fragmentation.

If you have a large block size and many small files, you will have space reserved that holds no data.

If you have a small block size and do frequent changes on files, you will have many small blocks scattered over the drive.

I use a small size (512) with NTFS for my data drive. Once a file is on it it is not likely that I am going to make changes to it. So a weekly defrag takes care it.

[hit_ny]

Another vote for Syncback, have started using it quite a lot now. Certainly beats ghosting the enitre drive when only a small amount has changed.

The block size had me stumped too so  i gave up and went with the NTFS default of 512 bytes. Though i'm not sure if its the best, you see its picked for whats going to be on it, namely an OS that will have lots of tiny files.

A block size (>512) would be the intuitive pick since most of the media files are going to be big certainly in the 10s of MBs or more, and will make up the majority of the drive.

A bigger block size will give you faster access as well, or less skipping as you would get a larger chunk of the file in one go, but am not sure just how big a boost, this increase might be with a drive of 7500RPMs and above.

I suppose one way would be to get a list of all files on a partition and see what the smallest size is, how many and use this as a guide to setting minimum block size.

[NickM]

Thanks for the help.  Syncback now installed and running effortlessly.  This will take a huge headache out of my backing up process.  ( I was previously using MS Briefcases!... )

As far as the block size is concerned, I am reverting to investigation; two new partitions formated as NTFS with one 512, the other 4096.  100 CD's on each and defragmenting turned off.  I will do some artwork and tagging updates and see.  Expect a post in a couple of weeks !

nick

[GHammer]

Hmmmm, the sector size is one consideration if you are using NTFS.

A cluster (or allocation unit) is the smallest amount of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file. All file systems used by Windows XP Professional organize hard disks based on cluster size, which is determined by the number of sectors that the cluster contains. For example, on a disk that uses 512-byte sectors, a 512-byte cluster contains one sector, whereas a 4-KB cluster contains eight sectors.

FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS each use different cluster sizes depending on the size of the volume, and each file system has a maximum number of clusters it can support. The smaller the cluster size, the more efficiently a disk stores information because unused space within a cluster cannot be used by other files.

The NTFS default size of any drive you are likely to use will be 4096.

For example the C: drive on anyone's system is usually default, mine is anyway.

C:\>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo C:
NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xae3ccd933ccd56cd
Version :                         3.1
Number Sectors :                  0x0000000004a852c0
Total Clusters :                  0x0000000000950a58
Free Clusters  :                  0x00000000007fe7cc
Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000000
Bytes Per Sector  :               512
Bytes Per Cluster :               4096
Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024
Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0

C:\>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo D:
NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0x72749ca5749c6d9b
Version :                         3.1
Number Sectors :                  0x0000000012a18a81
Total Clusters :                  0x0000000012a18a81
Free Clusters  :                  0x0000000007b9c1d6
Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000bf0
Bytes Per Sector  :               512
Bytes Per Cluster :               512
Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024
Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 2

By the way, a new version of Syncback was released yesterday. Or at least I got it yesterday.

[cascius]

I just bought a 400gig HDD and decided to use the maximum cluster size (64kb) and so far, I've been very happy.

I do a lot of tagging and include cover arts inside the files. In the past, using the default ntfs setting, my drives would get fragmented like crazy. Now, the only times i get any sort of fragmentation is when I copy/download files to the drive... But there's not much i can do about it.

Anyway, after tagging a couple thousand songs, I only got about 20 fragmented files, most were downloads except for 5 or so...

I've got 30,000 audio files (120gigs) on that drive right now and if we were to say that I waste 64kb/song (which obviously isn't accurate...), then I would be wasting 1.92gigs to of storage. That's a ratio of 1.6% storage space wasted/used.

If you think this a waste, look at it this way:
- Less fragmenting -> less disk access and defragmenting required -> Better performance and HDD life expectensy
- Bigger clusters -> less disk access time -> Better performance and HDD life expectensy

PS: I'm only talking about a HDD set for storing large music files and not office documents etc obviously.

- cas

[hit_ny]

I just bought a 400gig HDD and decided to use the maximum cluster size (64kb) and so far, I've been very happy.

This assumes you have noticed a marked difference compared to earlier drives. Now since this is a bigger drive, it will be give you a faster access time automatically than a smaller drive, as the data is more densely packed in it.

You have also picked the biggest cluster size so i imagine its as good as it can be.

I'm not sure how one could effectively test how much better a bigger cluster like 64k was vs 32 or 16 or even 8. Apart from it might start faster which is not as acurate as i would prefer.

What tool did you use to defrag a drive with 64k clusters, was under the impression that it was not possible if you exceeded the 4k cluster size.

[krdavies]

For backup, could I add Robocopy to the list? It's on the Windows CD, is command line and has pretty much every option you could hope for.

[cascius]

This assumes you have noticed a marked difference compared to earlier drives. Now since this is a bigger drive, it will be give you a faster access time automatically than a smaller drive, as the data is more densely packed in it.

You have also picked the biggest cluster size so i imagine its as good as it can be.

I'm not sure how one could effectively test how much better a bigger cluster like 64k was vs 32 or 16 or even 8. Apart from it might start faster which is not as acurate as i would prefer.

What tool did you use to defrag a drive with 64k clusters, was under the impression that it was not possible if you exceeded the 4k cluster size.

Good points there. It is true that 64 might be a bit overkill compared to 16 or 32, i really don't have a clue there. I chose 64 mainly because i include cover arts within the files and those can be quite big. I'm definitely not sure how one could go about doing an accurate testing of these things. You would have to take into consideration things such as:
- drive fragmentation
- access time
- wasted extra cluster space
- etc...
-> Not obvious at all...

 All i know is that there is a clear difference between these two 2 hard drives as far as storing my music:
250gigs/7200/8megs/ntfs standard cluster size/internal HDD
400gigs/7200/8megs/ntfs 64k cluster size/USB2 external HDD
I think the increase in MC performance mainly comes from not having a fragmented drive. This also helps with MC reading the db (30+k songs), which takes much longer on my 250 gigs HDD than on the 400 one.
Defragmenting a 64k cluster partition is exactly the same as a regular one. As far as i know there's no differnece. (I use XP's regular defragmenter on this machine).

Anyway, all this to say that I'm pleased with the 64k setting and that I would recommend it over a regular cluster size one for storing music. Whether it's optimal? I don't have a clue.

PS: i guess an SATA raid would be best performance-wise...
PS2: I highly recommend Diskeeper for defragmenting your HDDs. I run it on my other computer and i love it.

Peace,

- Cas

[hit_ny]

As far as the block size is concerned, I am reverting to investigation; two new partitions formated as NTFS with one 512, the other 4096.  100 CD's on each and defragmenting turned off.  I will do some artwork and tagging updates and see.  Expect a post in a couple of weeks !

nick

Do you have any results regarding various block sizes ?