Startup Time Survey

[sammybaddy]

I'm wondering what everyones startup time is, from the moment you press the ON button to where the screen displays how many folders/songs you have. Also would like to know how you got your startup time down. eg. defrag using software x.

My startup time is 15-16 seconds.

Used o&o's complete/name defrag.

[Exo]

EDIT: SEE MY OTHER POST FURTHER BELOW, I GOT MY START-UP TIME REDUCED TO 10 SECONDS.

16-17 seconds, 0559 folders / 4191 songs. No DB.
On my Audio Partition (20GB of my 40GB), not defragged.

For audio read-only (most iHP users), you should never need to defrag if it was all copied straight over from your PC HD.

[Mike]

28.7 GB, 365 folders, 6027 tunes: 15 seconds db-less, 65 seconds with a TDT db. never defragged

[Sequitor]

15-16 Seconds...never defragged nor have I tried data base method.

[TCK]

H120, 15GB used, ~5000 songs, 600 folders: 20 seconds filetree, don't use db. Never defragged either.

[Man1]

2700+ songs. About 15 secs for file tree. 35 secs for database.

[sammybaddy]

I just cleared out all files from the device (has 3 folders that are created-record, audio, voice) to see what the base startup time is.

Without any files on the device, my ihp120 takes 8-9 seconds.

Weird that I've seen reports of people getting 7 second boot times.

[Jonny]

4200 songs/22 GB /365 Folders - 13 seconds Filetree
- 65 Seconds Database
Never defragmented.

[ep0ch]

10-11 secs on my full ihp-120. I posted something a while back here (Tips & Tricks) that can improve startup time.

[ManchesterUnited4Life]

200 Folders - 2520 songs

Filetree/No DB = 12.77 secs ... DB Enabled = 39.75 secs for 1801 songs with 545 'No DB' and 174 unkown ...

[jukeboxjimmy]

iHP-140 with 6399MB free
459 Folders
8640 Files

Boot TIME, With folder tree (no DB)=31 sec.
226 sec with DB

[JB]

1711 songs, in 154 folders. 32meg free.

Currently 16 seconds (give or take), and that's with db enabled. Without is 9 seconds ish.

Hoping to speed that up with a defrag when I've finished putting all my music on the thing.

More than happy at the moment!

JB

[PhilS]

As rshea mentioned defraging should not be necessary if you just keep adding files. If you are frequently deleting files then it may help. If the defrag tool rewrites everything with folders first then that too might help (as per ep0ch's method).

[Exo]

WOW, now my start up time is now only 10 seconds: iHP-140, 0559 folders / 4191 songs. No DB.

NO Defrag, I simply followed ep0ch's instructions on the tips & tricks link he gives above (using the old DOS XCOPY command, not used that for a while!).

10 Seconds !!!! - how can anyone ever say the iHP takes ages to start up!

Don't bother with defragging, just follow ep0chs instructions.

[sammybaddy]

I'll have to try out xcopy when I get my usb2.0 card.

I was wondering, has anyone tried the "Directory Compare" program that is in the download section?

This program will allow you to sync the music on your computer with the device. If you choose the "compare" button, it will show all the files that are not on the device. Clicking on any of the headings will sort this list by files, folders, path, etc. depending on what you want. If you sort by directory, you can get all the directories listed together in ABC order and highlight/upload the directories first. You can then sort by path-file and upload those after.

Is this the same as doing an xcopy?

[IpaqMan]

On my full IHP-120 (3800 songs / book tracks), my boot up time is 10 to 11 seconds down from a normal 25 seconds.

I have used a defrag (folders to front), Xcopy, and the ARJ method. The defrag (folders to front) and the ARJ method gave me slightly better times than the Xcopy method. The ARJ method takes the Xcopy method one level further by creating all of the folders and the song filenames. The improvement only happens for users with large directories which would fragment when adding so many files.

Basically, the ARJ method copies all of the files to the IHP without any actual file contents.

BTW, when you keep adding files/albums, new folders would probably be created in later parts of the disk drive instead of together at the front of the drive. This would slow the start up as the IHP has to find the newer directories.

[meowsqueak]

10 seconds to boot after using rsync (via Linux) to transfer onto empty drive (i think it creates directories first). IHP-120 is full (133 folders, 1193 songs). No db.

[sammybaddy]

What is the ARJ method? I dont have a arj executable in winxp.

[IpaqMan]

Concerning the ARJ method.

The following was copied from my post on the Iriver forum.

=====>

I earlier mentioned that defragging with Norton Speed Disk with the option of moving folders to the front would speed up the startup time. I found an alternative method that might encourage someone to throw together a simple utility.

Per a suggestion from another post here, I tested out "xcopy /t" to copy over directories only (no filenames) to a blank IHP-120 and then xcopy over the files. This gave a startup time of 15 seconds, about the same time I get just copying over files without a preliminary xcopy /t. When I defrag, the startup time decreases to 10.5 seconds. However, Norton SD does not offer the move folders option in XP or W2000.

So based upon the xcopy /t suggestion, I tried creating the entire directory structure with filenames but with no file content on the IHP-120. This would put all of the folders and the filename entries at the beginning of the disk drive. There would be no interspersing file data to get in the way. Then I used the file manager Total Commander to copy all of my music back to the IHP-120 with the overwrite all option. The resulting startup time was about 10.5 seconds, the same as the time after defrag. I did not try XCOPY or drag and drop for copying.

The above scheme avoids the whole slow defrag process.

BTW, I used an undocumented option of ARJ32.EXE to create the file structure.

Here is a sample command list:

Backup the IHP to a temp directory (D:\TEMP)

ARJ32 a IHPX D:\TEMP\* -r -j#1

ARJ32 x IHPX V:\ -hdx -y

Restore IHP from your temp directory overwriting all files.

V:\ is whatever drive is assigned to the IHP. IHPX is just the name of the archive. The first ARJ32 command builds an archive with zero bytes per file in it. The second command extracts the archive to the IHP drive.

Using ARJ32 is overkill, but it is my all-in-one archiver. BTW, you can find it at http://www.arj32.com

======>

BTW, I did not spend much actual time developing this scheme.

[Xenna]

H140, 5115 files in 531 folders: 10 (s)

I wrote my own tool to synchronize my MP3 storage with my player. By chance I made it so that the directory structure is created first (I had no idea it would affect startup times). It also creates playlists automatically in the root dir and all the first level folders containing the files below. The playlists can be automatically (re)sorted on every sync to make the H140's crummy shuffle function a bit more bearable.

Extensions and directories can be excluded selectively.

I'll upload it later today if anyone's interested...

[clevetus]

I'll be very interested in that program. Only reight now my HDD is FUBAR so it won't be much use right now. But in the short future or sure!

[exmonkey]

hp120 - no db - 332 folders with 2607 songs.

startup time 15 seconds.

there you go then.

[ewanc]

H140, not using DB, 4722 songs in 553 folders starts up in 11 seconds.

The player's been reorganised using my TDT program -- this recently got updated so that it creates all the folders first (in alphabetical order), and renames all the files in alphabetical order too, so that the FAT entries for these are also in order (it seems that the player sorts these names when it starts, or something...) The startup time was ~20 seconds before I reorganised the files.

Ewan

[sammybaddy]

So even in filetree mode it still uses the db file? I use filetree mode, so I dont put the db file on it.

[PhilS]

No, it uses the tags in the filse to display the track name unless you switch that off in the menus then it uses the filename. This should not really affect startup time though.

[sammybaddy]

I have a tip that may help you guys reduce your boot time.

Earlier, I was getting 15-16 second boot times, of which I have now reduced to 10 seconds.

I had my folders arranged like this:
\Music\Artist\Album\ *.mp3
\Music\Various Artists\*.mp3

My Various Artists folder had all songs that I did not have