Octatrack card read/write speed

Nice open thread. I learnt new things :wink:

I too would also like to know what card people chose to use. I’ll be much obliged if you people could satisfy mine and others’ curiousity.

I recommend peeps make a sticky thread about well working SD cards on the OT. A similar thread exists on the MPC forums for MPC1k/2k5 and it is a great resource for people starting out with the machine

Thanks again Tarekith.
I´d like to know about the people that had problems using static samples and fixed them by replacing their CF cards. Please, anyone ?

out of interest, has anyone found any benefits in project or set loading speed after they replaced the media card? Does the OT seem more sprightly in its functioning?

although i am planning on working exclusively in 24bit mode, after reading a number of posts on the topic, i’m thinking it most likely won’t be necessary or of any advantage to change the media card once the OTmkII arrives.

but if there is something to be gained other than more gb, fascinated to hear about it :slight_smile:

I use a super fast CF card simply so I can do some of the Flex slicing type stuff with Static machines without worrying about bottlenecks and glitches.

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What speed ? Did you hear differences with lower speed ? (Original card for instance)

did you try doing the same things with the Static machines on the original card?

super interested to know about experiences where any perceivable differences were noted between same activities on the original and a faster card.

also, Set and Project load times … are they quicker?

I got the 120 MB/s card. I didn’t try with the original card since I got the 64gb card the day I got my OT and immediately swapped them out.

I don’t know if things load quicker or not, tbh.

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Old thread but i think its best asked here than starting another.
If i loaded the Cf card with 30Gb of samples would it effect the read speed? This is an extreme case for an example. But i’m just thinking the less samples on the card the quicker the OT can read it. Cheers.

In general it won’t. Especially when streaming in data from single files it just follows a list of blocks of data. If other blocks are used or not has no influence on that.

But putting too many samples into a single directory may have a negative impact on the file browsing menus.

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Yes, i was thinking in particular the browsing menu. Especially previewing a sample before loading it. Im thinking it may get slow.

Does anybody know if using Defragmentation is useful? I loved
watching that for hours on Windows 95.

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Unlike traditional hard drives where defragmentation is useful to reduce the movements of the read heads flash/ssd storage doesn’t require it.

You can even call it harmful to these types of storage, because it may reduce the life time due to the limited write cycles per storage cell.

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that sounds like “no you shouldn’t do speed, it will make you live a shorter life” and then you miss all the fun stuff!

What I mean: It’s still the same problem when using it for years, right? Datablocks get cluttered.

Let’s rephase my answer: with flash/ssd storage you don’t get any speed increasement by defragmentation. It doesn’t matter if blocks are accessed in linear order or if they are randomly spread out.

It’s just unnecessary wear and tear for no benefit.

(ok, maybe it helps with OCD - must have all my data blocks sorted -, but that’s only psychological)

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But there is some kind of index file - like a table of conents, right? So if one file is so cluttered it needs a huge amount of space in that file you say the whole disk/card is as fast as a disk/card with only one file that was written uncluttered? Somehow I’d say this doesn’t seem logical. Do you understand what I mean?

There is, but it always contains the addresses of all blocks associated with a file. It doesn’t get shorter when a file uses consecutive blocks or not.

Disclaimer: That is unless you are using a very very uncommon file system. Of course I could theoretically implement a file system which does it differently. But all the common ones behave as described above.

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@tnussb dropping knowledge like a boss :ok_hand:

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@PekeDorty

Fun fact 1: with flash/ssd storage you won’t even see the real addresses of your data externally.

So even after a perfect defragmentation the data blocks may be still spread out randomly within the storage device.

Technically this is done to “map out” failed blocks and replace them with good ones without the computer needing to know about it.

Fun fact 2: even micro-SD cards are little computers running their own “OS”.

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