Thanks for the link. Like I wrote on the other thread, cluster size does affect card performance in a very noticable manner.
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Originally Posted by 0gopogo (on the other thread)
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Aargh, don't know how I could forget about cluster size.  A 2GB card must use a cluster size of no less that 32k when formatted with FAT16. The default cluster size for FAT32 is 4k. So it is really not too surprising that FAT16 performs better with many/most >= 2GB cards.
To x-check I ran the Ridata 150x 2GB formatted with FAT32 and 16k clusters through HDBench and Spb Benchmark just now.
The FAT32 results are clearly better now in both card reader and Axim than the ones I got for 4k clusters. See the other thread for details.
I don't seem to be able to format FAT32 with 32k clusters for a fair FAT16/FAT32 comparison. format.exe gives an error message saying that the cluster size is too large for the file system  . SKTools does not work at all.
IMO the 2GB Ridata 150x SD is a really nice card; can't comment on the 4GB CF Kingston because I bever had one. The price is right - there even was a time when you could get it for $190 after @ newegg.com. And it should give you better write speeds in a card reader than the MicroDrive.
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So here are the details I promised on the other thread.
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Code:
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Empty card FAT32, SC 1.1 card reader.
4k clusters 16k clusters
-------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
17825 11211 17323 2844 Y:\1MB 17825 11883 16817 2909 Y:\1MB
17860 11232 17290 2844 Y:\1MB 17825 12379 16817 2844 Y:\1MB
17685 3737 17685 2618 Y:\2MB 18188 13086 17210 2618 Y:\2MB
17834 5454 17860 2496 Y:\4MB 18258 12468 17454 2519 Y:\4MB
18044 7080 17770 2519 Y:\8MB 18703 10265 17466 2483 Y:\8MB
17685 7523 18188 2559 Y:\10MB 18686 10068 17210 2481 Y:\10MB
18611 8902 17802 2539 Y:\50MB 18720 9957 17612 2462 Y:\50MB
18723 8903 17756 2525 Y:\100MB 18830 9913 17612 2457 Y:\100MB |
I bet that with 32k clusters - which is what you get when a 2GB card is formatted with FAT16 - the results would be even closer to the FAT16 results. I also re-ran SPB Benchmark.
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Code:
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Empty card FAT32, x50v A03 ROM, on battery power.
4k clusters
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Writing 1 MB file 1029 ms 995 KB/sec
Reading 1 MB file 352 ms 2.84 MB/sec
Writing 100 of 10 KB files 9591 ms 107 KB/sec
Reading 100 of 10 KB files 564 ms 1.77 MB/sec
Directory listing: 2000 files 147 ms 13.6 thousands of files/sec
Speed index 214
16k clusters
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Writing 1 MB file 582 ms 1760 KB/sec
Reading 1 MB file 349 ms 2.87 MB/sec
Writing 100 of 10 KB files 8983 ms 114 KB/sec
Reading 100 of 10 KB files 590 ms 1.69 MB/sec
Directory listing: 2000 files 147 ms 13.6 thousands of files/sec
Speed index 218 |
Note how the write speeds picked up.
I guess I'll recheck that 4GB Transcend card with FAT32/16k clusters sometimes. But I'd prefer to use 32k clusters. I'd appreciate any pointers to a tool that can format FAT32 32k clusters on WinXP.