DVD-RAM slowness and questions

From: Chris Carlen (crcarle_at_BOGUS.sandia.gov)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 09:14:53 -0800

Hi:

I am experimenting with a 3x DVD-RAM cartridge in a Panasonic SW-9573C
drive.

I formatted with mke2fs -j, then copied a single 540MB file to the disk.

I am getting about 400-500kB/s transfer rate on average, slowing down as
it gets closer to finishing. I have it mounted with the sync option.

This is quite slow compared to 24x CD-RWs that I used before to perform
daily backups. I understood that DVD-RAM was slow, so I can accept that.

The question is, how can I know if I am getting the *optimum* performance?

For instance, should I use custom parameters when formatting the
filesystem, to tune block sizes, etc. to the structure of the DVD-RAM disk?

Should I NOT bother with an ext3 journal?

Also, I have heard that DVD-RAM verifies itself. I would suppose this
is a feature of the drive. Or is it the driver? How can I know if
verification is being performed?

Actually, there were a lot of things I could do explicitly with the
CD-RWs, like verifying after the burn, that I can't do with this
DVD-RAM. Hmm.

Thanks for input.

Good day! 

-- 
_______________________________________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarle@sandia.gov -- NOTE: Remove "BOGUS" from email address to reply.