FlashFire XP 32Bit (0.a0) - New Buffering Engine

[zartto]

Can you post plain text of .reg file? Current .reg file seems to be interrupted and doesn't work =(

This the content of .reg file.
Or, you can directly edit your registry with regedit program.

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ffire\Parameters]
"BufferSize"=dword:00000040


[zartto]

Have you tried "Software: Practice and Experience" Journal? (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 1&SRETRY=0) (I am also dedicated to research and I know sometimes how difficult is to convince reviewers )

Thank for your suggestion.
Now, I am re-writing my paper for another submission.
If I fail again, I will seriously consider your suggestion.

[mervincm]

I was using the previous version but eventually ran into trouble. At first I developed an error message on boot indicating the desire to run disk check, and then eventually it simply froze in boot. I restored to an earlier backup image and have tried this version with the 7H registry option. So far it seems to be working better than ever. I will let you know! (Acer Aspire 110 with 8GB slow SSD)

please let me know if there is a way to enable 2nd disk caching .. I really want to be able to use my CDcard, plus upgrade my dual SSD EEEPC900. I have had to disable hibernate because of a shortage of diskspace, and enabling the cache on the second disk would let me move stuff around and turn it back on.

[Neo]

i bought a laptop which is aspire one(8G SSD). i installed windows xp, it works sooooooo slow,i almost throw my computer to the bin.

After i install flashfire, it works perfect, i feel much much better.Just want to say Thanks a lot to the team for providing such beautiful software.

[nant15]

Those Reviewers are nonsense!

(1) Reliability problem: holding data in buffer may cause file system crash for sudden power failures.

My Viewpoint: 1TB HDD with 32MB Buffer also suffers the same problem - that is why we have journalised file system and battery backup expensive storage solution. When power cut - nothing will work!!! It's like you saying that your touch screen paper won't work because handicapped people without hand/finger can use it

(2) The buffering technique is not novel: High-end SSDs are using write-coalescing in the drive already.
--> As the market mature, component cost will drop, and HW solution (on-board write buffer) will be more popular. Therefore FlashFire solution will not be useful at that time.

My Viewpoint: What if the power loss during write-coalescing or only half of the "coalesced" block have been written to media and another half is being transmitted to media and power is lost? That will cause severe damage to file system or at least having same effect as power lost during flushing 32MB buffer in HDD. Flashfire solution can be tuned to a specific file system,like bypassing buffer for some important data for NTFS filesystem, because you can make it aware of the file system, so it is more novel than HW based solution which work at block level.

(3) Log-structured File System is better than FlashFire Solution: Log-structured File System can change random writes (small writes) to sequential writes, and thus there will be no performance problem with log-structured file system.
(and so on)

My Answer: NONSENSE - Flashfire was designed to be used by end user who has random access pattern. Log-structured file system would make the severe fragmentation in the long run. (hey! - there is virtually 0 seek but the reading will be non-sequencial and there will be some performance hit for CPU to resemble the pieces!)

Keep up the good work!

[mimarsinan-1]

New observation: Using the current build, believe it or not, I still manage to run out of the 248MB buffer I have seen that when this happens, the best thing to do is NOT to let the buffer at 100% usage until the buffer-draining task completes; but instead, to actually FLUSH the buffer in full by disabling it from the context menu, and then re-enabling it. This does cause some macro stuttering during flush-time, but on overall, the buffer-draining task completes MUCH faster this way, compared to "coasting" with a 100% full buffer.

New idea: Maybe this can, therefore, be an option in the driver - when buffer reaches 100%, fully flush the buffer; and then resume normally. Would not only save a few clicks in the system tray, but would also enable us to "walk away" from the computer during lengthy tasks, without slowing down the task at hand.

[sip]

I'm trying to reduce buffer size to 32mb. It's not working, ffcntl continues to show 64mb (after reboot).

[ondra]

I tried FleshFire XP 32Bit(0.a0) and it really perfectly works with my XP’s, when are on master drive. Now I am using on master drive Linux a Windows on slave drive, but than the FlashFire do not work. Is it possible to make a release working with slave instead master? I think it would be very useful, as I think I am not only person booting windows from slave drive.

[Flashmeister]

Forget to mention.

I am reasonably sure dskcache.exe may have significantly reduced the number of scandisk on start-ups. I think my netbooks have not gotten a single scandisk for the past 2 - 3 months after issuing <dskcache +p c:>. dskcache is freely available and the +p c: parameter adds power protection to WinXP disk cache (which is disabled by default). Go give it a try.

Thanks for the suggestion! Hopefully this will resolve all the corruption issues I am experiencing on my Acer Aspire One 110...

How did you setup dskcache to run on your system?

I thought about puting it into an .BAT file and sticking it in "Startup" in the program menu, but that seems so crude. Is there a better way to have dskcache automatically launch at boot?

(Forgive the naive question - I am not skilled with automatically launching services!)

[sip]

I'm getting BSOD on boot if SD card is inserted to internal slot (Fujitsu u810)