The box can take 20 - 30 seconds to delete a recording, which means you're restricted on other things you can do (like delete something else) while the deletion is in progress.

These seems an inordinately long period of time, particularly as a delete command in most HDD handling systems just deletes the file name, or header info, and then allows the actual data to be gradually overwritten ?

Thus, the time taken to delete should not be related to the size of the file being deleted...

Has anyone else found this ? If so, any idea if there is a cure ?

Thanks

It's a linux thing. You can though select a load of files to delete in one go using edit mode. You can then do most other things while it's deleting.

Cheers Graham - I did wonder.

When I referred to "most HDD handling systems" I was thinking mostly of Windows etc

Nothing to do with Linux, more the resources that are available in the box.

So why does the Freeview Humax pvrs delete instantly and the Freesat one take so long. The freeview ones simply delete the FS location pointers and the Freesat one clearly actually deletes the recorded bytes which is FS thing. Even a 30 sec recording takes a noticeable time to delete with the box not recording or replaying anything. Try deleting a file while the hdr is recording two HD channels it does not appear to take any longer so how can it be resources.

Even the 9200 which has severe remote response times due to resource problems deletes in a flash

Bump stuck post

I don't believe it is either a Linux thing, or a lack of resources on the box.

Deleting a file from an ext2/3 file system, is nothing more than a simple change to the file allocation table of the file system. An ageing 386 computer can this operation in milliseconds.

You can see how the filesystem is used on the HDR here if you are interested.

I don't know what the foxsat is doing when a recording is deleted, but I can only guess it's doing something other than just deleting the file. Maybe it is zeroing out the disk using shred (or similar), as the time to delete does seem proportionate to the size of the recording.

I've always thought this too - it must be shredding the file rather than just deleting the pointer in the table.

I might perform a little test. Transfer something to ext3 USB stick, delete the file on the stick using the HDR, then examine afterwards. This obviously assumes that the delete process is the same for the internal HDD as it is for an attached USB stick, which is probably a pretty safe assumption.

Could it be doing some defrag ? If so then the 3am slot when it does thumbnails would be a better time. Anyways it's much better than before when the box would hang completely whilst deleting.

The file system structure used in the Freesat products requires that the deleted blocks are at least verified (if not actually erased) and this is a performance hit when it comes to deleting.

Previous generations of products used propitiatory file systems. We are looking at alternative file systems for future products and will pick the most suitable system. Performance of future hardware will also negate the housekeeping issues that we have encountered before.

Love the idea of a "propitiatory file system"!!

"proprietary", perhaps?

p