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Topic: ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work? (Read 2917 times) previous topic - next topic
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ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

I'm curious about how the archive reader plugin's work. Do they extract the track to a disk and then play it, or do they extract the track to ram and play it. I need to know since my swap file is on a solid state, and any temp directories would also be on the solid state. The Wiki articles don't tell where the data is put for reading. I want to archive my music so I can have a recovery record to avoid bit rot etc, but if it's going to accelerate my ss burn out it isn't worth it.

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #1 –
i wouldn't worry about your SSD wearing out. it should be obsolete long before it dies. of course it goes without saying it could be prone to fail just like any other piece of computer hardware and you should keep a backup of anything you deem important.

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #2 –
Oh, I'm not worried about that so much as curious. I've noticed that using big files instead of a ton of small files helps speed up drive access times and results in less wasted space (clusters etc). I'm just worried that I'll get more then a small performance hit for my troubles.

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #3 –
i must admit i'm not familiar with the archive component but i'm fairly sure they would extract to a temporary location before playing them. you could use something like processs monitor to check this out... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinte...s/bb896645.aspx

something else of interest might be the foo_ramdisk component which will load all playlist items into ram but i think even these would have to be extracted to disk first.

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_ramdisk

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #4 –
All archive components made by Peter or myself extract entirely to memory, with the exception of the newer Unrar code in 1.3.4 beta, which extracts files to a temporary directory.

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #6 –
Thank you, that's what I wanted to know. Now I can zip (7z in some cases, SPC's etc) in full confidence.

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #7 –
Peter left a small detail out in the linked post. Current behavior with RAR files is to use memory for files up-to 64 MB and anything larger will get extracted into user's temp folder for the duration it's needed. So long lossless tracks and full disc images in any high bitrate codec stored inside RAR archives can trigger temp file use.

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #8 –
Maybe it makes sense to create such temporary files with FILE_ATTRIBUTE_TEMPORARY?

(as well as temp WAV fles created by converter when a preset has "%s")
 

ZIP/GZIP/RAR [and 7zip] Reader, How do they work?

Reply #9 –
That attribute is used. But at least in my testing S.M.A.R.T. reports that there are still disk writes happening even when plenty of system memory is free.