What does the "optimize" option do?

[K3DRQ]

And is there a point of doing it after each upload to the scanner (WS-1080) after new updates? Or does it only apply if you store other files on the SD card (like audio recordings)?

 

[jackj]

Files get scattered all over as you write and read from a hard disk drive. Optimizing it moves the files to sectors that help to decrease the amount of head movement and reduce the time needed to load the files. A SD card being a solid state storage device shouldn't need to be optimized as it does not use any mechanical devices to read the files. One section of the device is as easy to access as any other. So optimizing an SD card is a waste of time.

 

[K3DRQ]

Files get scattered all over as you write and read from a hard disk drive. Optimizing it moves the files to sectors that help to decrease the amount of head movement and reduce the time needed to load the files. A SD card being a solid state storage device shouldn't need to be optimized as it does not use any mechanical devices to read the files. One section of the device is as easy to access as any other. So optimizing an SD card is a waste of time.

My guess is that it was a defrag, but you only do those when there's a certain percentage of fragmentation, which is why I was wondering how often you should do it. Strange that the option would exist as not too many magnetic hard drives can fit in a scanner...

 

[Ubbe]

It was explained (by Wendy?) that it copies and deletes all files from the SD card to your PC and writes them back to the SD card. Absolutly no need to do that with SD cards to try and defragment files as there are no moving parts in memory cards.

/Ubbe

 

[RDGDigital]

When you search for "Optimize" in the help system of EZ-Scan you will find this information...

On occasion, the files on the Micro-SD Card used by your scanner will need to be optimized.

This process will perform the following tasks to optimize the data stored on the Micro-SD Card:

1. The data files stored on the Micro-SD Card will be copied to the computer. These files will be stored in a sub-folder of the normal storage location.
2. The Micro-SD Card will be optimized.
3. The data files used by the scanner will be optimized and unused space reclaimed.
4. The data files will be copied back to the Micro-SD Card.
5. The temporary data files that were copied from the scanner will be deleted on the computer.

In some cases, this process can improve the operation of your scanner.

Optimization is not the process of organizing the files on the SD card. It is the process of organizing the information (data) inside the files (database). All databases need to be optimized on occasions. However, the EZ-Scan databases probably needs it less often than others.

Here is why...

When you make changes to a database, especially when you delete records, the old information is not removed, it is only marked as deleted. Over time more and more of these deleted records accumulate and can cause issues with the database being slow or bloated. When you optimize the database, you make a copy of the database (in the case of EZ-Scan you copy it to your computer's hard drive). You then delete the original database (the one on the SD Card). Next you create an empty database file on the SD Card and copy the records (the content of the database files on your hard drive) to this new file, but you leave out all the marked deleted information.

This is suppose to make the database files more compact and faster. However, in the case of EZ-Scan, this improvement is probably minuscule.

The reason this is not much of a problem with EZ-Scan is that Whistler provides us with a fresh database every week that already has the old information removed.

And, it's late on a Sunday night of a very busy weekend for me and I've tried to write this very quickly, so excuse any spelling, grammar or other errors I may have made.

Hope this helps.