DVD Packet Writing Slowness

[Anders Karlsson]

On 11/6/05, Anders Karlsson <trudheim at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I have recently acquired a LG GSA-4167B DVD rewriter and I am now trying
> to get my bearings so that I can use it for backups etc. In the process
> of getting to know the alternatives, I have experimented with packet
> writing and UDF filesystem. I felt that the drive was performing rather
> slowly (slower than expected) with any media I used (DVD-R, CD-RW or
> DVD-RW). However, using a CD rewriter on another machine and creating a
> UDF filesystem on a CD-RW disc shows that it is not the drive that is
> slowing things down, it is the systems themselves.
>
> Does anyone have any experiences with Breezy, DVD±RW/CD-RW and UDF
> filesystem where writing speed is faster than a normal floppy drive? (A
> 4x CD-RW should do about 600kB/s, I am getting <6kB/s write speed.
> Something is not right there. My LG drive is 32x for CD-RW, my CD writer
> is 12x. )

After having spent a fair amount of time on this I thought I could
save someone else a lot of time and grief by detailing what I have
found.

First, update the firmware to DL12 if you have a LG GSA-4167B. The
update is worth it.

Second, for a DVD-RW, you do need to format the disc fully
(dvd+rw-format -force=full /dev/dvd) to put it in restricted overwrite
mode. DVD+RW discs may require an extra step (growisofs -Z
/dev/dvd=/dev/zero). Something to do with lead-in.
Then you can create a FS on the disc if you have the UDF tools
installed. Just run "mke2fs /dev/pktcdvd/0" and wait for it to finish.
The line in /etc/fstab I use is (you REALLY want noatime in the
options there):

/dev/pktcdvd/0 /dvd ext2,udf,iso9660 noauto,noatime,rw,user 0 0

For some reason, CD-RW on Breezy can be used with UDF FS, but on a
DVD-RW it generates loads of errors. (At least for me.) ext2 works
fine however, and some posts on the Packet Writing mailing list
suggests that ext2 is in fact faster. What you lose is portability as
Windows can not read the discs.

If there are any questions, mail me. :)

--
Anders Karlsson <trudheim at gmail.com>