Defrag dimms

[MIKEP]

Hello
Voice Creator, Library Edit, Properties - shows dimm memory usage in the centre. On the left is a defrag button. What does the defrag do please and should I press it?
Mike

[Eileen L]

Hi Mike
   It is a good idea to defrag every so often.Loading sounds in and out it fragments and doing defrag cleans it up and gives a little more space

[Mike Head]

HI ALL
This puzzles me also !!!!
AS dims by there nature forget what is loaded at power down and have to be reloaded from the hard drive at start up ,this is why it takes so long .
So if a fresh load at start up how can they be fragmented  unless you have had you keyboard switched on for days , or loaded and unloaded multiple samples during a long session?
Maybe Steve M will explain.
Mike

[andyg]

Yes, DIMM's do forget everything when powered down (unless they could be kept 'alive' by some form of battery power). Flash Memory, on the other hand, retains its contents.

You could presumably defrag the Flash Memory, or the DIMM's when they are powered up, but doing the latter would seem to be pointless unless you had some sort of problem in that playing session.

[Pete from Hull]

I wondered about this too as I did it and it was more or less instant, I thought it was refering to the HDrive.  Looking in the Service Manual there is no mention but in the Ref Manual it is as follows:

Property display
When the available memory space has been taken up with large amounts of audio data, you may want to
delete large Custom Voices to create space, yet not know which Voices are large and taking up much
space. In the Property display, you can check the Memory Status (below), as well as the File Property
(name, location, size and Wave count) of the currently selected Expansion Voice.
● Memory Status
• WAVE RAM: Memory size of the optionally installed DIMMs. After installing the DIMMs, the preinstalled
memory (4 MB) is invalid and cannot be accessed. By optimizing the DIMMs, you may be
able to increase the memory capacity (depending on how fragmented the audio files are). Press the
(DEFRAG) button to optimize the DIMMs.
• VOICE RAM: Size of the internal memory for the Expansion Voices. This memory cannot be expanded.
A maximum of 4,096 KB is available.
• WAVE COUNT: Total number of the wave files. A maximum of 5,120 mono files or 2,560 stereo files is
available.
• WAVEFORM COUNT: Total number of Waveforms. The term Waveform refers to a set of wave assignment
information. A maximum of 1,280 waveforms is available.

It is refering to optimisaing the Dimms, Hmmm  I may have a phonecall to MK, they might have an explanation....

Pete

[MIKEP]

Hello
The answers and comments given suggest this is a somewhat grey area.
Mike

[Neville]

   I use Custom Voices all the time and have never found the need to defrag the Dimms.    Would have thought that they empty their memory at every switch off.     The answer to your original question Mike is I think.......it doesnt matter a lot one way or the other.   

[jwyvern]

You would think the Dimms auto-defrag (at the same time losing the data) when powered off.  
But...................
the Dimms are not free to re-load as they want. They are instructed to load in a certain way at power on by the library that Tyros automatically creates and modifies every time you add, delete  or change voice positions in the custom banks. Being in flash mem. this could  perhaps become less efficient over time (and cause the Dimms to keep re-loading with progressively less efficient set ups as a result.).
So maybe defragging the Dimms works because immediately after it causes the library to be re-written in a more efficient way.
john

[Neville]

    Very interesting John and I will go along with that.        For what its worth I have just tried an experiment........    1 gb of Dimms (2X512mbs)  well used with all sorts and everybodies custom voices on including Yamaha premium voices, and at one stage all 128 slots used.    Have since thinned out the ones I didnt use and now about 60% full.     Have never defragged.

Timed load from switch on   11 minutes 15 seconds.         
Defragged (which took about half a second)
Timed load from switch on   11 minutes dead on.

Conclusion......Defrag enabled a slightly more efficient library load as you indicated might be the case.   

[jwyvern]

Hi Neville,
Thanks for the test results.  
15secs. - about 2.2% improvement.
What on earth are we (defraggers anonymous) going to do with all this newly acquired spare time  

john
 
  

[Eileen L]

At the end of the day what have you got to loose and it keeps things nice and tidy.You certainly will not do any damage which maybe is what Mike wanted to know

[MIKEP]

Hello
Done defrag with no disaster.
Thank you for all the input.
Mike

[Graham from Derby]

Some Dimm comes with ECC.     Error correction Code. I pressume Defrag uses this part to clear the Dimm of unwanted bits.
Graham

[Eileen L]

Pleased you took the plunge Mike.After all it is there to be used if you feel it necessary and will cause no problem