Talk:Mount Rainier (packet writing)

The following is a criticism of an earlier version, it should probably be revised or erased: Choppingmall 22:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO Mount Rainier isnt "completely hardware-based" :)

The article itself is contradictory. It claims at one point that it is completely hardware based. In the very next paragraph that operating systems either support it or not, and that those that don't require additional software support.

More errors

- "Mount Rainier is an optical disc file system that adds packet writing to the Universal Disk Format (UDF)."
 - Mt Rainier is not a file system
 - it does not add packet writing to UDF. UDF Can do packet writing without MtRainier just fine
- "With the Universal Disk Format, it is already possible to use CD-RW discs like a floppy disk, but this is achieved by the use of specialized writing software."
 - MRW also requires specialized writing software

- "Mount Rainier will be implemented natively in Windows Vista"
 - Can I borrow your cristal ball ? Can someone confirm this is true for the recent public Vista beta ?

- "Already, the latest Linux distros support Mount Rainier natively."
 - AFAIK, linux does not support MRW due to IP conflicts.

xerces8

--213.253.102.145 10:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ironing Out Some Ambiguities

xerces8 rightfully points out some article ambiguities, and I have re-written and readjusted the main article to address these points.

"Hardware Based"

the important point is that the defect management system is entirely controlled by the hardware and firmware in the drive, and it presents an essentially error free medium to the filesystem drivers at the OS level. Other defect management schemes (eg UDF 1.5) are controlled by the filesystem driver (in software.)

"A Filesystem"

as xerces8 points out Mount Rainier is designed to be filesystem independant. However, the article is technically correct in saying that mount rainier is an extension of the UDF format, but this is somewhat deceptive as it is only the physical format of a MRW formatted disc which is in UDF -- the drive hardware and firmware remapping is designed to make this transparent. The fact that it is in UDF format makes it easier for non mount rainier capable drives to read the data -- only a simple remapping software driver is needed to replace the remapping that would have been done by a capable drive.

"Requires specialized writing software"

The article makes this assertion in reference to the stated goals of the mount rainier designers (Phillips) that the necessary drivers for reading and writing will be embedded into the operating system so that it is as easy as accessing a floppy disc. To this end the additional commands necessary to communicate with a mount ranier drive are well standardized, and the implementation is expected to be much simpler than other packet writing software because the defect management system is fully transparent.

"Native Implementation"

Microsoft press releases confirm support in Windows Vista.

Linux already fully supports MRW, presents it as a block device and can write any Linux supported filesystem to it.

Packet writing software (eg. InCD) support MRW, but typically can only write UDF filesystems to it.

What is the best filesystem for a Mount Rainier formatted disc?

A filesystem which features defect management may be of little benefit on a MRW formatted disc given that this functionality is already transparently achieved by the drive hardware. As an example, UDF 1.5 would have no advantage over UDF 1.02 and in fact may give less useable space if it fails to recognize that it is being written to a defect managed device and reserves sparing space. (This happened to me before and I got 438 MB free on a UDF 1.5 filesystem on a MRW formatted disk.)

The same may or may not also be true for write levelling filesystems, but I am not familiar enough with the Mount Ranier spec to give an informed opinion.

Choppingmall 21:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is MRW dead?

History
As of 2007, MRW is practically dead. Since years, no new optical unit supports it
(they can only read MRW formatted media, but not write to them, except formatting them new without MRW).

A statement from user Xerces8.

I wonder if there is proof that "MRW is dead".
I would like to take this over to the german article about Mount Rainier, only some statements of source would be fine to support this bit of information, IMHO...

Greetings, Andreas 12:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]