Article ID: 39535
Article Last Modified on 5/10/2003
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft MS-DOS 2.11 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 3.1
- Microsoft MS-DOS 3.2 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 3.21 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 3.3 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 3.3a
- Microsoft MS-DOS 4.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 4.01 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0a
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q39535
SUMMARY
You may notice a performance slowdown for MS-DOS when creating many files in a subdirectory. MS-DOS is much slower at accessing a subdirectory that contains many files or deleted files than at accessing a new subdirectory (that is, a subdirectory containing no deleted files).
This slowdown occurs because MS-DOS directories do not get smaller when you delete a file. MS-DOS inserts a "no file here" mark for each deleted file in a directory. There are two different "No file here" marks in the first bytes of directories:
Value Description
-----------------------------------------------------------------
E5H No file at this location
05H No file at this location
00H No file at this location and no files after this location
Whenever you create a file, MS-DOS searches to the end of the directory to see if a file with that name already exists. Even if files have been deleted from the directory, MS-DOS must still check for the "No file here" entry for each deleted file.
MORE INFORMATION
The following is an example that demonstrates the reason for the performance slowdown:
Create a directory DIR. Initially, this new directory looks like the following:
. .. 00HCreate the file FILE1. MS-DOS has to look at two entries to determine that there is no file by that name. The directory now looks like the following:
. .. FILE1 00HCreate the file FILE2. MS-DOS now has to look at three entries to determine that there is no file by that name. The directory now looks like the following:
. .. FILE1 FILE2 00HCreate the file FILE3. MS-DOS now has to look at four entries to determine that there is no file by that name. The directory now looks like the following:
. .. FILE1 FILE2 FILE3 00HDelete FILE*. The directory now looks like the following:
. .. E5 E5 E5 00HCreate the file FILE1. MS-DOS still has to look at four entries to determine that there is no file by that name. (Note that MS-DOS must look at the empty entries thus performance does not improve after the deletion.) The directory now looks like the following:
. .. FILE1 E5H E5H 00HCreate the file FILE2. Again, MS-DOS has to look at four entries to determine that there is no file by that name. The directory now looks like the following:
. .. FILE1 FILE2 E5H 00HCreate the file FILE3. MS-DOS has to look at four entries to determine that there is no file by that name. The directory now looks like the following:
. .. FILE1 FILE2 FILE3 00H
The performance decreases more when deleted entries exist in a subdirectory; performance can be even slower, depending on the size and type of the disk and the size of the MS-DOS buffer cache (the BUFFERS command in the file CONFIG.SYS). Disk access is very expensive in terms of performance, and depending on the interaction with the MS-DOS buffer cache LRU (Least Recently Used) management, you may have to do more disk accesses.
There are third-party utilities that edit directories and eliminate unused directory entries, improving the performance of MS-DOS.
Additional query words: 6.22 2.x 3.x 4.00 4.01 5.00 5.00a 6.00 6.20 grows
Keywords: KB39535
