Mini 2G @ 6GB, all music in root folder, LONG delays

[Sduibek]

Does RockBox not supoprt putting music files in the root folder?  I formatted the device to FAT32 via Windows (after doing the Software Update / Restore Factory Settings within iTunes), so it was basically just a blank drive now as far as Windows was/is concerned.

Then installed RockBox, chose the GUI type etc etc.

Copied music (roughly 1250 files @ 128kb VBR LAME, ~5GB total) to root folder.  Music plays, but there is a ten-to-sixty second delay after pulling up a specific Artist (!) and buttons like Next Track, Pause, etc., also lag for up to a minute.

If I hold it up to my ear, I can hear the old comforting sound of clicking whirring hard drive.... so apparently it's frantically trying to do .... something.  If all the music is in the root folder, does this make RockBox go through every single header/tag/entry each time before performing any actions?

Anyway just need to know if this is a Known Issue or not.  Thanks.

[gevaerts]

Try enabling the directory cache

[torne]

The FAT filesystem is incredibly inefficient at handling directories with a lot of files in them; it would be just as slow if you put them all in one subdirectory, it doesn't matter if it's the root or not. The directory cache will make this much faster.

[Sduibek]

Does RockBox support NTFS?   

EDIT:  Directory Cache enabled, should I also enable Load Database to RAM?

EDIT2:  I enabled both of the above and everything is very snappy now.  Thank you!!

[AlexP]

Does RockBox support NTFS?   

Nope

EDIT:  Directory Cache enabled, should I also enable Load Database to RAM?

Only if you are using the database