CalibrePortable: Temp dir?

[UserName417]

I was wondering if Calibre Portable also changes its 'TEMP' working directory, or if it still uses the default TEMP / TMP environment variable, or what?

I can think of good reasons why it should keep everything, including temp files, within the portable directory, but I can also think of a good reason (speed of USB) why it might still want to use the default.

[itimpi]

It uses the normal system TEMP folder which is defined via the TEMP/TMP environment variable.

[kovidgoyal]

If you want the temp directory in any particular place just set the appropriate environment variable http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cust...ment-variables

[UserName417]

I knew it could be forced, by several different ways.

I was more concerned about what it did by default. Whether it was fully up to the user or whether it was smarter and automatic.

Since it is portable, it shouldn't be writing to any other drive.

And since you never know what drive letter a USB device will be (unless you force it in windows), it makes it inconvenient.


Like I said, I was just wondering if the CalibrePortable wrapper took care of the TEMP & TMP environmental variables too or had forgot about them.

[itimpi]

I do not think writing to the systems TEMP folders is an issue or an oversight, but intentional. In fact writing to the portable drive (which is often a USB stick is likely to adversely affect its life as well as being bad for performance.

[theducks]

In addition, most systems, users can't function (very much) without some kind of TEMP writing.

[UserName417]

'TheDucks', I'm not suggesting there be no TEMP writing. I'm suggesting it optionally be on the portable device itself. The whole concept of 'portable' is that something is as self contained as possible.

'itimpi', For a usb flash drive, it could be a problem. For a portable usb hard drive, it's not.

And by keeping it on your C: drive, you

1) keep using it while you might be trying to do something else. Possibly significant with a slow laptop drive. (Pretty much a given with most laptops, I guess.) But even with a desktop hard drive, that increases the thrashing while you are doing something else besides letting Calibre process a bunch of files or do a bulk conversion, etc. etc.

2) if your C: drive is a SSD, and your CalibrePortable is on a usb hard drive (along with other portable apps & data), then yhou are unnecessarily using up your SSD life span.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by UserName417

Since it is portable, it shouldn't be writing to any other drive.

No, portable means it takes its settings and books and plugins with it on the usb drive, It absolutely does *not* mean that it does not write to other disks in the system. By that logic, it should use the monitor and RAM on the usb disk as well, how dare it use the main computers peripherals.

Putting frequently accessed/created files that are all removed anyway when calibre quits on a USB disk is just wrong.

[UserName417]

Kovidgoyal, I didn't say portable *MEANS* that. I said it *SHOULD* do that.

And again, not everything in this world is a USB flash drive. Lots of us use usb portable hard drives. They are cheaper, hold more, and are faster than flash drives. And in my experience, just as convenient with much less chance of being lost.

Putting temporary stuff like what Calibre generates onto a SSD C:\ drive is just plain wasteful. It's the same argument against putting them onto a USB flash drive, except that a SSD costs a lot more money and is much more valuable & useful.

The flash cells they use have the same write life span, except a SSD is better at hiding it because of the over provisioning they all do and tricks such as compression that some do.

If it was just a few K or Meg, then it would be irrelevant. But during conversions, cleanup etc., Calibre will generate far more than the size of the epub or mobi files it's working with. It adds up.


Even including something like a batch file like this would help

set TEMP=%CD%\Temp
set TMP=%TEMP%
Calibre-Portable.exe

and have a TEMP directory in the portable calibre directory.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by UserName417

Kovidgoyal, I didn't say portable *MEANS* that. I said it *SHOULD* do that.

And I'm saying that it *SHOULD* not. If you are worried about your SSD then you should be changing your system wide temp folder, in which case calibre will not be using your SSD in any case, since it uses the system wide temp folder.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by UserName417

'TheDucks', I'm not suggesting there be no TEMP writing. I'm suggesting it optionally be on the portable device itself. The whole concept of 'portable' is that something is as self contained as possible.

But there is an option for it. Not in the Calibre Portable wrapper (which I believe was created by someone else) but in Calibre itself. You'd have to create your own batch file/launcher but at least there's a provision for it in the main program. You don't have to know the drive letter for the USB drive to assign it. You can do so easily from the batch file as you've shown in your other post.

set CALIBRE_TEMP_DIR=%CD%\Temp

Originally Posted by UserName417

2) if your C: drive is a SSD, and your CalibrePortable is on a usb hard drive (along with other portable apps & data), then yhou are unnecessarily using up your SSD life span.

Why is it unnecessary? I've found SSDs to greatly speed up large batch conversions, etc. I bought an SSD to increase performance. I'd rather have stuff (particularly temp files) on the SSD for faster performance than on slow HDDs just to preserve the SSD's NAND (which are usually good for 1,000~5,000 P/E cycles).

Originally Posted by UserName417

Putting temporary stuff like what Calibre generates onto a SSD C:\ drive is just plain wasteful. It's the same argument against putting them onto a USB flash drive, except that a SSD costs a lot more money and is much more valuable & useful.

The flash cells they use have the same write life span, except a SSD is better at hiding it because of the over provisioning they all do and tricks such as compression that some do.

Unless you've got a really, really cheap SSD, I wouldn't worry about NAND life. Even the Samsung 840 120GB with TLC NAND (1,000 P/E cycle minimum) will be able to handle 120TB worth of writes. I've monitored my usage and at 10GB/day, it'll take me around 15 years to use up all those P/E cycles even accounting for 2x write amplification.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

But there is an option for it. Not in the Calibre Portable wrapper (which I believe was created by someone else) but in Calibre itself.

We are not talking about the calibre version that is part of PortableApps.com. For this thread Calibre = Calibre portable for options and variables. Calibre portable is put out by Kovid and is downloaded from the same download page as the other versions.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

You'd have to create your own batch file/launcher but at least there's a provision for it in the main program. You don't have to know the drive letter for the USB drive to assign it. You can do so easily from the batch file as you've shown in your other post.

set CALIBRE_TEMP_DIR=%CD%\Temp

Good information. Kovid pointed this info out in post 3 and the OP acknowledge knowing about it in post 4.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Why is it unnecessary? I've found SSDs to greatly speed up large batch conversions, etc. I bought an SSD to increase performance. I'd rather have stuff (particularly temp files) on the SSD for faster performance than on slow HDDs just to preserve the SSD's NAND (which are usually good for 1,000~5,000 P/E cycles).

Unless you've got a really, really cheap SSD, I wouldn't worry about NAND life.

Agreed.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

We are not talking about the calibre version that is part of PortableApps.com. For this thread Calibre = Calibre portable for options and variables. Calibre portable is put out by Kovid and is downloaded from the same download page as the other versions.

Yes, I'm aware. I just remember the original calibre-portable.exe as being built by someone else. I seem to recall the earlier official Calibre Portable zips using that same binary although I'm not absolutely sure. Granted, it would be nice if the official portable launcher supported the use of config/ini files.

As for calibrePortable from PortableApps.com, the \App\AppInfo\Launcher\calibrePortable.ini file just needs to be edited after which you can run calibrePortable as normal.

  [Environment]
  CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY=%PAL:DataDir%\settings\config
  PATH=%PAL:AppDir%\Calibre
+ CALIBRE_TEMP_DIR=%PAL:DataDir%\temp

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I seem to recall the earlier official Calibre Portable zips using that same binary although I'm not absolutely sure.

No, the official calibre portable never used anything from portableapps.com

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

No, the official calibre portable never used anything from portableapps.com

Not from portableapps.com but from one of the MR forum members. Then again, my memory might be failing me as that's probably a year ago or something. Maybe I was just thinking of calibre-portable.bat. I didn't know about portableapps.com's calibrePortable until version 0.8 and I know I've been using calibre in portable form ever since 0.5/0.6 (might even be 0.4, I think that's when CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY was added).