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Effect of MP3 Repeat for an Hour

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Effect of MP3 Repeat for an Hour

Old 10-19-20, 09:57 AM
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starchase
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Effect of MP3 Repeat for an Hour

If this question belongs in a better sub-forum (or even none at all) please feel free to move it. My question concerns what effect if any repeating a single 5 minute mp3 file for an hour would have on the memory chip that holds the file, i.e., cause undue wear.

The equipment: Samsung Galaxy J3 (Model # SM-S367VL), 2GB RAM, 16GB Storage; the player: Muzio Player free. The mp3 file plays off of a 2GB micro SD card I installed.

I bike almost every day and play this file of a rain storm for white noise as I run through my prayer list. (If I use any regular music/song file it is too distracting for my purpose of concentrating on the prayer list.)

So for the hour and 10 minutes I'm biking does repeating the 5 minutes of this white noise file wear out any areas of the memory chip where it resides? Or should I create a play list of a bunch of white noise files that total an hour to spread the use of memory around. Or does it even matter one way or the other?

This is just a question that floated across my brain a day or so ago. I know, pretty weird!!

Thanks to any who ponder this with me. Now, I am out the door to bike my 13 miles. John

Last edited by starchase; 10-19-20 at 10:04 AM.
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Old 10-19-20, 02:29 PM
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Originally Posted by starchase
If this question belongs in a better sub-forum (or even none at all) please feel free to move it. My question concerns what effect if any repeating a single 5 minute mp3 file for an hour would have on the memory chip that holds the file, i.e., cause undue wear.

The equipment: Samsung Galaxy J3 (Model # SM-S367VL), 2GB RAM, 16GB Storage; the player: Muzio Player free. The mp3 file plays off of a 2GB micro SD card I installed.

I bike almost every day and play this file of a rain storm for white noise as I run through my prayer list. (If I use any regular music/song file it is too distracting for my purpose of concentrating on the prayer list.)

So for the hour and 10 minutes I'm biking does repeating the 5 minutes of this white noise file wear out any areas of the memory chip where it resides? Or should I create a play list of a bunch of white noise files that total an hour to spread the use of memory around. Or does it even matter one way or the other?
You totally run the risk of wearing a hole through the memory chip where the file is stored by playing the same file over and over.

No, seriously, a sound/music file is nothing more than a simple set of instructions or computer code which tells the computer what to do. You're not going to wear out the memory chip by playing the same file over and over. It's going to read that particular section of the chip and then play the audio. The file is nothing more than a stored set of 1's and 0's on the silicone wafer of the chip. Reading these 1's and 0's, even if it's the same file on repeat, isn't going to harm anything.

Now, it may wear out the chip if you were constantly saving data to it and erasing it, but even memory sticks don't seem to wear out over time. You'd have to do it thousands of times a day for maybe a year before you noticed any degradation. And they do say that copying sound files from one device to another device and to another device, over time might degrade the data in the file, but it's not likely it will damage the storage media where it's stored. I think through the normal lifetime and usage of your audio device you won't have any problems.
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Old 10-19-20, 02:53 PM
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Ten years ago, Sandisk listed an "endurance" specification for their SD cards of 100,000 writes to a particular sector. That's a lot, and what you're describing is just repeated reading of a portion of the card, not even writing/rewriting the sector. I don't think you can appreciably shorten the life of an SD card with repeated readings.
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Old 10-19-20, 05:08 PM
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Thanks to you both for your replies. I wondered about whether the electrical action of reading the chip might have some deleterious effect, but I do seem to recall SSD manufacturers claiming the wear capabilities you suggest. So I'll file that and its on to the next inconsequential issue. Many regards!
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Old 10-20-20, 08:19 AM
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Though, if you're going to play a file of rain sounds over and over for an hour, why not just get an hour-long recording? I bet there are probably some on Youtube.
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Old 10-22-20, 06:02 PM
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I would be more concerned with getting lulled into such a relaxed state with that routine that you loose some concentration, which isn’t the best thing while riding. I’ve used rain shower noise as a sleep aid and personally couldn’t imagine listening to it while riding. Obviously, ymmv.
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Old 10-23-20, 06:21 PM
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mp3 players use flash memory to store the files. My recollection is basically what has already been mentioned.. i.e. it is the writing to the flash memory that is the limit to its life time. Reading from the flash memory isn't hard on it.

On a slightly different tack... the bigger question is about what will eventually cause the player to die.
My personal experience has been that my little mp3 players become obsolete about the same time that the switches start to fail. The latest is a great little Sansa Sandisk Clip mp3 player and FM tuner. It's a wonderful tiny gadget, but the switch contacts are wearing out and the lithium-ion battery capacity is falling quickly.

Steve in Peoria
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Old 10-23-20, 06:35 PM
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Yep, can confirm what is said here. You've probably got nothing to worry about here. Ride on!
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