Hello,
I just discovered I'm even more of a ignorant farmgirl than I thought... this time it's the MiniSD card I don't know anything about.
I mean: of course you plug it in and you browse to it to add/move/remove files... but it would seem that's not enough. So, can anyone point me to a SD-on-Wiz Faq, please?
A few things I'm looking into:
- How do you get the Wiz to automatically look among SD card-based files from an app? (i.e. "Open" from Word looks into the card first)
- How do you get the camera to save pictures directly onto the SD card, so as not to waste precious device-based memory?
- What are the actual differences between installing apps onto a SD card compared to the device memory? I noticed some apps seem to behave differently according to where they are placed.
- Is there any way to create a card-based auto-multi-installer to do all the dirty work of reinstalling apps automatically after a hard reset?
I'm sure I left out several other interesting and useful things...
Thanks in advance for your contributions!
there´s some reg tweaks you can do so the wizard will store stuff on the sd-card and not in main memorey (i. e. IE cache files, Camera pics, etc.)
just search the forum you´ll find some stuff there.
For the difference between SD-Card and main storage installation. i have no idea. haven´t noticed any change in my apps. maybe just in speed of loading apps. but that´s all i noticed.
for doing backup of your apps. a lot of programms you intall on your sd card don´t need to be reinstalled after a hard reset. just need to put the shortcuts and links back in the folders.
hope i could help.
greets Freez
Making the camera save pictures to the SD card can be done by changing the settings in the camera app under options.
There is no way to automatically have all apps look on the SD card first, every app needs a change in their settings or in the registry to accomplish that.
Installing apps on the SD card has pros and cons. The pros are of course that your storage space on the device (in the ROM) gets used up less, so you can install more apps on your device. It is however not necessary to leave it as empty as possible as it was in WM 2003 SE. In WM 2003 SE (on for instance the Magician) apps were installed in RAM and the more you installed on the device, the more RAM was used up and the less RAM there was available for running apps, resulting in a slow down of the device. Furthermore running out of battery power would result in the device turning off, emptying the RAM and lossing all data and installed apps. In WM5 this is different. Since ROM is used for storage and RAM for executing only, you can fill your ROM to the max without slowing down the device. Furthermore an empty battery will mean no data loss. Concluding, there is no necessity to install as much as possible to the SD card and leave your ROM space empty.
The cons of installing to your SD card are that some apps (e.g. today-plug-ins) don't like being installed on SD card. For today plug-ins this has to do with the start-up process of the Wizard. After turing the device on or waking it from sleep, the device will first load the apps and then initialize the SD card. The device will try to load the apps on the today screen (the plug-ins that is) that are stored on the SD before the SD slot is initialized and the apps cannot be found by the device, creating glitches and problems.
Another con for me is that I like to switch between my SD with TomTom navigation maps and my SD with my mp3/movie collection. If I install most apps to SD, this means that I will have to change my SD again if during a movie or MP3 I want to use one of these apps quickly.
However, if you use only one SD for installing and not much else, this problem does of course not exist.
If your storage in ROM is not full, there is no reason to install aps to SD.
Thak you for the info so far!
Koskie: paint me 'tard... I never even saw the camera Options menu until you mentioned it...
I am about to start getting some cards and here is what I was thinking...
1. a 512 or 128MB card for everyday use. Store IE cache, ringtones, pictures, and some programs (solitaire, puzzles, monopoly etc).
2. A series of 2GB cards for music, movies and TV content when I travel. I was planing on installing TCPMP on each one to avaoid putting that in my device memory.
As far as restoring after flashing or a hard reset, I currently keep a copy of all programs, ringtones, pim backups etc on my home computer. It is organized by file type, utils, games, rings etc. so when I flash I just go through again and reinstall one by one. I've found this is easier than figuring out where to download everything all over again.
@bubism: no problem, took me a while to figure it out too, that option is well-hidden!
@dcdivenut: Good plan. Those small size cards are really cheap. Why don't you install TCPMP on your device memory? It is not too big. Or have you crammed your mem so full that you have no more place for it.
I also have all apps I ever installed still on my desktop, including a list with all the reg edits I did and all apps I have currently installed with a short explanation for most apps and installation instructions when a standard install is not good enough (e.g. TomTom 5.21)
In case a hard reset is needed,I just grab the list and install all apps again, then do all the regedits. Still a lot of work, but quicker than having to search all apps and edits online. I recommend this approach to everyone.
Hey Koskie:
Can you post that list and what to do? I have a new 8125 and miniSD card and have no idea what to use the card for. I won't be putting music, pictures or videos on it since it is a work phone.
Ski
@ Skijackz: I use my SD card for music, TomTom 5.21 maps and video's only, all my apps are installed in main (=device) mem. I have approx. 16 MB free of Storage mem. If you have no use for your SD card and your storage mem is sufficient to store your apps, you can take it out and replace it with the plastic dummy that came with it. In that way your card slot is protected against dust and dirt, but the SD card will not use any power, thereby lengthening your uptime. If you use your device for navigation, you have to use the card to store the maps on it, since they are too big for your device mem.
The list I made is partly in Dutch, especially the notes, so it might not be very useful to you. Furthermore the list is a mess, since it works through my personal filing system (copy and paste wherever my cursor happens to rest). It is a mostly chronological list, I mostly added everything I found at the end. I'll attach it anyway, perhaps you'll find it useful. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them here or through PM.
Thanks a lot for the tip on storing pics to the storage card!!! That's a real find! ....and much appreciated!!
This place is the BEST :!: :!:
Thanks Koskie!! This is a real help.
I've installed lots of games onto my 1gb microsd on my TyTN. Initially, when opening Start --> Programs --> Games folder, the response is pretty quick. However, after installing lots of games on the microsd card, i find the response very slow and it has hung on that screen on several occasions and needing a soft reset.
Is this because I've installed too many apps on the microSD and this problem is generally in PPC's or is there yet another fault on the TyTN?
Is there a way of speeding up opening folders and programs in general?
My program memory is around 25mb (29mb after a soft reset) so i though that memory shouldn't be a problem.
i installed opera mini beta, the java one. i also installed touchpal keyboard and pocketcm keyboard (both on my SD card) and now my storage memory for the device is down 5MB. i uninstalled opera and it went up a little, seeing as how that is the thing that installed on the device. am i missing something? did it keep files somewhere? or is it one of the keyboards that is on my SD card somehow doing it?
possibly the shortcut files and icons
well i uninstalled one keyboard because i didn't like it that much and i got my memory back. i was just so confused cause i installed it on my card and it took up so much memory on the device.
wow, that's crazy, man. Have you done a pagepool change?
I don't get the whole memory thing for the Wing. I had installed many of my extra programs onto my storage card and got about 21mb of program memory and about the same in device storage memory. I ended up doing a clear storage and decided to install everything (live search, tcmp, flashplugin) onto the device that I had on the storage card, except for games. Now I have 26mb of program memory and 21mb of device storage left.
not complaining, though
something must be terribly wrong for me, ever since i got the phone my program memory has been 15MB or less when you start the phone, and just continues to drop. my storage memory i have like 8MB left, but im trying to put everything on the card, i only have a few pictures and videos (all taken with the built in camera) and contacts. i didn't install anything directly unless it had to be.
so i should do the pool change you think?i turned my phone on maybe 5 minutes ago, i have 13.34MB of program memory left and i haven't opened anything. i do have HTC Home, a thing that stops the "Message sent" thing, and softkeychanger on the device, i don't know if those effect program memory since i assumer the last two just edit the registry.
same here
Program memory drops thoughout the day to about 1MB from 15MB or so when I restart the phone. Can't even use camera or WMP without rebooting. What's the deal?
After seeing other people's quadrants scores and reports of how fast their phone is i've decided to update and flash mine tomorrow to start from scratch. One thing that does irk me also is that it can take up to 5 seconds to loads the gallery folder view. Is there a certain way to format the memory card (class 4) or something else I can do to speed it up?
Thanks
You could try this application https://market.android.com/details?id=com.sdincrease.it
Here is a thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1010807 mentions about it. But I haven't tested with Arc ... Used to work on my HTC
While there are many scripts and "apps" out there which ought to help increase your SDCARD r/w speeds, I have yet to come across one that reliably works.
So I stumbled upon this: http://codesector.com/teracopy
It's supposed to help copy large files across HDDs or Networks, but I found it works great for my phone.
Install it. It will automatically take care of your copy-paste operations. It might seem slow in the first few seconds, but give it some time.
Those SD card scripts aim to increase the read speed (not write speed) of the SD card on the phone and are quite effective sometimes. They make some modifications to the Android system (i.e. increase the read ahead speed of the SD card) so that the phone reads it faster. They won't help while transferring data to and from a computer, as Android unmounts the SD card and the computer mounts it, so it's working as a regular flash drive now. Teracopy is a good program, I've used it for as long as I can remember, and it does transfer stuff much faster than the Windows copy program. Not only to flash memory, but to HDDs too. So in short, Teracopy works, what you're saying is correct, but scripts to make SD card reading faster can't help while transferring to an computer anyway.
A way I've found to increase the overall read and write speeds of the SD card and flash drives in general, is to choose a 32kB cluster size (I haven't tried 64kB) while formatting it to FAT32. In my experience, this gives better read and write speeds especially while transferring large files.
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