Database Users

Whats the bottom line on A2SD ???

Im all about performance. I partitioned my class 4 sd card and intalled DC v2.07. Had about 124mb's free memory but the phone was choppy. I wiped (not ext) and flashed DC v2.08 and now my phone is flying again but only have 27mbs free. I guess it stored the apps back to /System/app. So now my questions??
Will the phone perform as good as no a2sd if I get a class 6 sd card and use a2sd??
I guess with most people we just want to store apps in our sd card without loosing any performance.

Storing apps on your SDcard is fine, but you are asking the phone to do one more step in the grand scheme of things. Just another gate for data to pass through, so even with a class 6 SD card there is more than likely an ammount of slow down you could measure.
Personally I have an 8 Gb Trascend Class 6 and have apps2sd running, its just fine for me. No choppyness at all.

Most of the issue you are experiencing is having dalvik-cache on your sd card.
It should be fine with a class 6. A class 4 depends on the card. Would not recommend dalvik-cache on a class 2.
And, your software is stored in /data/app and data/app-private. /system/app is for core programs and is not moved in a2sd.
energizer1389 said:
Im all about performance. I partitioned my class 4 sd card and intalled DC v2.07. Had about 124mb's free memory but the phone was choppy. I wiped (not ext) and flashed DC v2.08 and now my phone is flying again but only have 27mbs free. I guess it stored the apps back to /System/app. So now my questions??
Will the phone perform as good as no a2sd if I get a class 6 sd card and use a2sd??
I guess with most people we just want to store apps in our sd card without loosing any performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I installed my new transcend class 6 microsd card. Partitioned and used ext3. Moved apps and dalvik to sd and it runs fine. Im happy now. I have 110 free mbs.

I have an 8GB class 2 sandisk and I have had no problem nor any slowdown having apps2sd installed and having the dalvik cache installed as well. I keep looking around for a faster card, would like a 16GB, but when it comes down to it, with not having problems there is no real need to upgrade. Even though I really want one, if for nothing but bragging rights.

jlem26 said:
I have an 8GB class 2 sandisk and I have had no problem nor any slowdown having apps2sd installed and having the dalvik cache installed as well. I keep looking around for a faster card, would like a 16GB, but when it comes down to it, with not having problems there is no real need to upgrade. Even though I really want one, if for nothing but bragging rights.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget that the Class of the card is rated based on the write speed. The read speed is what affects us the most when loading apps and a combination of the two when using the cache.
The read speed can be higher or lower based on the make of the card. Some name-brand Class 4 cards can read faster than the cheap Class 6 cards.

[Q] SD Card Worth It?

I am going to pick one of these up, but before I did, had a quick question (anyone with a WP7 can answer)
Do you feel that 8gb is enough space? Or do you wish you had more? Should I get an SD Card?

Most definitely. I have loaded most of my music and a few videos and I already used over 6GB. That's pretty much all the stock phone has. Now, I have over 14GB still left. Might put some movies on it.

My only disappointment in the focus is the 8GB stock NAND. For a $199 on contract device, 16GB really should be the minimum, especially considering a few other WP7 phones, to say nothing of Android phones and the iPhone, all start at $199 with 16GB.
That said, adding the SD card isn't that big a deal as long as you do it before you've filled the device up. For some reason there seems to be no ability to do a full backup of the phone by any means I've been able to find.

The problem with the SD Cards is that there's intense confusion/miscommunication about which cards work well. Just because it works with 6GB doesn't mean anything. What seems to happen is once you get to 8GB filled, the phone's performance takes a nose-dive, sometimes leading to losing all data.

"Enough space" depends on you, not us. I have an iPhone, iPad and iPod, all 16GB units, each with some 14GB or so of music & apps on them so it the first thing I did when I brought the Focus home was slap an 8GB card in there, format it and load it up. I have maybe 2GB free and it's worked without a single glitch for the past two weeks. For reference, mine is a Sandisk class 2. People seem to have problems with cards other than Sandisk and other than class 2 and I noticed absolutely no performance problems so if you're going to try it, try that and keep the receipt in case you need to return or swap it should something go sour.

Enough Space?
I agree with Mark, whether there is enough space or not really depends on what your usage requirements are.
I had a 32GB Zune and when I bought my Samsung Focus the Zune had over 20GB of data on it. So for me adding and 32GB SD card to the Focus was not only a desire but a very strong selling point for the Phone.
And yes, I am seeing a few issues with the Sandisk Card that is in it. Currently they are not enough to make me yank the Card because I (again) bought the device to specifically be a convergence device for myself and I am at heart a tester and tinkerer so figuring how exactly how WP7 works.doesn't work with an SD Card and the statement that MS and Samsung are working on a fix is enough for me right now.
Smaller Sized Cards seem to be more reliable than larger cards (not to mention less expensive) but that appears to anecdotal evidence as well. My 32GB Sandisk only causes freezes and resets when on Battery for example and I've not had anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same.
Not great answers but, hey, this is the fun of learning as we go along...
- MEK

FishFaceMcGee said:
The problem with the SD Cards is that there's intense confusion/miscommunication about which cards work well. Just because it works with 6GB doesn't mean anything. What seems to happen is once you get to 8GB filled, the phone's performance takes a nose-dive, sometimes leading to losing all data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have more than 11GB on my Focus with no issues at all. No slow-downs, no hiccups, no data loss period. I am currently using a PNY 16GB Class 2 card. I previously had a Centon 8GB Class 6 card with the same results.
If you read the thread on MicroSD cards, it seems there are some cards that have been working pretty much flawlessly. Both of the cards I mentioned have worked perfectly for me. I gave the 8GB to a friend and he is using it in his Focus as well.

For me, to really make a portable phone/audio/video device be best for me it would need at least 150GB of storage... and a few TB if i wanted to listen to music lossless and a few movies.

MKohlman said:
I agree with Mark, whether there is enough space or not really depends on what your usage requirements are.
I had a 32GB Zune and when I bought my Samsung Focus the Zune had over 20GB of data on it. So for me adding and 32GB SD card to the Focus was not only a desire but a very strong selling point for the Phone.
And yes, I am seeing a few issues with the Sandisk Card that is in it. Currently they are not enough to make me yank the Card because I (again) bought the device to specifically be a convergence device for myself and I am at heart a tester and tinkerer so figuring how exactly how WP7 works.doesn't work with an SD Card and the statement that MS and Samsung are working on a fix is enough for me right now.
Smaller Sized Cards seem to be more reliable than larger cards (not to mention less expensive) but that appears to anecdotal evidence as well. My 32GB Sandisk only causes freezes and resets when on Battery for example and I've not had anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same.
Not great answers but, hey, this is the fun of learning as we go along...
- MEK
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Click to collapse
You know, I was thinking about this the other day...the phone has 8GB of internal memory and if you put in an SD card it stripes data across it and the internal memory. If the card is 8GB or smaller that's fine but what happens if the SD card is larger than internal memory? It doesn't stripe the first 8GB and set the rest up as another partition and it does appear to use but it can't be striped. Now you've mentioned that smaller sized cards work better and my 8GB card works perfectly. I wonder if the file system's attempt to work with a larger card is inherently unstable? I know that if you put two different sized drives in a Windows box and stripe across them you will only end up with double the size of the smallest drive, not the actual sum of the two. Might be an interesting poll...indicate the size of your SD card and if the phone has been 100% stable since inserting it.

markgamber said:
You know, I was thinking about this the other day...the phone has 8GB of internal memory and if you put in an SD card it stripes data across it and the internal memory. If the card is 8GB or smaller that's fine but what happens if the SD card is larger than internal memory? It doesn't stripe the first 8GB and set the rest up as another partition and it does appear to use but it can't be striped. Now you've mentioned that smaller sized cards work better and my 8GB card works perfectly. I wonder if the file system's attempt to work with a larger card is inherently unstable? I know that if you put two different sized drives in a Windows box and stripe across them you will only end up with double the size of the smallest drive, not the actual sum of the two. Might be an interesting poll...indicate the size of your SD card and if the phone has been 100% stable since inserting it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not totally convinced based on comments in blogs that the disks are "striped". I think a lot of people are saying this and maybe using the term out of context and everyone just keeps using it. Has Microsoft actually come out to say "WP7 performs RAID 0 configuration"? For a phone OS which was never intended to see anything other than a single drive, don't you think throwing a RAID controller in there just for kicks is a little absurd?
The other term is "span" and if I had money, I'd bet that the two disks were spanned as a single partition, as opposed to striping like RAID 0 does.
Despite all of that, I have tried a 16gb class 4 with more issues than I cared for and currently have an 8gb class 4 with negligible issues. Any card you get, I'd run on Vista/Windows 7 and test for ReadyBoost. That at least tests the card for random access speed, which is important. My 16gb failed readyboost and had lots of issues in my Focus, whereas the 8gb passed and the only issues I've seen with that one are issues that other people might have experienced on their own phones sans sd card.

hyperzulu said:
I'm not totally convinced based on comments in blogs that the disks are "striped". I think a lot of people are saying this and maybe using the term out of context and everyone just keeps using it. Has Microsoft actually come out to say "WP7 performs RAID 0 configuration"? For a phone OS which was never intended to see anything other than a single drive, don't you think throwing a RAID controller in there just for kicks is a little absurd?
The other term is "span" and if I had money, I'd bet that the two disks were spanned as a single partition, as opposed to striping like RAID 0 does.
Despite all of that, I have tried a 16gb class 4 with more issues than I cared for and currently have an 8gb class 4 with negligible issues. Any card you get, I'd run on Vista/Windows 7 and test for ReadyBoost. That at least tests the card for random access speed, which is important. My 16gb failed readyboost and had lots of issues in my Focus, whereas the 8gb passed and the only issues I've seen with that one are issues that other people might have experienced on their own phones sans sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read both, striped and spanned...who knows. Considering how slow SD memory always was in old WinMo devices, I didn't think it absurd to stripe data to provide the same kind of speed boost you get when striping hard drives. Hard as it might be to believe, it may have just been that WinMo was slow. I hadn't thought of the readyboost test, that's a good idea. Readyboost is pretty picky.

2 GB non-user accessible microSD card

i was wondering what class is the streak's internal memory card? class 2 i'm guessing...
wouldn't it make the phone smoother if we changed it with a faster one? 2GB cards are pretty cheap

Not Android Development
Moving to General

I am interested in upgrading internal mem also, larger, and higher class. I was told there's a way to do it on modaco, but couldn't find the thread.
Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk

Also very interested, if dissasembly isnt too difficult and will make a noticeable difference.

the disassembly doesn't look hard, that's why i was wondering if it would make much of a diference

http://android.modaco.com/content-page/311538/hardware-hacking-this-puppy-input/page/60/
Start with the post by Stephen Davidson..

Elusivo said:
i was wondering what class is the streak's internal memory card? class 2 i'm guessing...
wouldn't it make the phone smoother if we changed it with a faster one? 2GB cards are pretty cheap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's class2 indeed.
Replacing with faster should give better user experience.
byte-to-byte copy of the original card is proved to work.

i was looking at it too. it seems there is some danger to it . when you replace the sdcard you cannot swap it for a bigger one and use it as a whole drive. the android systemstuff which is on the sdcard needs to be 2GB in size. i donno if something changed in 2.2 but i guess it still needs to be 2GB. you can however split the sdcard and mount the rest of it after boot-time. would be nice if it could mount right at boot. this requires root also.

[Q] does a class 10 micro sd card benefit in the A500?

Sorry if this was already asked but I tried searching. What type of class micro sd card will I actually benefit from? A samsung class 4 32gb is out there for a good price but if the tablet will actually take advantage of a class 10 I would get one of those.

for the most part it will not. Except in moving large files to and from the card.maybe playing movies from the card.but even movies are OK on 4.6 class cards..if you could run apps or have there data from SD card then it would be a big improvement. I have used a 8 gig class 4 and now have a 32gig class 10.can't tell much difference other then when pushing roms and other large files to my tablet over USB.
I would say get 6 minimum but if you have the cash faster is always better. Just don't go out and spend the money if you have a class 4card.
Im sure you will hear diffeent from others.

Not really. I have 5 sd's, and no difference between class4 and class 10.
Up to a certain size that is. Anything more than 16gb, and I would move to a class 10.
Rumor has it, that you can run a 64gb. If you partition it with Partition Magic.

I think it depends on what you are using the card for. I don't think it is the tablet that would take advantage as much as a particular app that would. If you were using apps that required fast read/write access to the card (and you were actually using the card as opposed to the internal memory) then the faster card would be best. Keep in mind that not all class 10s are the same so also make sure to look at some of the benchmarks for the different cards. I know in terms of photography and hd video captures that a higher class card really does make a difference...but that is just an example of a real use application.
Hope that made sense.

SD Card Partitions

I have a Nook Color that is rooted running CyanogenMod 7.1.0 on internal memory. I have a 16GB Class 10 SD Card in it and was wondering what people are using for partitions on their SD Cards. I have pushed pretty much every app over to SD Card but some (not all) applications (Google Maps for instance) seem really sluggish and many times it force closes.
Is the Nook just not powerful enough to run Google Maps or is there something I need to adjust? Maybe a bigger swap partition? I set them up quite a while ago and don't recall what I set them to off the top of my head.
Using CyanogenMod I am overclocked to 1.2GHz with the Governor set to Performance.
VM heap size set to 48MB.
Thanks

class 10 cards are not as good as you'd think for any Android device. Android devices tend to write smaller files... a class 4 card (Sandisk recommended) is actually best for these devices.

DizzyDen said:
class 10 cards are not as good as you'd think for any Android device. Android devices tend to write smaller files... a class 4 card (Sandisk recommended) is actually best for these devices.
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Click to collapse
I am mainly using Class 10 as that is what I had laying around in the Micro SD Card Format.
I have a 32 GB Class 4 in my Thunderbolt and it is fine. Do you really think it would slow it down much if it is Class 10? I could always toss it in an adapter and use it in my Canon T3i.

This thread here explains what the issue is and will tell you how to test your cards out to see if they'll work. Basically that Class10 card only gets Class 10 speeds when transferring large files and for small files (like an OS/app uses to write temp files) you get crap speed. it's not normally noticed in everyday use because the files are small and a little delay writing it isn't noticed by the user. Class 4 cards from SanDisk seem to be overall performers for files of all sizes.
- Aerlock

Aerlock said:
This thread here explains what the issue is and will tell you how to test your cards out to see if they'll work. Basically that Class10 card only gets Class 10 speeds when transferring large files and for small files (like an OS/app uses to write temp files) you get crap speed. it's not normally noticed in everyday use because the files are small and a little delay writing it isn't noticed by the user. Class 4 cards from SanDisk seem to be overall performers for files of all sizes.
- Aerlock
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Click to collapse
Hmm, that is interesting. Now does it matter that I am booting off internal memory? I am not dual booted and have CyanogenMod on internal memory. I am running Google Maps which is one of the programs that is really slow on internal memory. My guess is that what you are saying would apply because of the swap space being used on the SD card. I will say that my wife also has a Nook Color that I put my old 8GB Class 6 card from my old Nexus One in and hers seems to perform a little faster than mine. I haven't done the tweaks to VM heap size to hers that seems to have helped mine a little. So you may be on to something. I have a couple of these class 10 cards that I use on my Camera and have been happy with them. I think they are Samsung. The DSLR is 18MP so those files are pretty big so it might be just better to leave those cards for use there and get a couple of those SanDisk Class 4 cards for our Nooks.

Yeah, running apps from the sd would benefit from a fast sd card. When you get one, use CrystalDiskMark (pc) to check the 4k read/write speeds. I bought an 8gb and two 16gb Sandisk class 4 cards from Radio Shack that have reasonable speeds and work well. They're all in the .5 range for writes - not as good as some I've heard of, but they work well! Some (a Kingston and a knockoff Sandisk) I tested were as low as .006! I tried to use the Kingston before I tested its speed and got lots of instability and FCs. hth
Sent from my CM9 NookColor using Tapatalk