Hey all, I'm having a bit of a dilemma and hoping some of you can help me
So - with the introduction of NAND, we are finally able to run Android similar to a native device. Great!
I've dabbled with a large number of ROM's now and settled(ish) on a basic Desire ROM which I have to say, runs absolutely perfectly.
However, I'm missing some of the features from the DesireHD SD card days and I see there are various builds. I tried a squashedfs build and found that it was far more laggy than the unsquashed Desire build I use now.
I've just noticed that there are number of newer builds using an EXT partition on the SD card to store the apps while the ROM itself sits in the NAND.
But is it worth it is my question? Running all the apps off an SD card, surely is akin to just running the whole system from SD? Also, what's the difference between EXT3 and EXT4? I've seen a ROM which advise to use EXT3 while the other suggests 4.
Finally, if the apps run from a partition, does that mean USB Mass Storage connection is out of the question?
Phew. Thanks
NAND is suppose to have a faster read, than write when compared to SD.
NAND and SD has about 100,000 P/E cycles. SD is cheaper to replace than phone, but by the time you get to that many write cycles, your phone is an antique.
You can still use SD card when in USB Mass Storage mode. You will only see the FAT32 partition in Windows. Unless you use a 3rd party program for usb mass storage mode.
ext4
ext3
Comparison of all file systems
There isn't that much difference in ext4 and ext3, especially on a phone. ext2 is probably faster than ext3, but it doesn't have journaling, so, the data is more likely to corrupt when device is not properly turned off.
LiFE1688 said:
There isn't that much difference in ext4 and ext3, especially on a phone. ext2 is probably faster than ext3, but it doesn't have journaling, so, the data is more likely to corrupt when device is not properly turned off.
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So in fact, if I use a DesireHD CWK Rom with the Apps stuck in EXT4 lets say, it won't be a massively notable difference to say just a Desire CWK Rom on NAND because the OS is still on NAND and it's just the apps that aren't. Furthermore, once they are in the RAM, it makes little difference anyway, right?
There is a difference in ext4 and ext3. Not all kernels support ext4 is probably the biggest. ext4 doesn't cause files fragmentation as much as ext3. Unfortunately, none of us used ext3/4 partitions in SD card long enough to notice the speed lost when files are fragmented in the ext3/4 partition.
So if you are going to use Desire build, check to see if the kernel supports ext4 in the first place. So far, I have seen MDJ's 10 Kernels supporting ext4, other than that, I don't remember seeing another.
Great, I'll see what happens! Thanks
Related
Hey guys,
I am planning to format my sdcard to fat32/ext_ partitions for use of apps2sd. I have a few questions I would like answered first though.
-Is a swap partition required? I have little space on my sd and would rather not use one. If it is required, what size/file system would you suggest? I take it there is no invisible swap partition by default?
-Ext 2, 3 or 4 for my apps2sd partition?
- I am planning to make my apps2sd partition only about 200mb, will that work well?
Thanks.
- swap: depending on rom, but in general: no
- i would recommend ext2, you can use 3 or 4 as well. keep in mind that ext4 doesn't work on any 2.1 rom until we have the kernel sources (after official release).
- it will work, the size only determines how many apps you can install there. average size of an app is ~1mb, though can go from a few kb to several mb (i.e. copilot.apk has 14mb).
Thanks a lot Any particular advantage of ext2 over ext3?
tbman1996 said:
Thanks a lot Any particular advantage of ext2 over ext3?
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Click to collapse
Ext3 and ext4 wear out your sdcard quicker, because of journaling features.
Since, compared to a system or cache partition, the sdcard is not written to as much, and system crashes where the mobile is shut down during a write operation are rare for Android, journaling doesn't offer any significant advantage. The unnecessary journaling however, accounts for extra writes to the flash memory chips, which in turn equals extra wear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2 said:
ext2 is still the filesystem of choice for flash-based storage media (such as SD cards, SSDs, and USB flash drives) since its lack of a journal minimizes the number of writes and flash devices have only a limited number of write cycles.
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Hello
I'm posting this because I just changed my 1GB SD card for a 16 GB Class 6, everything works fine, but now (one of the goals of the operation) I want to upgrade to 6.0 Cyanogen
So, the question is: should I partition? what is the reasonable amount to allocate to keep the rest for any Debian etc.
Depend...
OK, I have the answer, so I give it in case you wonder.
In fact, there is no need to partition the point of view of 6.0, but some applications can seek an ext2 or swap (this is a constraint due to these applications, not to cyanogen) So if we can predict all at once as long as it does not take too much space (32 MB of swap, and around 800 / 1.2GB ext2 ...).
Still, I think there are people who program with their feet ...
Correct you don't need the EXT partition because Froyo supports apps2fat which means you can do it with a regularly partitioned card. However, if your going to install apps to your SD its better to flash fireats script that lets you use the EXT partition and go that route. Reason being, if you ever unmount your SD card with the system on, all your apps go with it.
Sent from my HTC Magic using XDA App
Is there a way to do this? I currently have a dual boot of WP7 in NAND and SD android. Not being able to share data is kind of a bummer.
If there isn't already a way, I am thinking of taking this on as a development project, is there anyone knowledgeable about writing applications to mount file systems that can point me to something I can start with?
Thanks
I think mounting the Wp7 partition in Android will be absolutely useless, from what i read about wp7 storage management, it seems that the SD Card partition is used by WP7 in raid mode, so data is shared and written across both nand and sdcard partition as if both were just one single storage memory (for faster operation)..so even if mounting the partition in android was possible we could not read the data from it (because it's not all there..) and if we copy files to the wp7 partition, the wp7 OS would not recognize it after reloading the sdcard...even worse we might even loose all the data from the original wp7 partition, because MS has blessed us with an inteligent OS autorecovery system..meaning if data is found to be different or corrupted in filesystem (raid system..actually) WP7 will automatically reformat the storage partiton to restore phone functionality. Remember those annoying WP7 resets?!
hypothetically if you could get an SD android build to read NAND somehow then it could read the full raid partition, but this is pretty unlikely.
how about the other direction? that is getting WP7 to read the FAT32 partition.
babablue said:
how about the other direction? that is getting WP7 to read the FAT32 partition.
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Seems like WP7 Couldn't read or write on FAT32 or every other File system. It's Awkward.
What the hell were WP7 Developers thinking?
they wanted to be like Apple.
i bought a new memory card for my phone..... and im just wonderin if do i have to format in FAT 32 or just leave it and erase the files of a new memory card??
Thank you
rizer08 said:
i bought a new memory card for my phone..... and im just wonderin if do i have to format in FAT 32 or just leave it and erase the files of a new memory card??
Thank you
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Click to collapse
If it's new, there's no real need to format. It is already formatted in FAT 32.
You could however partition the memory card within CWM Recovery to setup SWAP and ext4.
Hope that helps =)
Agree it should already be formatted for windows - I would just add:
You can apply the 4EXT extension easily enough in recovery - my personal favorite 4EXT touchcovery...
I would not use a swap file on this device - useful for my old MT3G but I wouldn't do it for this phone IMHO
I use SDFormatter (it's free) for formatting all my MicroSD cards. I had problems getting a 32 GB MicroSD card to be recognized on my MyTouch 4G and after formatting it with that program, no problems anymore
SH31KH said:
If it's new, there's no real need to format. It is already formatted in FAT 32.
You could however partition the memory card within CWM Recovery to setup SWAP and ext4.
Hope that helps =)
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Alright, I've been around for awhile and still haven't really looked into this, but what exactly is swap and ext4? Like what are the benefits?
And also, I'm trying to find the differences between the 4ext touchcovery and clockworkrecovery other than themes and touch. What would you recommend and why?
I2IEAILiiTY said:
Alright, I've been around for awhile and still haven't really looked into this, but what exactly is swap and ext4? Like what are the benefits?
And also, I'm trying to find the differences between the 4ext touchcovery and clockworkrecovery other than themes and touch. What would you recommend and why?
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Click to collapse
Swap is a portion of your card (or hard drive for desktop) that the system will use almost like RAM - for frequently accessed files/information. This was very useful for the older phones that had little RAM but not really needed for newer phones. That swap will get 'thrashed' quite a bit too, and with a limited amount of read/writes per SD card I would not recommend it except on older phones.
ext4 is a file system and ext3 was better than ext2 etc... ext4 in a nutshell is faster, and more stable - lots of googling available on that one if you are interested in the fine details.
4ext recovery - has a couple of really nice features like md5 checksum check and a few others and the new touchcovery is so slick - no buttons needed at all, great UI and all the features of the original - I practically feel guilty using it! Try it - if you don't like it you can always go back ...
Hope that helps...
Homerbsharp said:
Swap is a portion of your card (or hard drive for desktop) that the system will use almost like RAM - for frequently accessed files/information. This was very useful for the older phones that had little RAM but not really needed for newer phones. That swap will get 'thrashed' quite a bit too, and with a limited amount of read/writes per SD card I would not recommend it except on older phones.
ext4 is a file system and ext3 was better than ext2 etc... ext4 in a nutshell is faster, and more stable - lots of googling available on that one if you are interested in the fine details.
4ext recovery - has a couple of really nice features like md5 checksum check and a few others and the new touchcovery is so slick - no buttons needed at all, great UI and all the features of the original - I practically feel guilty using it! Try it - if you don't like it you can always go back ...
Hope that helps...
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Click to collapse
Yea, so swap is in other words Virtual Memory? When i had an iphone 3g, I used a VM mod and a couple others to speed it up cause it has very little RAM.
And I'm using 4ext touchcovery and I love the wipe all but sdcard function.
What are the benefits of partitioning your sdcard?
I2IEAILiiTY said:
Yea, so swap is in other words Virtual Memory? When i had an iphone 3g, I used a VM mod and a couple others to speed it up cause it has very little RAM.
And I'm using 4ext touchcovery and I love the wipe all but sdcard function.
What are the benefits of partitioning your sdcard?
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Click to collapse
Yeah touchcovery is sweet and you are correct about swap being virtual memory.
For partitioning your card with 4EXT, I am no expert but I think stock Android expects FAT, and if you run windows you would not see 4EXT easily etc... but I use a 4EXT partition of 500 MB for Android, since it is faster, more stable etc... and android has no problems reading it since it is a *NIX derived OS and the more recent ROMs should take advantage of that partition format.
You can partition pretty easy in 4EXT touchcovery BTW ... not sure how it handles existing data so I would back up if you go that route...
I've an I9505 with AOSP MIUI and ChronicKernel, and I have just bought a new 16GB Sandisk Ultra HCI (1) MicroSD.
Do you suggest to format it with an EXT4 filesystem or the default FAT32?
I've done some speed test, and the writing speed of 1GB file seems the same.
I don't usually need to store single files bigger than 2GB.
I also do not need to write on it from Windows. I can in any case safety read EXT4 on Windows with many apps.
I only seen that with the EXT4 I have 1GB less of free space, caused maybe by the SU allocated space. Tune2FS -m 0 seems don't work here.
The recovery seems to work on EXT4 well.
Is EXT4 much more safe, affrodable, fast and modern to justificate the upgrade?
Are there some more good reason to chose EXT4 over the very diffuse Fat32?
The only complains regards free space and writing from Windows. Seems possible just by few software, like Ext2Fsd-0.51, but it's still not possible to erase android user created files. I have in any case few of this needs.
Thank you in advance for your kind reply.
I have not seen significant difference in performance between filesystems.
However, I do need (from time to time) to have files bigger than 2GB on my SD card, since I use it as external disc too... so I go by inertia with NTFS.
You WILL need sooner or later > 2GB file on your SD... So, in your case, EXT4...
Thank you Bodisson.
I'm still looking a way to freeup the SU allocated space, wich is so hight. 1GB of loss space on a 16GB card!!!
Bodisson said:
You WILL need sooner or later > 2GB file on your SD... So, in your case, EXT4...
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Click to collapse
No, Fat32 has support for files up to 4GB. So only if you need files bigger than THAT you should change filesystem.
If you don't: simply stick with Fat32 as it is way way WAY more compatible with every phone, camera, computer, whatever.
Pfeffernuss said:
No, Fat32 has support for files up to 4GB. So only if you need files bigger than THAT you should change filesystem.
If you don't: simply stick with Fat32 as it is way way WAY more compatible with every phone, camera, computer, whatever.
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Thank you Pfeffernuss. I did a mistake. Fat32 and < 4GB file dimension, right!
In any case I would sacrifice compatibility but reliability. Fat32 is an old filesystem, and not very affrodable in case of OS crash. File recovery is also not at best. Speed for big files are the same, I admit. But the speed for small file access is much more slow.
I also use FTP and SCP for file tranfer.
I do not like to unmount MicroSD inside a full working OS to let it Windows directly compatibile. And also the internal memory is in any case Windows non accessibile.
Both can use MTP onthefly.
I like NTFS for Windows based usage. It's really much more fast and secure than Fat32.
I want to do the same in a Linux environment.
I'm finally oriented to an EXT4 ...
In any case thanks for your reply.