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i've been reading up on compcache and the way that it works, but i'm pretty confused on how exactly this works on the android platform... i can't seem to pull the exact definition of compcache for android through all the chatter from threads, and it seems my answer gets lost in translation...
so to put it simply, i'm assuming from all my thread reading that compcache is actually based off the ext partition that you have on your SD card, and not on the RAM itself on the device? is this right? this is where i get confused, cause the compcache writers and developers say that it creates a ramzswap in the ram itself and stores compressed pages on the device RAM, effectively increasing the efficiency of your onboard RAM... in android's case and all the cooked ROMs, does it work off your SD card and your ext partition? or does it work off the RAM itself...
i'm currently running cyanogen's latest 32b release on my mytouch and its running extremely fast WITHOUT apps2sd, but i would like the benefits of compcache to prevent losing information from my browser and other applications like gtalk, which supposedly compcache helps with... would i have to create a ext partition and utilize apps2sd in order to utilize compcache? thanks in advance
bump... would like to be learned
I'm also a bit confused
i would like to know as well as i've installed Cyanogen v4.0.1
i went into the recovery console and formatted my SD choosing the option of "Format SD: fat32+ext2+swap"
was this the correct thing to do?
either way if you format cyanogen's rom with just a fat32, or fat32 + ext + swap, it doesn't matter as his rom is compatible with either apps2sd or without...
the question is, where does compache compress its file pages? in the RAM, or in the SD card
Compcache uses xMB of RAM as compressed swap space. No ext2 or swap files or swap partitions are needed (though the latter two can be used as "backing swap").
So on a 32B, with RAM limitations already, how is that a good thing?
PsychoI3oy said:
Compcache uses xMB of RAM as compressed swap space. No ext2 or swap files or swap partitions are needed (though the latter two can be used as "backing swap").
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Click to collapse
thanks thats the answer i was looking for...
MikLSP said:
So on a 32B, with RAM limitations already, how is that a good thing?
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Click to collapse
how is it NOT a good thing? compcache compresses page files, effectively increasing your RAM's efficiency and "technically" increasing its storage size in the allocated ramzswap... according to the developer's tests on different machines, it effectively makes it seem like it doubles the RAM amount on your computer...
this is nothing but good, especially for lower end machines like netbooks, and phones that have limited RAM allocation to begin with...
heres a small tidbit from the google source page
http://code.google.com/p/compcache/
i don't mean to threadjack, but compcache will be active regardless of whether or not i partition my sd card to fat32+ext2+swap...?
and i only have to partition my sd card to fat32+ext2+swap ONLY if i want apps2sd to work correctly using Cyanogenmod's rom...?
please correct me if i'm wrong.
i'm really wondering because even though i'm using Cyanogenmod's latest rom on my MyTouch, i still get considerable lag throughout such as typing on the virtual keyboard, screen orientation rotation, etc. i also use TasKiller.
maybe i'm expecting too much...
probably... lag from orientation, keyboard, and small things like this are still very common... i've tested a lot of roms on both the g1 and mytouch, and cyanogen's is by far the fastest...
As I have understood it sort of compresses things stored in the RAM (like background apps)
I've done a good amount of reading on compcache and have found that its been causing problems in my 4.0.1 build of cyanogen... the best thread i've found on the issue is:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=547752
hopefully users continue to share their findings, as the the thread mentioned is for the G1, and i'm sure optimal compcache settings will differ on the mytouch 3G... i will be doing some extensive testing on compcache only (due to me recently buying a 32gb micro card, and don't want to mess it up with linux swap) and will report my results... if anyone would like to join in, please post your findings as well...
Hi, I've searched the forum but found no answer. Searched google and found contradictory answers.
Should I use a swap file in SD card?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks
brk said:
Hi, I've searched the forum but found no answer. Searched google and found contradictory answers.
Should I use a swap file in SD card?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Advantage: Allows more multitasking due to more memory use from the sd card.
Disadvantage: Shortens the sd card life.
If you plan to use swap or A2SD, I recommend getting a class 6 sd card. Some people are opposed to swap, some people are all up for it. It's just up to your preference. For me, swap is just nice that an app doesn't close when I'm using another app.
koreancanuck said:
Advantage: Allows more multitasking due to more memory use from the sd card.
Disadvantage: Shortens the sd card life.
If you plan to use swap or A2SD, I recommend getting a class 6 sd card. Some people are opposed to swap, some people are all up for it. It's just up to your preference. For me, swap is just nice that an app doesn't close when I'm using another app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A good answer but slightly incomplete. Most sdcards have wear leveling so having swap on your card will do very minimal damage.
brk said:
Hi, I've searched the forum but found no answer. Searched google and found contradictory answers.
Should I use a swap file in SD card?
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to have a swap file (swap.swp) this could possibly corrupt your fat partition. This is based on my own personal experience of course. I recommend use a swap partition honestly.
Just imagine mounting your sdcard to your computer to transfer files while your phone is still attempting to write to /sdcard/swap.swp. This can theoritically cause problems. And you don't want problems on your sdcard. A seperate partition is the safest way to go. But again... just my opinion.
Note that if you are using a rom based on Cyanogen's kernel (such as 5.0.7 or 5.0.8) it is NOT recommended to use swap at all. It will slow down your phone causing more problems than what it's worth. ('Swap grave' is how he put it.)
Binary100100 said:
If you want to have a swap file (swap.swp) this could possibly corrupt your fat partition.
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Click to collapse
How does that happen?
endolith said:
How does that happen?
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Click to collapse
If your system is writing to the .swp while you mount/unmount the sdcard it can corrupt the card. It's better to use the partition.
In addition if your system is setup to use the swap.swp on your fat32 partition and you mount it to your computer, what do you suppose would happen to your system since it can no longer have access to the .swp file?
Again... not a good idea.
I don't see how unmounting the swap partition is any different from unmounting the partition with a swap file on it.
Just say no!
endolith said:
I don't see how unmounting the swap partition is any different from unmounting the partition with a swap file on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, but other than when you shut down your phone, when does your swap partition get [un]mounted?
AdrianK said:
Right, but other than when you shut down your phone, when does your swap partition get [un]mounted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you plug it into a computer, isn't the whole SD card mounted?
endolith said:
When you plug it into a computer, isn't the whole SD card mounted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your computer's OS can only mount the filesystems it supports, for example OOTB Windows only supports FAT and NTFS, so it can't do anything with ext. Anyway, linux-swap is non-persistant, you can't mount it to view the contents, my understanding is that should you mount it on linux, the swap partition will be ignored.
AdrianK said:
Your computer's OS can only mount the filesystems it supports, for example OOTB Windows only supports FAT and NTFS, so it can't do anything with ext.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the point is that they're all unmounted before the SD card can be shared with the computer as a mass storage device, so I don't see there being any difference between a swap partition and a swap file.
Besides, Swapper has a default "safe" option that unmounts swap before sharing SD with the computer and remounts it after disconnecting.
endolith said:
But the point is that they're all unmounted before the SD card can be shared with the computer as a mass storage device, so I don't see there being any difference between a swap partition and a swap file.
Besides, Swapper has a default "safe" option that unmounts swap before sharing SD with the computer and remounts it after disconnecting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wasn't aware that Swapper has such a feature but that doesn't change the fact that if your running say ~200mb of RAM with ~64mb of swap and with all the multitasking that you're doing you're using up most of it... so say you have only ~10mb free. Then all of a sudden you pull out your sdcard. What do you think happen will happen? Your phone was reading and writing to that card! Do you think that's healthy? If Swapper unmounts it before it shares the sdcard with the computer then it may be better for the sdcard but I don't see how that can have a positive impact on the device. However if you have swap on a seperate partition the only way to run into this problem would be to remove the card from the device. Even if you mount the sdcard to the computer the phone still has access to the swap partition just like it still has access to the ext partition (if it has one).
I don't know about you but I have a 16gb class 6 card and it's a pain in the butt to restore my data to the fat partition so I would rather not have anything read/write to it unless necessary and to have something constantly reading and writing to it is a really bad idea in my case... but maybe you have a ~2gb and reloading the data may not be annoying to you.
Anyway... stick with what works. I've tried them all and based on my own experience I suggest the separate partition if you are going to use swap. But hey... what do I know?
By the way... do NOT use swap on CM5 or CM6. It may help at first but you'll be enroute to digging "a swap grave" (quoted by Cyanogen himself).
Your phone will ONLY share FAT when mounted to PC
Ext and Swap are still running on the phone(app2sd how do you think apps keep working after mounting?)
Same deal with Swap...
I personally do not use Swap although i do have a 128mb Swap Partition.
Binary100100 said:
I wasn't aware that Swapper has such a feature but that doesn't change the fact that if your running say ~200mb of RAM with ~64mb of swap and with all the multitasking that you're doing you're using up most of it... so say you have only ~10mb free. Then all of a sudden you pull out your sdcard. What do you think happen will happen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android routinely kills processes as part of its "task management", and the apps are expected to save their state using "Bundles" so that when you restart them, they restart in the same state they were last in. Is unplugging the swap more harsh than killing the app?
Once Android determines that it needs to remove a process, it does this brutally, simply force-killing it. The kernel can then immediately reclaim all resources needed by the process, without relying on that application being well written and responsive to a polite request to exit. Allowing the kernel to immediately reclaim application resources makes it a lot easier to avoid serious out of memory situations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if you mount the sdcard to the computer the phone still has access to the swap partition just like it still has access to the ext partition (if it has one).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm. When you mount the SD card, the entire SD card is available on the computer, including the FAT, EXT, and swap partitions, but the phone can't access the FAT partition?
I can see the contents of the swap partition from the computer with "sudo cat /dev/sdb3", but the phone can still access it? If I run "free" on the phone, it still shows swap, and the used size still changes, so I guess the phone is still using it, but the computer can see it at the same time, too.
In that case, I understand why it would make more sense to use swap partition than swap file.
I don't know about you but I have a 16gb class 6 card and it's a pain in the butt to restore my data to the fat partition so I would rather not have anything read/write to it unless necessary and to have something constantly reading and writing to it is a really bad idea in my case... but maybe you have a ~2gb and reloading the data may not be annoying to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an 8 GB Class 6 and I don't understand what you're talking about. What do you mean "restore your data to the fat partition"? Restore it from what? What's the point of having an SD card if you don't want anything reading from it?
Anyway... stick with what works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way... do NOT use swap on CM5 or CM6. It may help at first but you'll be enroute to digging "a swap grave" (quoted by Cyanogen himself).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does that mean? Where did he say that? In what context?
I'm using swapper with CM5, and it's like buying a new phone. It greatly speeds up the phone's responsiveness.
I dunno why you can see all three partitions. When I've got my swap and extra partitions setup and mount my SD to my computer, the only partition that shows up is the FAT one, using Windows that is.
As for using swap, a quick Google search will show you a number of threads stating that the only time you see a real benefit from it is on the G1 an older mytouchs with the lower RAM space. Actually most say that using compcache is the better way to go if you've got the extra RAM space.
Sent from my HTC Magic using XDA App
endolith said:
What does that mean? Where did he say that? In what context?
I'm using swapper with CM5, and it's like buying a new phone. It greatly speeds up the phone's responsiveness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess nobody listens to the people that know what they are talking about. Then they always complain when it doesn't work properly. #Ironic
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13986716217
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13624854797
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13980541397
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13980541397
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13979643918
Enough for you?
And I'm aware that 2.2 automatically kills idle apps, which is all the more reason that you do not need swap.
And your phone cannot access the /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard partition while it is connected to your computer as removable storage. Try it.
Try downloading something to your sdcard while it's connected as removable storage. You can't. Your phone does not have access to the sdcard. In fact... while it's mounted to your computer go to settings SD card & phone storage settings and tell me what it says under Total space and Available space.
Do NOT use a large .swp file because your phone is constantly writing to the sdcard! All it takes is a single instance of removing it without unmounting it and you will have corrupted the entire contents of the fat partition. That is what I mean by restoring the data on the sdcard. I use an ADATA 16gb class 6 sdcard and each time that I tried with the .swp file I ended up losing my data because of random kernel crashes, dead battery, unsafe sdcard mounting etc.
But if you are really convinced of otherwise then go on ahead but I'll tell you right now, I will refuse to help anyone that never listened to my advice the first time. If I give a warning and if someone doesn't listen then it's all on them. I will personally refuse to help them and I wouldn't blame anyone for doing the same. Cyanogen warned users not to use swap. So those that have issues shouldn't complain to him or anyone else because it's their own fault.
All quotes from Cyanogen on twitter. You should follow him and learn something.
@w3stbr00k I don't know.. none of my roms have swap support built in. You would have had to do it yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@misscocogold t3 is otw in an hour or so. Make sure you aren't using swap or task killers too.
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Click to collapse
@singharvinder the new code actually uses swap more aggressively as a side effect
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Click to collapse
@singharvinder are you using swap? Don't.
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Click to collapse
DonJuan692006 said:
I dunno why you can see all three partitions. When I've got my swap and extra partitions setup and mount my SD to my computer, the only partition that shows up is the FAT one.
As for using swap, a quick Google search will show you a number of threads stating that the only time you see a real benefit from it is on the G1 an older mytouchs with the lower RAM space. Actually most say that using compcache is the better way to go if you've got the extra RAM space.
Sent from my HTC Magic using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can actually access the swap partition from a Linux based OS such as Ubuntu/Live CD.
When you mount the sdcard you also have access to the ext2,3,4 partition if it's available.
See what I get for being Windows exclusive? Edited my first post to be more precise with my wording.
DonJuan692006 said:
I dunno why you can see all three partitions. When I've got my swap and extra partitions setup and mount my SD to my computer, the only partition that shows up is the FAT one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Linux, both the SD and EXT partitions are mounted, but I can see and access all three. I can see all three partitions in Windows 7 Disk Management, too, but of course Windows can only mount the FAT partition.
a number of threads stating that the only time you see a real benefit from it is on the G1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got a G1.
Binary100100 said:
I guess nobody listens to the people that know what they are talking about. Then they always complain when it doesn't work properly. #Ironic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking for truth, not rumor. I'm not going to blindly accept statements made without explanation.
Enough for you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. I want to understand why it's a bad idea. Twitter posts aren't exactly comprehensive.
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13986716217
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Click to collapse
This is not a recommendation against swap. Someone was talking about disabling swap, and he said it's not his problem because CM doesn't come with swap enabled.
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13624854797
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Click to collapse
I read this as "If you're having problems with apps closing, disable swap and task managers. Maybe you have those configured wrong." That doesn't mean swap is inherently harmful.
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13980541397
http://twitter.com/cyanogen/status/13979643918
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This thread is about speed and performance, not harm.
And I'm aware that 2.2 automatically kills idle apps, which is all the more reason that you do not need swap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this is the standard response in threads like this. "Android automatically manages tasks and memory, so you shouldn't try to second-guess it". But, empirically, swap makes the phone run better and faster.
If you switch to another app from the browser, for instance, the browser almost always gets killed, and then it has to reload the entire page from the Internet when you switch back to it. This takes wayyyy longer than reloading the state from swap, and causes problems when the web page is dynamic.
Many apps take much longer to start up than they should, or don't actually return to the same state when they're restarted, and swapping them out works better. I'm guessing the people who are happy with the stock system use their phones differently.
And your phone cannot access the /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard partition while it is connected to your computer as removable storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I already agreed with that. Swap file is a bad idea since it's inaccessible when you mount on the computer, but swap partition still is. Agreed.
endolith said:
In Linux, both the SD and EXT partitions are mounted, but I can see and access all three. I can see all three partitions in Windows 7 Disk Management, too, but of course Windows can only mount the FAT partition.
I've got a G1.
I'm looking for truth, not rumor. I'm not going to blindly accept statements made without explanation.
Nope. I want to understand why it's a bad idea. Twitter posts aren't exactly comprehensive.
This is not a recommendation against swap. Someone was talking about disabling swap, and he said it's not his problem because CM doesn't come with swap enabled.
I read this as "If you're having problems with apps closing, disable swap and task managers. Maybe you have those configured wrong." That doesn't mean swap is inherently harmful.
This thread is about speed and performance, not harm.
Yes, this is the standard response in threads like this. "Android automatically manages tasks and memory, so you shouldn't try to second-guess it". But, empirically, swap makes the phone run better and faster.
If you switch to another app from the browser, for instance, the browser almost always gets killed, and then it has to reload the entire page from the Internet when you switch back to it. This takes wayyyy longer than reloading the state from swap, and causes problems when the web page is dynamic.
Many apps take much longer to start up than they should, or don't actually return to the same state when they're restarted, and swapping them out works better. I'm guessing the people who are happy with the stock system use their phones differently.
Yes, I already agreed with that. Swap file is a bad idea since it's inaccessible when you mount on the computer, but swap partition still is. Agreed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it sounds like you have answered the threads questions then. An expert such as yourself should have come along a while ago and stated this for the community. Now that you have discredited Cyanogen and all the other Senior Members and developers maybe I'll just direct all of my private messages regarding swap, compcache and userinit.sh scripts to you. Enjoy it!
Can someone explain to me what is inside the vibrant that is used as storage.
People refer to the internal memory card, why, is it an actual memory card or is it simply because apps cannot be stored there.
Why is the app storage space limited to 2gb if the internal memory is 16gb, and if all 16gb resides on the same medium can't it just be symlinked similar to what people do with apps2sd on other phones with no detriment in performance?
Calcvictim said:
Can someone explain to me what is inside the vibrant that is used as storage.
People refer to the internal memory card, why, is it an actual memory card or is it simply because apps cannot be stored there.
Why is the app storage space limited to 2gb if the internal memory is 16gb, and if all 16gb resides on the same medium can't it just be symlinked similar to what people do with apps2sd on other phones with no detriment in performance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are 2 storage types soldered onto the vibrant. NAND (fast, small) and "flash" (16g, slow).
The nand is split up for various things like booting, firmware (/system), cache, etc. And - to solve lag with their own apps - 128 megs of it is split out for the built-in apps to use. (That is the 'method 1' fix - move all app data to nand, where it is super fast.)
The 16 gigs of flash is much slower than nand, and split into 2 sections:
- /data (mmcblk0p1) is android apps, app storage, settings, etc. (2 gigs of "application space"). This is the standard android-phone onboard storage, and not accessible to the PC.
- /sdcard (mmcblk0p2) is the 14 gig media/misc space. Standard fat filesystem, shown when you plug into the PC. (They basically subverted the standard android sdcard handling for this - solves some problems, but causes others.)
The removable sd is mounted to "/sdcard/sd".
^ awesome post man, care if I stick it in the sticky?
Disconn3ct said:
There are 2 storage types soldered onto the vibrant. NAND (fast, small) and "flash" (16g, slow).
The nand is split up for various things like booting, etc. And - to solve lag with their own apps - 128 megs of it is split out for the built-in apps to use. (That is the 'method 1' fix - move all apps to nand, where it is super fast.)
The flash is much slower than nand, and split into 2 sections:
- /data is android apps, app storage, settings, etc. (2 gigs of "application space"). This is the standard android-phone onboard storage, and not accessible to the PC.
- /sdcard is the large media/misc space. Standard fat filesystem, shown when you plug into the PC. (They basically subverted the standard android sdcard handling for this - solves some problems, but causes others.)
The removable sd is mounted to "/sdcard/sd".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so RyanZA's lag fix, which creates a 1gb file system within the 2 gigs....why can't it be mapped outside of the original appspace since everything resides on flash anyway, the speeds should be the same, no?
s15274n said:
^ awesome post man, care if I stick it in the sticky?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure. (I wanted to doublecheck some info, so it is slightly updated.)
Calcvictim said:
so RyanZA's lag fix, which creates a 1gb file system within the 2 gigs....why can't it be mapped outside of the original appspace since everything resides on flash anyway, the speeds should be the same, no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"mapped outside the original appspace"? Those words all make sense but not in that order
Data (and cache and so forth) all use samsung's proprietary RFS filesystem. (It has been described as "fat with wear levelling, unix perms and journalling".) The loopback mount fix basically bypasses all that and just shows rfs a large monolithic file. You lose reliability (journal) and flash protection (wear levelling, erase optimization) and so forth, but get speeds much closer to the raw flash. (Personally, I'm a fan of not prematurely destroying soldered on storage..)
One of the things to be tried is yaffs/jffs in place of rfs - all the advantages/protections with much better performance..
Disconn3ct said:
"mapped outside the original appspace"? Those words all make sense but not in that order
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand about the RFS, I just don't really understand why the appspace is limited to 2 gigs when there are 16 gigs on the same piece of silicon. Why is it not a matter of partitioning and mounting the other 16 gigs?
Calcvictim said:
I understand about the RFS, I just don't really understand why the appspace is limited to 2 gigs when there are 16 gigs on the same piece of silicon. Why is it not a matter of partitioning and mounting the other 16 gigs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, it's not "the other 16 gigs". It is 16 gigs total - 2 for apps/data, 14 for media/etc.
How pissed would you be if only kies (and adb) could get to that storage? That's why - 14 of it is presented as vfat, so that it can be exported over usb to the pc. You might be able to adjust the split a little (eg 8/8) using modified pit files and odin, but I wouldn't even count on that..
Certainly you can't share the space - android security guarantees that only the app (well, and root, but..) can read the app's files. Not the pc, not other apps. So you need something vfat hasn't got (owners, permissions) and you need to not export it to the pc where those limits won't be enforced. (Finally, you only get one fs user at a time - if you have it on the pc, you can't have it on the phone. "Please reboot into usb mode" hasn't been OK since the late 90s...)
Disconn3ct said:
First, it's not "the other 16 gigs". It is 16 gigs total - 2 for apps/data, 14 for media/etc.
How pissed would you be if only kies (and adb) could get to that storage? That's why - 14 of it is presented as vfat, so that it can be exported over usb to the pc. You might be able to adjust the split a little (eg 8/8) using modified pit files and odin, but I wouldn't even count on that..
Certainly you can't share the space - android security guarantees that only the app (well, and root, but..) can read the app's files. Not the pc, not other apps. So you need something vfat hasn't got (owners, permissions) and you need to not export it to the pc where those limits won't be enforced. (Finally, you only get one fs user at a time - if you have it on the pc, you can't have it on the phone. "Please reboot into usb mode" hasn't been OK since the late 90s...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so if someone did modify the PIT file then it would be possible. It's not a hardware limitation, but just the way the firmware is setup.
What speed is the other 14Gb? How does it compare to standard microSD? Class 4 at least?
Calcvictim said:
Ok, so if someone did modify the PIT file then it would be possible. It's not a hardware limitation, but just the way the firmware is setup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Modify the pit, and the bootloader, and (possibly) the rfs partition scheme, and (possibly) the kernel.
People found a pit that changes the layout a little bit and they're getting a higher-than-normal percentage of bricks. (I don't know how high, but look at all the odin threads that warn against using the new pit..) It is doable, but not reliable yet. Did you already fill 2 gigs of app storage? Thats .. kinda nuts.
applebook said:
What speed is the other 14Gb? How does it compare to standard microSD? Class 4 at least?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They claim class 6. With rfs, it is ok until you get to multiple requests - then it goes all thrashy instead of threading properly..
If it's around class 6, then I'm satisfied. Since that memory is for storing media, I have little use for anything much faster anyway.
Disconn3ct said:
People found a pit that changes the layout a little bit and they're getting a higher-than-normal percentage of bricks. (I don't know how high, but look at all the odin threads that warn against using the new pit..) It is doable, but not reliable yet. Did you already fill 2 gigs of app storage? Thats .. kinda nuts.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't fill the 2 gigs but I don't use the phone for media really, it's just apps and games and just wandering since it would be nice to have more storage for those things.
So what is the size difference between the Vibrants with the larger NAND and the smaller NAND?
What difference does this make in the real world?
Why would they put two different size NAND chips?
SamsungVibrant said:
Why would they put two different size NAND chips?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung does some weird things sometimes
Disconn3ct said:
"mapped outside the original appspace"? Those words all make sense but not in that order
Data (and cache and so forth) all use samsung's proprietary RFS filesystem. (It has been described as "fat with wear levelling, unix perms and journalling".) The loopback mount fix basically bypasses all that and just shows rfs a large monolithic file. You lose reliability (journal) and flash protection (wear levelling, erase optimization) and so forth, but get speeds much closer to the raw flash. (Personally, I'm a fan of not prematurely destroying soldered on storage..)
One of the things to be tried is yaffs/jffs in place of rfs - all the advantages/protections with much better performance..
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So are you saying that samsung's filesystem (rfs) causes wear and tear to the flash drive? Do any of the lag fixes that replace the rfs filesystem (ext 2/3/4) cause wear and tear to the drive as well? I am personally not applying a lag fix for this reason, but if samsung's rfs does that already, might as well take the plunge with a lag fix...
I read somewhere that the nexus one uses a filesystem created for flash drives - it started with a y, probably the yaffs that you spoke of?
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veol said:
So are you saying that samsung's filesystem (rfs) causes wear and tear to the flash drive? Do any of the lag fixes that replace the rfs filesystem (ext 2/3/4) cause wear and tear to the drive as well? I am personally not applying a lag fix for this reason, but if samsung's rfs does that already, might as well take the plunge with a lag fix...
I read somewhere that the nexus one uses a filesystem created for flash drives - it started with a y, probably the yaffs that you spoke of?
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I took him to mean that a loopback mount style lagfix, like OCLF, can cause premature deterioration.
Kubernetes said:
I took him to mean that a loopback mount style lagfix, like OCLF, can cause premature deterioration.
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That all depends on how samsung implemented wear leveling. It would be insanely stupid to do it in a way that would cause premature death of the flash with a loop file system though. Wear leveling is generally done at the block level so that file systems that have to write to fixed locations a lot like fat don't kill that block. As rfs is fat, I think it's unlikely that it will cause issues.
We can't use yaffs2 and friends without replacing the kernel driver for the flash. They don't work on block devices, they require raw flash access. I suspect it will also require a new secondary boot loader. I wouldn't attempt it without a dev phone and jtag access.
ttabbal said:
That all depends on how samsung implemented wear leveling. It would be insanely stupid to do it in a way that would cause premature death of the flash with a loop file system though. Wear leveling is generally done at the block level so that file systems that have to write to fixed locations a lot like fat don't kill that block. As rfs is fat, I think it's unlikely that it will cause issues.
We can't use yaffs2 and friends without replacing the kernel driver for the flash. They don't work on block devices, they require raw flash access. I suspect it will also require a new secondary boot loader. I wouldn't attempt it without a dev phone and jtag access.
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Ah... sorry for asking a noobish question and being off-topic a little, but if I were to use a lagfix, which one is best (for the flash drive)?
Thanks for the questions and the answers and for laying it out in understandable terms! A good read.
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I was trying to fix my friend's evo and so I formatted my sd card to try to boot his, but when I put it back in my phone I realized mine was partitioned to run apps off of it so I had to reinstall apps. I did not re partition it. Not sure why some say they are installed on the sd card and some on the phone, but it is running much faster with no lag. It's no big deal, but I imagine running apps off the sd card really lags. But I did think it needed to be partitioned unless the Kings Shooter Rom can do it without partitioning. Maybe it wasn't partitioned before, but I could have swarn I had 1gb for apps.
Depends on your card class mines a class 6 but reads faster since I use SD booster to add a 2048 cache and my speeds are really high 11.5mbps write and 30.5mbps read so I notice no lag except on boot while my card has to mount and load once it mounts all my apps on the partition load in less than 30 seconds u.can use the app SD tools to find out your cards class and read/write speed
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-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
Depends on your card class mines a class 6 but reads faster since I use SD booster to add a 2048 cache and my speeds are really high 11.5mbps write and 30.5mbps read so I notice no lag except on boot while my card has to mount and load once it mounts all my apps on the partition load in less than 30 seconds u.can use the app SD tools to find out your cards class and read/write speed
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Ok, good to know. I knew there was a difference but I didn't realize how slow my card is. It's the stock 8gb one that came with the phone. It's great now, and I don't have too many apps or I would buy one like yours. I will try the app sd tool. Is it on the market? I'll check now.
Yea its on the market as well as SD-booster it will allow u to boost your card speeds the stock.card is a class 2 which is fairly slow but if u set a 2048 cache with SD-booster you should get about class 6 speeds
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Flash memory also gets slow over time due to garbage collection. It can only be restored to its full speed again by formatting it. I copy everything off to my computer, format it, then copy it all back. Phone doesn't know the difference so nothing gets messed up.
I do the same about once a week or so when I backup my card to the pc I usually do a quick format on pc reparation//format in recovery then reload everything from the pc
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You don't ever NEED to partition. I never did but thats because I don't have a lot if useless apps. Only keep apps that you use atleast weekly
Having trouble with AOSP? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1295702
I didn't reformat my SD card, I was playing around with my dalvik cache. Used a2sd to move it to my cache partition, bad idea (kept running out of space) so I moved it back. After I was done everything seems to run a lot smoother. Guess it helps to wipe everything down every now and then.
Crossrocker said:
You don't ever NEED to partition. I never did but thats because I don't have a lot if useless apps. Only keep apps that you use atleast weekly
Having trouble with AOSP? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1295702
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I partition cuz I have a ton of stuff I use on my phone mostly games for me and my 5 year old but I also partition cuz I find kkeeping my internal storage high makes my phone run better
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awesome
Soulfire_ said:
Flash memory also gets slow over time due to garbage collection. It can only be restored to its full speed again by formatting it. I copy everything off to my computer, format it, then copy it all back. Phone doesn't know the difference so nothing gets messed up.
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Just to make sure so I don't screw anything up. We're talking about the memory we have when we plug the phone into the pc with the usb cable. That makes total sense since the pc is the same way but there is onboard tools to clean up the hd.
jeffrimerman said:
Just to make sure so I don't screw anything up. We're talking about the memory we have when we plug the phone into the pc with the usb cable. That makes total sense since the pc is the same way but there is onboard tools to clean up the hd.
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or are we talking about the sd card so that is the reason the phone is smoother since I did format it?
jeffrimerman said:
or are we talking about the sd card so that is the reason the phone is smoother since I did format it?
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I'm talking about the SD Card, wasn't that the topic?
I just mounted it as a disk drive.
Warning though - your music playlists WILL BE CLEARED. Back up the playlist first.
(music disappears from the playlist if it is changed in any way, like renaming files, moving them, etc)
There is the ROM, RAM, and SD card, but is there also internal memory that isn't the ROM? The memory that we download apps to internally is like an onboard sd card right? Could this memory be reformatted to improve performance or maybe it's only the sd card that gets all the garbage accumulating?
jeffrimerman said:
There is the ROM, RAM, and SD card, but is there also internal memory that isn't the ROM? The memory that we download apps to internally is like an onboard sd card right? Could this memory be reformatted to improve performance or maybe it's only the sd card that gets all the garbage accumulating?
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That's a good question - it would be susceptible to the same shortfalls of degraded performance over time like all flash memory.
Isn't that one of the things we format from recovery?
Soulfire_ said:
That's a good question - it would be susceptible to the same shortfalls of degraded performance over time like all flash memory.
Isn't that one of the things we format from recovery?
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It probably is. If we were to go into recovery and format it, would we lose our apps stored in our internal memory?
My money would be on "yes".
I asked Mr. Google to check the WWW and this is one of the things I found
"I did it, it doesn't wipe the os. Actually, it deleted only 'user part of the internal sd card' and some applications. I made a factory reset then formatted, so I am not sure about the applications but, sure, it doesn't delete the os. "
there were lots of threads so yeah, the apps would be gone. It's too bad there isn't or maybe there is an app that does the same as defrag in windows to clean things up internally.
Comments I read off the same questions about internal memory:
Android is Linux, not Windows, the system doesn't have a chance to get fragmented because Linux is constantly doing "housekeeping" in the background (Kinda says a lot about Windows, eh?). I wouldn't trust any Windows OS to do anything with a Linux OS, it's just a recipe for disaster.
Don't ever screw with the internal memory. There have been several threads here and elsewhere in which people accidentally formatted the internal instead of the SD card when both drives showed up on the PC. Creates a situation nobody wants to be in.
Defragging is very very bad for flash storage. There is a limit to how many times you can write to each location on the "disk". Since defragging basically rewrites the entire "disk" multiple times, it seriously eats into the life of the "disk".
It also is largely unnecessary since it has much faster seek time than a physical hard disk, and has been pointed out the storage is far less likely to become fragmented on a phone.
Use Titanium Backup...and you lose nothing. Simple format...load favorite ROM..reinstall apps from TB.
jeffrimerman said:
Comments I read off the same questions about internal memory:
Android is Linux, not Windows, the system doesn't have a chance to get fragmented because Linux is constantly doing "housekeeping" in the background (Kinda says a lot about Windows, eh?). I wouldn't trust any Windows OS to do anything with a Linux OS, it's just a recipe for disaster.
Don't ever screw with the internal memory. There have been several threads here and elsewhere in which people accidentally formatted the internal instead of the SD card when both drives showed up on the PC. Creates a situation nobody wants to be in.
Defragging is very very bad for flash storage. There is a limit to how many times you can write to each location on the "disk". Since defragging basically rewrites the entire "disk" multiple times, it seriously eats into the life of the "disk".
It also is largely unnecessary since it has much faster seek time than a physical hard disk, and has been pointed out the storage is far less likely to become fragmented on a phone.
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We aren't talking about fragmentation. We're talking about what some companies call "garbage collection", or TRIM in the context of SSD's. Look that up
ive been seeing this... I know its a filesystem for linux, which is something similar to NTFS and FAT for windows..
Question is should i be using this? benefits? does it work for all roms?
I thanked you because I've been meaning to ask this question for about a week now. I've noticed several roms here also make use of the Ext4 system and wondered about what type of advantages were offered.
Considering you noted it was a linux file system, I'd imagine there would be some speed increase associated with it but again, I have no clue when it comes to this. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even know it was associated with linux.
it isn't really a "you should or shouldn't", it's really just "do you want to?"
but i will say though, most of the ROMs available these days all have EXT4 filesystems, so i guess you don't really have much choice.
so if the rom comes like that, do i still need to do this myself?
or do i need to do the Ext4 on the SD card itself?
gd6noob said:
so if the rom comes like that, do i still need to do this myself?
or do i need to do the Ext4 on the SD card itself?
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if a ROM comes with an EXT4 filesystem, you shouldn't need to do it manually
Honestly, unless you are making a ROM or like to micro tweak your way into figuring out how stuff works, you shouldn't need to care about what the file system is, as long as it works .
My current phone/tablet use ext4, I think my old phone used yafs2. When you might really want to care is if your phone crashes a lot, you store a lot of data (that isn't also in the cloud), or you want to turn your phone into a Wireless Network Attached Storage (WNAS), in which case you should probably soder in a standard hard drive anyway.
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