Database Users

100MB-150MB ramhack

This is a quick blurb that will make a lot of people happy. Remember the ramhack for the G1? Well, the Nexus One only has 218MB memory available to Linux, despite having a whopping 512MB total. Even the Motorola Droid, with 256MB total, has more RAM available to Linux! I asked about this, and romainguy explained on the Android IRC channel:
<coolbho3k> How can the Droid have 256MB of RAM but 230+MB memfree, while the Nexus has 512MB RAM but only 218MB memfree?
<@romainguy_> there's a limitation in the kernel
<@romainguy_> next update should give you 100 or 150 MB back
<coolbho3k> Very nice!!!
<@romainguy_> swetland can tell you more
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Click to collapse
There we go. A "memhack" kernel update in the next Nexus One OTA should give us an additional 100-150MB RAM. Who wants to try to compile a kernel that does this now?

Did u ask him when the next update is coming out.

is that an official IRC channel? with people that actually work on it or what?

niiiick said:
is that an official IRC channel? with people that actually work on it or what?
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Yes it is, and Romain Guy works for Google.

I wondered what happened to all that memory! I still don't understand why 2 1 is taking so much.

Wonder if that will correct the slight and infrequent animation studdering people sometimes see when moving between home screens and scrolling.

That is awesome, I was so happy to have 512 mb RAM it sucks to hear they dont use half of it, glad to hear they plan to fix that. So this thing is going to be even smoother? Also, we are talking about an official ota from google correct? I wonder why they released it with the limitation...

DMaverick50 said:
so we are talking about an official ota from google? I wonder why they released it with the limitation...
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This is a limitation of the 2.6.29 kernel.
The 2.6.32 kernel fixes this issue, but I guess they haven't worked out all the bugs yet.

dwang said:
This is a limitation of the 2.6.29 kernel.
The 2.6.32 kernel fixes this issue, but I guess they haven't worked out all the bugs yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That explains why Cyanogen thought 2.6.32 flew compared to 2.6.29...

coolbho3000 said:
This is a quick blurb that will make a lot of people happy. Remember the ramhack for the G1? Well, the Nexus One only has 218MB memory available to Linux, despite having a whopping 512MB total. Even the Motorola Droid, with 256MB total, has more RAM available to Linux! I asked about this, and romainguy explained on the Android IRC channel:
There we go. A "memhack" kernel update in the next Nexus One OTA should give us an additional 100-150MB RAM. Who wants to try to compile a kernel that does this now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this like the PS3 where, at launch, they reserved more ram for its OS. Then they released more back to apps (games) with firmware updates Anyway, good news to everyone!

Is this the correct chat room?
http://irc2go.com/pjirc/?net=freenode&room=android

So is there an eta of this official patch from google?

well, what we do want the RAM for, yah for the OS than APPS but whats the deference between the OS and APPs ? well it is complicated as every APP will be running inside a VM made and managed by the OS
What I think : it doesn't matter, we want a good working OS that's fast and nice not free RAM ,that's just there not to be used for any good. If they at Google change it let them do that!

more RAM = less often apps have to be killed to make space for newly launched apps = less processing killing those apps and also more apps stored on memory for quick on-demand launch.

Paul22000 said:
Is this the correct chat room?
http://irc2go.com/pjirc/?net=freenode&room=android
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Click to collapse
yes that is it.
Romain_Guy told me there is no ETA for the update but it is going to be included in the next update, whenever that may be. Hopefully not too long !

hope they fix a few other things aswell, i love the phone but there are a few aggravating software issues.

bump for awareness man..
so looking forward to the next patch

Another awareness bump.

Namuna said:
Another awareness bump.
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Really?
It's a pasted irc log, not breast cancer; people don't need to be aware of it.

jsoverson said:
Really?
It's a pasted irc log, not breast cancer; people don't need to be aware of it.
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agreed. How is anyone going to be affected by knowing this?

can you tell me how to ram hack for g1 2.1 rom?

can you tell me how to ram hack for g1 2.1 rom,please?

1. You can't.
2. Go **** in your hand for being so ****ing lazy, not reading, AND posting in the wrong section.
3. Seriously though, you can't do the ram hack on 2.x

zeppelin481 said:
1. You can't.
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Says who?
Can't is NOT the same as NOT RECOMMENDED.
2. Go **** in your hand for being so ****ing lazy, not reading, AND posting in the wrong section.
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Do you hug your mother with those hands?
3. Seriously though, you can't do the ram hack on 2.x
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Click to collapse
See (1).

lbcoder said:
Says who?
Can't is NOT the same as NOT RECOMMENDED.
Do you hug your mother with those hands?
See (1).
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I seriously enjoy your posts.
Now for the OP. The reason why the RAMhack isn't recommended is because it takes away from the graphics. 2.1 and higher use these graphics alot more compared to 1.6 and below. So if you used the ramhack on a 2.1, your phone will run like dog ****. As it has been stated a little bit of research would have told you this. Although not recommended, it is possible.

no ram hack for 2.1/2/2, use fr custom mtd patch. you'll have more space than ever.

LOONEyRR said:
no ram hack for 2.1/2/2, use fr custom mtd patch. you'll have more space than ever.
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You are seriously confused. You really should do a bit of reading on wikipedia about the differences between RAM (i.e. DRAM, SRAM, etc.) and NVM-storage (i.e. NAND/FLASH/ROM/PROM/EEPROM/etc.)

Yeah you can ramhack 2.1 and 2.2 but I wouldn't recommend it ^^

lbcoder said:
Can't is NOT the same as NOT RECOMMENDED.
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Click to collapse
If (s)he says "not recommended," and the OP does it thinking (s)he is special and nothing bad can happen to their phone, then coming back here and raging because "it's no workin right11!11!1one!11eleventy," then a little lie is best.
Honestly, and I know this is off-topic, but just get Super-D. You're running a G1 (I hope, since you're in this forum), and just because it CAN run 2.x, doesn't mean it should. Plus, you'll save a lot of hair from being pulled out cause you won't have to wait six years for the G1 to respond to hitting the home button.

adobrakic said:
If (s)he says "not recommended," and the OP does it thinking (s)he is special and nothing bad can happen to their phone, then coming back here and raging because "it's no workin right11!11!1one!11eleventy," then a little lie is best.
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Click to collapse
Knowing that this person does NOT have the technical understanding to implement it (requires patching and compiling a kernel), it makes no difference. If this person *COULD* do that, then that person will come back and we have our daily required COMEDY and get the opportunity to hand out "I told you so"'s. Either possibility, all is good.
Instead of that, YOU and ZEP decided to come in here with your foul handed insults and lies. Do you really believe that that is better? You could have led that person on for a good laugh, or sensibly explained the REASON. No, you decided to take the 3rd option and make a complete ass out of yourself and do whatever you possibly could to create an environment of unfriendliness.
So how about this: DIE AND ROT.

lbcoder said:
Knowing that this person does NOT have the technical understanding to implement it (requires patching and compiling a kernel), it makes no difference. If this person *COULD* do that, then that person will come back and we have our daily required COMEDY and get the opportunity to hand out "I told you so"'s. Either possibility, all is good.
Instead of that, YOU and ZEP decided to come in here with your foul handed insults and lies. Do you really believe that that is better? You could have led that person on for a good laugh, or sensibly explained the REASON. No, you decided to take the 3rd option and make a complete ass out of yourself and do whatever you possibly could to create an environment of unfriendliness.
So how about this: DIE AND ROT.
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Click to collapse
ROFL @ the irony in this post. How does it not make a difference if you KNOW that this person doesn't have the knowhow to implement it? You're purposely directing him to the wrong path, just so you can have your little "daily required comedy"? But wait wait, I'm the bad guy here and somehow spreading "insults and lies." In this case, the lie is better than the truth, and I'd REALLY love to see the insults I wrote.
Do you really believe the person would have a laugh out of having their phone running extremely slow? And you're halfway right, I took the third option and instead of making a complete ass of myself, which you seem to have down to a science, I gave the person another choice they could use to better their phone.
**** it, I can't stop laughing enough to point out the rest of your logical fallacies in the post, so:
lbcoder said:
do whatever you possibly could to create an environment of unfriendliness
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Click to collapse
lbcoder said:
So how about this: DIE AND ROT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the same post!! lmfao. You're good man, you're actually absolutely right, laughing is a good thing. You just might want to find alternative ways of getting your fix, other than watching people suffer.

Can someone please put the kids to sleep? We need some grown up supervision here.

lbcoder said:
You are seriously confused. You really should do a bit of reading on wikipedia about the differences between RAM (i.e. DRAM, SRAM, etc.) and NVM-storage (i.e. NAND/FLASH/ROM/PROM/EEPROM/etc.)
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Click to collapse
ur right. i WAS confused. lmao

adobrakic said:
blah blah blah
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As I said, DIE AND ROT.

StreetGuru said:
Can someone please put the kids to sleep? We need some grown up supervision here.
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You must know some pretty intelligent children.
As I said, DIE AND ROT.
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Click to collapse
Good argument, it was almost as well-structed as your first, although I would have spent a little more time backing up my points; but that's just me.
Anyway, if OP bothers to return, you mind posting what you decided to go with and how it's working out?

adobrakic said:
you must know some pretty intelligent children.
Good argument, it was almost as well-structed as your first, although i would have spent a little more time backing up my points; but that's just me.
Anyway, if op bothers to return, you mind posting what you decided to go with and how it's working out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
REPEAT: GET LOST [email protected]@HOLE and DONT COME BACK!

Everyone is talking that ramhack will eat graphics... but I personally don't give f**k about graphics - I prefer having working phone instead of some godd**n graphics!
In 1.6 times I used to normally take calls while MyTrack was recording, now I can't.
In 1.6 once I've stopped with 1200h of uptime. Now I have to reboot every 24h.
In 2.1/2.2 even market is running out of memory...
Yeah, I can go back to 1.6 but I don't want to leave all new CM features (yup, CM features, not Android features)... It seems like all thinking-of-g1-users-developers are gone to these "awesome, great'n'shining new phones"... Blah.
BTW. What happened with optimalization in android?! Are these assh***es at google trying to force us to buy new hardware? I don't want to change my G1, it's IMO still good piece of hardware.

Burag said:
Everyone is talking that ramhack will eat graphics... but I personally don't give f**k about graphics - I prefer having working phone instead of some godd**n graphics!
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Click to collapse
CM5/6 won't boot correctly w/o graphics that is the real issue (you can go to the pre-cm5 eclair's to get a rom with ram hack included.
However there appears to be ram to be had (without loosing graphics) ..
1MB that is lost can be reclaimed with this patch: http://github.com/ezterry/kernel-biff-testing/commit/0af805ea0e6e769e441ef2e554861fd6b4b5b3ba
before: (using the ebi0 kernel on this page)
Code:
total used free shared buffers
Mem: [b]97700[/b] 94496 3204 0 320
after:
ezBiffTestKernel20101017-ebi0_S.zip(MD5: 4367fe0af2ba87f0d5b4d985f5be3360)
(built from the commit linked for the patch)
Code:
total used free shared buffers
Mem: [b]98708[/b] 28068 70640 0 348
(this works but isn't that well tested so use at your own risk.. also the extra MB will only work on ebi0 dreams; ebi0 magics will have the usual amount of ram as the patch doesn't include sapphire at this point in time)
(@lbcoder: this is effectively that 1 extra MB on ebi1.. there is a mess in the memory layout on these devices)
There seems to be more unclaimed ram (up to 8MB) but its bit harder to get at.. The new radio for the magic may help extract even more (it boots on the dream but has some issues).. So there is hope for a more efficient system (just not the "ram hack")

ezterry said:
However there appears to be ram to be had (without loosing graphics) ..
1MB that is lost can be reclaimed with this patch: http://github.com/ezterry/kernel-biff-testing/commit/0af805ea0e6e769e441ef2e554861fd6b4b5b3ba
before: (using the ebi0 kernel on this page)
Code:
total used free shared buffers
Mem: [b]97700[/b] 94496 3204 0 320
after:
ezBiffTestKernel20101017-ebi0_S.zip(MD5: 4367fe0af2ba87f0d5b4d985f5be3360)
(built from the commit linked for the patch)
Code:
total used free shared buffers
Mem: [b]98708[/b] 28068 70640 0 348
(this works but isn't that well tested so use at your own risk.. also the extra MB will only work on ebi0 dreams; So there is hope for a more efficient system (just not the "ram hack")
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. I'm kamikaze and will try this .
Update - it works pretty good , my G1 with that kernel is very fast and responsive . Good job ,on G1 even 1 MB more RAM is something important .

sebx_g1 said:
Ok. I'm kamikaze and will try this .
Update - it works pretty good , my G1 with that kernel is very fast and responsive . Good job ,on G1 even 1 MB more RAM is something important .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which ROM are you using? Have you just flashed ezBiffTestKernel20101017-ebi0_S.zip?
Thanks.

pezze said:
Which ROM are you using? Have you just flashed ezBiffTestKernel20101017-ebi0_S.zip?
Thanks.
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Click to collapse
(Just fyi the patch is in latest pershoot and cm kernels as well..)
Many people are using the kernel (only dream users the extra mb)
this is the kernel I used in the stock mt3g froyo rom DS version.

samsung is improving RFS! proof inside!

I used quadrant with ramdisk hack and without.. the answer shocked me:
froyo dk05 with ramdisk hack: 2200~
eclair di18 with ramdisk hack: 2400~
froyo with latest 2.6.32.9 dk05 kernel with rfs: 1100~
eclair with 2.6.29 di18 kernel with rfs: 900~

Froyo
I have a diffrent froyo than you mine is froyo dj29 how and why is yours diffrent

josephrr21 said:
I have a diffrent froyo than you mine is froyo dj29 how and why is yours diffrent
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noob is one of the group of Devs that are getting the leaks before they are released to us.
He is referring to a later, and hopefully less buggy, froyo build. According to screenshots posted elsewhere, that build build also appears to have the modem.bin for the phone.
I am sure that they will release a newer build when they are able and after they are sure it is reasonably stable.
We do not need a forum full of bricked Epics, do we?

What is the ramdisk hack and does it provide any real benefits?

noobnl said:
I used quadrant with ramdisk hack and without.. the answer shocked me:
froyo dk05 with ramdisk hack: 2200~
eclair di18 with ramdisk hack: 2400~
froyo with latest 2.6.32.9 dk05 kernel with rfs: 1100~
eclair with 2.6.29 di18 kernel with rfs: 900~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pardon my ignorance but what is that suppose to mean?

yeah same here, what does that all mean? lol....
and 2200,2400 quadrant scores are the highest i've ever heard of

Eazail70x7 said:
What is the ramdisk hack and does it provide any real benefits?
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cocochannel said:
pardon my ignorance but what is that suppose to mean?
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razorseal said:
yeah same here, what does that all mean? lol....
and 2200,2400 quadrant scores are the highest i've ever heard of
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If it's anything like a ramdisk on a computer,
it's setting aside RAM to use as storage (program install) space.
That is why the benchmarks are much higher than normal... the speed of file access goes way up.
It isn't worth doing to 'improve' your scores as it isn't doing anything practical. If you wanted to make a ramdisk for a couple of VERY frequently used programs, that might be a different story... but that might even require reinstallation after every reboot. Once a program 'loads' into memory it is usually getting 90% of the benefit installation on a ramdisk would provide.

what it means everything is slower in froyo except for i/o performance

noobnl said:
what it means everything is slower in froyo except for i/o performance
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So is this a good thing or bad thing? Not sure...

Eazail70x7 said:
So is this a good thing or bad thing? Not sure...
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Click to collapse
a good thing, they are fixing rfs

noobnl said:
what it means everything is slower in froyo except for i/o performance
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Click to collapse
ouch
would you rather have either or?
as in what would our epic benefit more from

hayabusa1300cc said:
ouch
would you rather have either or?
as in what would our epic benefit more from
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He answered it on there previous page.

noobnl said:
a good thing, they are fixing rfs
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RFS is the Samsung "Robust" FAT File System? What is the metric (units)? A +20% bump looks good on a forum thread.
So this means that the system under load in froyo is ~8% off peak capacity vs elcair but the default system I/O performance is up ~20%
Please forgive the newb query - not as familiar with the inner workings.
<--- still patiently waiting for an official stable release

Great Info! Thanks

codest3r said:
RFS is the Samsung "Robust" FAT File System? What is the metric (units)? A +20% bump looks good on a forum thread.
So this means that the system under load in froyo is ~8% off peak capacity vs elcair but the default system I/O performance is up ~20%
Please forgive the newb query - not as familiar with the inner workings.
<--- still patiently waiting for an official stable release
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup .......

Woot. Bothers me to see people with slower phones trying to shove benchmark scores in our face.
Part of it is Quadrant's fault, really.

I have a Sprint Dev unit as well and it had both DJ29 and DK05 pushed to it in pretty rapid succession. Its made the enterprise email (Exchange) unusable so I'm going to set the phone back to DI18 until the problems are sorted out.

i wonder when someone will post DK05. the existing beta has some touchscreen waking issues for me...hint hint

Nexus S Source Code Rom

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=kernel/samsung.git
Lets do this

Awesome!
10c

This sounds like something team komin needs to work on..
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Repost....

This is just the kernel source, we'll also need a dump of the ROM itself to get things rolling. Fortunately, Nexus S devices should be in consumer hands in a day or two, so it won't be long.

cant wait
10c

insaneturbo13 said:
This sounds like something team komin needs to work on..
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
This sounds about right

insaneturbo13 said:
This sounds like something team komin needs to work on..
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Click to collapse
I hope it's something that a lot of people work on once we have a rom dump.

Might be the first source we can use that's not littered with bloat and bugs.

looks like it's the same board as ours... I'm going to compile it and give it a shot on mine

I wouldn't do that if I were you...

rafyvitto said:
Repost....
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why are you always so sour?

BplusB said:
why are you always so sour?
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This. Nothing would ever get done if people didn't take risks and experiment.

I am a little curious myself. I do however imagine that the modem is going to be the biggest stumbling block, as I doubt the 2.3 kernel will interface to an existing modem. And if the NS's modem was found, it'd undoubtidly not function properly on AT&T's WCDMA network.. However, do report what happens with the flash, although I think getting past the boot screen would be a severe accomplishment

Any word on whether this source is based on Samsung's RFS? Or do we finally have some access to friggin' native EXT4.

vbhines said:
Any word on whether this source is based on Samsung's RFS? Or do we finally have some access to friggin' native EXT4.
Click to expand...
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Its Ext4 for parts and YAFFS2 for other parts.

ThisWasATriumph said:
Its Ext4 for parts and YAFFS2 for other parts.
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If I'm not mistaken, that's something we haven't had before, correct? Isn't an EXT4 (or similar) based kernel the real requirement for ridding ourselves of lagfixes, etc.?

Thread Locked
Cleaned, user warned, stay on topic folks

64GB Micro SD-Cards out!

I'm sure it'll be expensive as hell when it first arrives, but KingMax is releasing a 64GB Micro SD-Card.
There shouldn't be any compatibility issues, since I'd be formatting that as ext4 for use in my Xoom anyway.

Thought the max for compatibility was 32GB.

Stealyourface said:
Thought the max for compatibility was 32GB.
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Pretty sure that's just a filesystem issue with FAT; since I'll be formatting as ext4 that won't be an issue unless the kernel itself can't issue the block commands, and that's something that's readily fixed.

kcrudup said:
Pretty sure that's just a filesystem issue with FAT; since I'll be formatting as ext4 that won't be an issue unless the kernel itself can't issue the block commands, and that's something that's readily fixed.
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WOW. Thus, I will have 96 GB tablet. Whoohoo.

Oh, I've been waiting for this!
Once it's tested, I'll get the Sandisk one.

Out of curiousity, what will you use the 96gb for?

slack04 said:
what will you use the 96gb for?
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??!
"Nature abhors a vacuum." - Rabelais
(Oh, and: "If you build it, they will come." - "Field of Dreams")
IOW, oh, I'm sure we'll think of something!

Hmmm... I am not sure the stability of handling 64GB since it was stated to support up to 32 GB.
I have a dell streak 7 which say supporting it up to 32GB, but my system got unstable whenver I got my SDCard in for a while. (only for a while, not immediately it will be unstable).
It restarts randomly and dead on sleep when I have the SDCard on. I tried to go back to stock on roms and it still happened until I gave up and took out the sdcard.
Based on this experience, I would rather think Android system's capability of handling large external SDCard is not perfect/stable. I may just hold a cautious but certainly happy view on this news =)

jiwengang said:
I would rather think Android system's capability of handling large external SDCard is not perfect/stable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
... and as a kernel dev, I think you just had a crap SD-Card

The device should handle any card regardless of size really, even without ext4 (the volume limit of FAT is something like 2Tb).
I read somewhere that Android didn't support ext4 on SD card without a custom kernel, is this correct? Seems odd considering the kernel must have ext4 support to read/write to the internal filesystems.

32 GB is usually mentioned by any device because that's the largest size that was actually tested with. Once they validate that 64 GB cards work (which they probably will), they will probably update the official specs.
Just a validation thing.

Philio25 said:
I read somewhere that Android didn't support ext4 on SD card without a custom kernel, is this correct? Seems odd considering the kernel must have ext4 support to read/write to the internal filesystems.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, there's probably a misunderstanding somewhere in what was written or read. For all intents and purposes, our internal storage (which has two filesystems on ext) is not much more electrically than a soldered-in SD-Card.

kcrudup said:
??!
"Nature abhors a vacuum." - Rabelais
(Oh, and: "If you build it, they will come." - "Field of Dreams")
IOW, oh, I'm sure we'll think of something!
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Click to collapse
Nice quotes. I'm just curious, no need to flame. (96gb wouldn't do much for me; too much for basic stuff, but too little to hold everything. It would be a storage shuffling nightmare for me. I'm curious how people use their tablets).

slack04 said:
flame
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... yer kiddin', I hope ...!

slack04 said:
Nice quotes. I'm just curious, no need to flame. (96gb wouldn't do much for me; too much for basic stuff, but too little to hold everything. It would be a storage shuffling nightmare for me. I'm curious how people use their tablets).
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A couple of movies for me and some collection movies of my children will easily fill up 96gb when we travel. Hehehe.

slack04 said:
Out of curiousity, what will you use the 96gb for?
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Doctor Who eps of course
And, yes it "on record" only supports up to 32gb, but thats only bc nothing higher was around at the time to test with.

slack04 said:
Out of curiousity, what will you use the 96gb for?
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p0rn
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

ryan562 said:
p0rn
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App
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lol, ADIDAS

you could drop a 1TB MicroSD in there and me and KC will build a kernel for it

bigrushdog said:
you could drop a 1TB MicroSD in there and me and KC will build a kernel for it
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Speaking of but on a different subject; can I hook up a say 500gb external harddrive to the xoom?
Also is their anyway to make it so it can handle the same internet speed as a laptop.