Thought of sharing this if anyone wants to increase device RAM. I am not selling this product. I find it useful.
It is too expensive though.. Search Play store for Ram Expander. I expanded my RAM with external sdcard crearing a swap fle of 4gb. Now my device avaialble RAM is 6.38gb. It helps apps to load fast and also less lag in system response.
Keep in mind the following when using such a program:
1) All this does is to create a swap file on your SD card, it doesn't increase actual RAM of the device.
2) This can hit your SD card HARD with writes. Each cell in a SD card has a max number of writes it can perform before it wears out. If you use this and create a swap file on your SD card, it will cause the device to wear faster, which could cause the card to go bad faster than it normally would.
3) SD card random write/read speed is much, much slower than system RAM. Random write/read is pretty bad compared to system RAM, so you may not see the performance you are looking for.
Anyone is, of course, free to decided for themselves if it is worth the $9, but for my device I'm not going to take the chance.
hbar98 said:
Keep in mind the following when using such a program:
1) All this does is to create a swap file on your SD card, it doesn't increase actual RAM of the device.
2) This can hit your SD card HARD with writes. Each cell in a SD card has a max number of writes it can perform before it wears out. If you use this and create a swap file on your SD card, it will cause the device to wear faster, which could cause the card to go bad faster than it normally would.
3) SD card random write/read speed is much, much slower than system RAM. Random write/read is pretty bad compared to system RAM, so you may not see the performance you are looking for.
Anyone is, of course, free to decided for themselves if it is worth the $9, but for my device I'm not going to take the chance.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. Wonderful write-up. I didn't realise this fact. Micro sdcard is cheaper now days and worth wearing out.
Related
Ok so I have been looking for an answer for a little bit and have found very little so...
Is it better to load programs onto the phones memory or onto a SD card?
I would think it would take a lot more memory/power to pull files off of a SD card rather than from the device itself, but then you dont have a lot of memory on the phone?
pros and cons of each. THANKS
I put "device" programs (eg quick menu, oto etc) onto main memory and games, apps onto the sd card. That way I figure the apps which are in use alot will already be in memory and easier to open and the apps/games I don't always use can be pulled from storage card when I want to use them.
If you max out the Storage memory on your device, many programs won't be able to run (they still need room to store temp files, etc.), and you'll start getting warnings.
I've found the performance hit in using SD-base applications to be negligible...
You want as much room on your phone as possible. WM will run faster, and if you max out your phone memory, you'll notice a decrease in performance not to mention the low memory warnings you'll get.
The question is do you ever remove your microSD? If you do, you need to install the softwares that you use all the time into the phone memory. Otherwise, I found the performence different is very little between the 2 memory location.
EkS said:
You want as much room on your phone as possible. WM will run faster, and if you max out your phone memory, you'll notice a decrease in performance not to mention the low memory warnings you'll get.
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Click to collapse
It used to be true with WM2003, but I don't think it applies to WM6. The storage and running memory areas are now separated.
I will try to keep the device memory as free as possible, because the phone will run faster, so only system program will be installed on the device, also programs like pocket cm and worldmate uses more power to startup, so I also put them in the phone and not memory card, as this will create less errors.
kms
I reformatted the Internal Memory (4GB) with the trialversion of CnetX Flash Format, using FAT32 with 16k clustersize (as opposed to 4k clustersize).
Starting large applications from the Internal Storage is now 25% faster. TT7 took 17 seconds from start to 100% route calculation, after formatting it takes 13 seconds.
Remember to backup internal storage first.
Format the internal storage is a good thing to do from time to time, i defrag it with Perfect Disk
omaga said:
Format the internal storage is a good thing to do from time to time, i defrag it with Perfect Disk
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Perfectdisk - sounds interesting...where did you get that from?
neilsupermac999 said:
Perfectdisk - sounds interesting...where did you get that from?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://tinyurl.com/awwxn3
JonInAtl said:
http://tinyurl.com/awwxn3
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The reason for asking the question is that googling 'perfect disk windows mobile' doesnt bring up anything particularly obvious in relation to defragging handset storage.
I'll refrain from passing any more comments on your post..but thank you...no...really.
omaga said:
Format the internal storage is a good thing to do from time to time, i defrag it with Perfect Disk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Defrag a Flash based memory? This is absolute unnecessary:
Flash memory isn't accessed by a single read/write head. So it doesn't need its contained files to be made contiguous and moved closer together to speed access. This means that there is an unexpected - by me at any rate - benefit to flash memory compared to hard drives. You don't need to do so much house-keeping.
You may have applications that assume or require files in flash memory to be contiguous. In that case defragging would be a good idea. But wait, there is a problem. Flash memory only supports a finite number of writes and defraging involves a lot of writing. So by defragging flash you are shortening its working life.
neilsupermac999 said:
The reason for asking the question is that googling 'perfect disk windows mobile' doesnt bring up anything particularly obvious in relation to defragging handset storage.
I'll refrain from passing any more comments on your post..but thank you...no...really.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same results but after going ahead and looking at the demo version it's still not clear how Perfect Disk works with the Diamond internal storage.
--Never mind--
Figured it out, forgot I could use Settings/USB to PC to set device as a "removable disk". Works fine.
I have done that before and yes it does seem to speed up the phone
MarcLandis said:
Defrag a Flash based memory? This is absolute unnecessary:
Flash memory only supports a finite number of writes and defraging involves a lot of writing. So by defragging flash you are shortening its working life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you would recommend not using the built in capability to use the Diamond memory as a removable disk or is there something in the defrag process that is substantially different than user read/writes related to working life?
Interesting that your post is a direct quote from a Nov 05 Techworld posting (for which you may have been the author). Here is a more contemporary and empirical exercise on the subject of fragmented flash memories:
http://www.lagom.nl/misc/flash_fragmentation.html
Having said all that, I didn't expect much just thought there might be some overhead cleanup, and I didn't worry over shortening the life of the memory, but could be convinced otherwise.
d-e-l-e-t-e
Reformatting with bigger cluster size will give a bit better performance at the cost of space. You wont notice much unless there's loads of small files though. A 1 byte file will still take up the same amount of size on the disk as the cluster size. If a file is 1 byte larger then the cluster size it will take up the same amount of space as 2x the cluster size. In other words it will always round up.
Defrag a flash unit however I don't think is wise. I red that you should not defrag SSD drives for pc as it may affect the life span on them, and it makes no sense defraging them anyway since they are not accessed like a harddrive.
I was just wondering, since using a Linux Swap over time wears down your SD card, doesn't using a CompCache wear down your internal memory.. which is just as bad if not worse?
SolemnWishing said:
I was just wondering, since using a Linux Swap over time wears down your SD card, doesn't using a CompCache wear down your internal memory.. which is just as bad if not worse?
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Click to collapse
Compcache doesn't use internal memory but the phone's RAM, two different things, don't get them confused. Like the RAM in your computer, it doesn't have a limit two how many times it can be written to or read from. So its "healthier" for your phone. But its results are mixed, some see a huge improvement, some see none, some see their phones slow down. Its worth a try as its only one userinit.sh from being used. Not a huge ordeal, if it doesn't work, delete the script and just reboot your phone and you're back to just linux-swap.
Hello everybody
First, plz excuse my very bad english..
I would like to know if its possible, and if yes, how, to use internal memory to make the same thing than a swap linux partition, but on the phone memory, not on SD
I would like to know if there is a tutorial or anythings that speak about this..
It could be very interesting to save SD card life and i don't care about to loose memory for my apps
Thx for Help
Fabulous, speaking for a few members of Smartphone France community
I thought about this myself (putting swap partition on internal storage), since it should be faster.
After thinking for a while though I realised that wearing out an SD card is one thing, destroying the internal flash is far worse.
even with a swap partition on your phone the sdcard will still last around 2 and a half years. i thought people had quit this about sdcard life. My sdcard will probably be around then my phone.
besides when the sdcard doesn't just die on day. the "dead parts" parts of the sdcard will just no longer be used. meaning there will be less overall storage space on the card but it will still function
I don't think that's a particularly good idea. The sd card might stay longer with you than your phone, but if your phone's internal memory breaks you can't just shrug and buy a new one.
That said, if you're set on doing this, you could probably put a swap file in /cache. Without OTA updates that doesn't get used for much anyway.
Afirejar said:
I don't think that's a particularly good idea. The sd card might stay longer with you than your phone, but if your phone's internal memory breaks you can't just shrug and buy a new one.
That said, if you're set on doing this, you could probably put a swap file in /cache. Without OTA updates that doesn't get used for much anyway.
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Click to collapse
i wasn't suggesting what the OP said, i have a linux-swap partition, i was simply that the card will most likely last longer than the phone but why ruin internal phone memory, that would make it unusable. I agree that you should put the swap file on the sdcard
is it possible ? yes
but like everyones sayd just don't do it , you might break your phone very fast and you won't gain any significant speed either
a class 6 card is about the same speed as internal storage and theyre relatively cheap now
Even if you could it probably wouldn't be worth it and there is already a very limited amount of memory in the phone. It would be safer for the phone and you would be able to have a larger swap file by using the sdcard.
If you are dead set on it, about 5 minutes of googling didn't turn up any howto's on making the swap on the system memory but here are a couple howto's one is the linux swap file and the other is adding the swap to the sdcard. The instructions shouldn't be hard to adapt for the main system flash memory
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-add-a-swap-file-howto/
http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f8/adding-swap-space-ram-to-g1-16325/
i still don't understand why people insist on using sdcard for swap space. It'd make sense if the sdcard were used exclusively for swap, but with all the r/w operations going on (app read, media read/write, and swap read/write), not even a class 6 card provides enough bandwidth for doing swap operations effectively... I'm with cyan on this one, and a good compcache setup is the best choice atm.
jubeh said:
i still don't understand why people insist on using sdcard for swap space. It'd make sense if the sdcard were used exclusively for swap, but with all the r/w operations going on (app read, media read/write, and swap read/write), not even a class 6 card provides enough bandwidth for doing swap operations effectively... I'm with cyan on this one, and a good compcache setup is the best choice atm.
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I have around 15-20 mb free internal memory when using cyanogen rom but around 1 to 2 mb free when using hero rom
sd swap use around 50 mb on hero rom with swapiness at 70%
you absolutly need to swap in hero rom
samygent said:
I have around 15-20 mb free internal memory when using cyanogen rom but around 1 to 2 mb free when using hero rom
sd swap use around 50 mb on hero rom with swapiness at 70%
you absolutly need to swap in hero rom
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Click to collapse
If Apps2SD is running correctly you should have 89mb free on Cyanogen and about 50-70mb on Hero :-S
AdrianK said:
If Apps2SD is running correctly you should have 89mb free on Cyanogen and about 50-70mb on Hero :-S
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Click to collapse
apps2d doesn't have anything to do with swap partition or does it ?
# free
free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97860 95896 1964 0 360
Swap: 104412 57060 47352
Total: 202272 152956 49316
#
swapiness at 70 and everything run's very smoothly
edit : yah i love tabulation
increase ram
Fabulous691 said:
Hello everybody
First, plz excuse my very bad english..
I would like to know if its possible, and if yes, how, to use internal memory to make the same thing than a swap linux partition, but on the phone memory, not on SD
I would like to know if there is a tutorial or anythings that speak about this..
It could be very interesting to save SD card life and i don't care about to loose memory for my apps
Thx for Help
Fabulous, speaking for a few members of Smartphone France community
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
please tell me how to convert internal memory into ram. I will be very thankfull to you
With people trying different ROM all the time would it affect the lifespan of the internal storage? If so, can you replace it then whenever it gives out? Cheers!
No, it is soldered down. Desoldering it would be more-or-less akin to performing the miracle of walking on water.
andruyd said:
With people trying different ROM all the time would it affect the lifespan of the internal storage? If so, can you replace it then whenever it gives out? Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I'm sure that there is a finite limit to the amount of read/write cycles that can be done on the memory of the phone, if you are really worried, you can just load all of your apps onto a microSD (and just tear up that memory instead).
While I am not sure if it is possible to run the whole OS from the microSD slot, it has been done on other devices but would be slow and buggy.
However, if you want to only limit the total number of read/write cycles on the physical memory, a great way is by moving apps to external storage, but bear in mind they will run slower.
Also, you will probably upgrade your phone far earlier than you might have a problem with the internal storage corrupting.
In terms of flashing ROMs, this is somewhat of a valid point, but once there is a stable ICS rom of your liking, chances are at least some of us will be flashing much less