Database Develop

SD Card

Could anybody tell me, why my new SD Card (Panasonic 2 GB Class 6) is much slower on my Alpine than my old SD Card (Panasonic 2 GB Class 2)? Here are the results from the SK Tools benchmark :
Class 2 Card: Read 6187 kb. Write 636 kb.
Class 6 Card: Read 729 kb. Write 481 kb.
Isn't it funny?
Perhaps I should format the SD Card properly?
Any ideas?
Thank you.

are cards empty when you check write speed?
class tells about writing speed on complitely empty cards

I tried both benchmarks, with the empty and the full card. The class 2 is much faster, especially in the write result. Unfortunally I formatted the new card on my device, with the effect that the card was become more slower. After that I formatted the card on my computer, now it's better, but nevertheless slower than the old one.

maybe it's something wrong with the card
the 2nd one is almost 10 times slower readed :/
did you check speeds on PC?
maybe PPC just can't handle with faster card

deezer said:
maybe it's something wrong with the card
the 2nd one is almost 10 times slower readed :/
did you check speeds on PC?
maybe PPC just can't handle with faster card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that's my question. Where can I get the adequate information? How can I check the speeds?

use this
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

Now I've found out that SD/SDHC Memory Card file systems formatted with generic operating system formatting software do not comply with the SD Memory Card specification. You need a special formatting program that complies with the SD Memory Card specification.
Because I have a Panasonic card, I took the Panasonic free SW (
link: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html).
The benchmark results are: Nearly 14000 KB/s (read), but still 470 KB/s (write) only.
No idea, how to increase the write performance.

Micro SD card speed

Does the speed of the card determine the transfer speed between the Phone and PC or within the Phone itself?
I'm wondering if it's worth the extra 20 to get a class 6 over a class 4.

This has been discussed before. The phone dictates the data transfer speed between the PC and SD card.

So what transfer speed does the Nexus One dictate?

Well..when tommyarmour and I were discussing this in his thread a month ago..neither of us got more than 2mb/s or so using class 4 and 6 cards. Plugging my class 6 directly into my computer's card reader got me over 6.5mb/s.

There are 2 distinct things about SD card performance:
1) If one roots and uses APP2SD method, where N1 stores apps on an EXT* partition on on the _card_ , instead of its own, built-in and very limited flash storage, then one would probably want faster performing card so that apps load faster. Especially if you have a game with tons of textures/scenery
2) Unrelated to #1, faster cards should allow faster transfer rates from one's computer to the N1's SD card - so when you have large music/image libs, those
could be moved on/off device quicker. But it appears that N1 limits such external transfer rates, making it moot to go for faster cards (unless you use APP2SD) . One can get faster rates by yanking the card out and using an external, proper, reader - so that might help if one needs to move say 10GB of music onto the card.
Bottom line: you can spring for 16GB Class 6 Card (Adata's are good, about U$60 on Amazon), save few bux and get slower card or wait another month for 32GB cards to appear in stores and make your decision _then_

rashid11 said:
There are 2 distinct things about SD card performance:
1) If one roots and uses APP2SD method, where N1 stores apps on an EXT* partition on on the _card_ , instead of its own, built-in and very limited flash storage, then one would probably want faster performing card so that apps load faster. Especially if you have a game with tons of textures/scenery
2) Unrelated to #1, faster cards should allow faster transfer rates from one's computer to the N1's SD card - so when you have large music/image libs, those
could be moved on/off device quicker. But it appears that N1 limits such external transfer rates, making it moot to go for faster cards (unless you use APP2SD) . One can get faster rates by yanking the card out and using an external, proper, reader - so that might help if one needs to move say 10GB of music onto the card.
Bottom line: you can spring for 16GB Class 6 Card (Adata's are good, about U$60 on Amazon), save few bux and get slower card or wait another month for 32GB cards to appear in stores and make your decision _then_
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got lucky. I won my 16GB class 6 micro SD card. I do, however, wish to get another 16GB card but don't want to spend the money so I'm waiting for the 32GB to come out and the 16GB to drop in price. 8GB is just not enough for music, apps2sd and nadroid/ext backups. I've been having to compromise and either keep only one nandroid on my SD card or cut down on my music (which I hate doing). A 32GB card would be GOLDEN but I don't even want to think about what that's going to cost.

rashid11 said:
There are 2 distinct things about SD card performance:
1) If one roots and uses APP2SD method, where N1 stores apps on an EXT* partition on on the _card_ , instead of its own, built-in and very limited flash storage, then one would probably want faster performing card so that apps load faster. Especially if you have a game with tons of textures/scenery
2) Unrelated to #1, faster cards should allow faster transfer rates from one's computer to the N1's SD card - so when you have large music/image libs, those
could be moved on/off device quicker. But it appears that N1 limits such external transfer rates, making it moot to go for faster cards (unless you use APP2SD) . One can get faster rates by yanking the card out and using an external, proper, reader - so that might help if one needs to move say 10GB of music onto the card.
Bottom line: you can spring for 16GB Class 6 Card (Adata's are good, about U$60 on Amazon), save few bux and get slower card or wait another month for 32GB cards to appear in stores and make your decision _then_
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the explaination. Now do you think anybody out there is trying to 'open' up this limitation of the N1's transfer speed? Hope so...I thought I had an adapter...so I ordered a card without an adapter...but, now I can't find it!
BTW...I sprung for a 16GB class 6. Was a present...so why not.

rooting my SGT can you just please verify my steps

ok i have a verizon SGT I800 with froyo 2.2 im going to use the how to here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=812367&page=25
will this be all i need? or do i have to get a memory card first?? also if i plan on adding a memory card after i root it will that be effected??

cruzstyle said:
ok i have a verizon SGT I800 with froyo 2.2 im going to use the how to here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=812367&page=25
will this be all i need? or do i have to get a memory card first?? also if i plan on adding a memory card after i root it will that be effected??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok you don't need a memory card, but having one helps later and there are many types of micro SD cards out there so make sure you get the right one (some ones will not work or very badly on smart devices. My advice for that would be a minimum of a Class 4 (if your in Europe can help you). You can get a great class 4 32 gig for about €60 and you get a free movie to boot >:¬} check out the best price for the SD32GBHC4OPTSON-EF (product code) PNY Micro SD card
regarding routing this has yet to fail with me
SuperOneClick can get it here http://shortfuse.org/?p=13 and make sure before you connect that you have USB debugging selected, then once that's done just click root and few moments later happy days!
Hope this helps

To convert to rfs (a faster file system-format) you will need three gigas free in your external sd card.
If you eventually want to install the overcome gingerbread rom (hopefully they will port it to the verizon tab), and I recommend that path, it will convert to rfs, so you will need the sd card.
Also, it is helpful to have the sd card as you install apps, so you can install them on the card, and store the data they generate. It saves the space on your internal card for the system.

how do i find out what CLASS an SD card is i went to the story and looked at sandisk ones and i didnt see anything that said the type of class it was.

Printed on the sd card will be a number, 2, 4, or 6. If it has no number it is generally class 2. The higher the number the higher the read/write speed - higher number, faster data transfer - better for you....
I haven't seen any class 6 micro sd cards as yet in Australia or in my searches on the net.
Class 4 32Gb sandisk & kingston card works well... Also have a class 4 32Gb adata card. Works well too...

[Q] Differences between full root and SD root?

I have set up the CM7 on an SD boot and it works for the most part.
However it seems very unstable, about 3/10 uses it will crash apps. I really only have Aldiko and the Nook App on it and maybe Angry Birds and a Task Killer.
Aldiko and Nook etc will just go into an error loop saying the app stopped unexpectedly and then I have to hold the power button to shut it down.
My question is if this is typical of using the SD root method?
Then, if I do a full hardware root/ROM is it generally more stable in your experiences?
I suspect that part of my problems are the SD card itself, I had a 4GB Class 2 Sandisk card initially and it worked well but it was very very slow. So I got a Transcend brand 8GB Class 6 card which should work, it is a big name brand and all, and is much faster but CM7 seems very unstable. Is it all just the card?

Yes, your card is the culprit. So far from people reporting here you need a SanDisk Class 4 card. Its all about the 4k read/write speeds of the card you're using. You want a 1.0+ in CrystalDiskMark to get decent performace and get rid of the FC's. I am using the card I linked here and have not had any problems running apps or the Nook freezing.
- Aerlock

I had similar problems (sometimes intermittently) using an A-data card, I think it was 8GB class 6. I finally installed to emmc and have not had any problems since. The CM7 nightlies go to the point of being so good that I never needed to boot into stock anymore anyway.

So if I get it working on the SD, is it even worth doing the perm internal ROM mod?
Or is the SD MOD just as good/better?

MuGGzyx said:
So if I get it working on the SD, is it even worth doing the perm internal ROM mod?
Or is the SD MOD just as good/better?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Running off the SD is so good I haven't even felt like trying to put it on the internal memory. The only thing you lose by running it from the SD card is the ability to pop out the SD card whenever you want, though the only times I've popped out the SD card is to put the newest nightly on the boot partition. And thats just cause I've been too lazy to figure out the exact mount commands to mount it on the nook. If I want to get/put files off/on the SD card I just plug it into my computer.
- Aerlock

MuGGzyx said:
So if I get it working on the SD, is it even worth doing the perm internal ROM mod?
Or is the SD MOD just as good/better?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Internal is always more stable.
Sent from my LG Optimus V using Tapatalk

I didn't run any benchmarks when I had it on a SD card (16 GB SanDisk class 4) but it seemed about as good as it has been after switching to eMMC.

The CM7 SD card mounts internal memory on mmcblk0 and uses it... (I presume for caching, etc) Speed of the SD shouldn't cause crashes. Slowness yes, but crashes?

Re: SD vs. eMMC, an SD install can be just as fast and stable as eMMC, but SD installs also seem somewhat prone to suddenly and mysteriously losing that stability, developing FCs, WiFi issues, lag and even freezes/crashes. There are also more robust and straightforward tools for managing eMMC installs; both CWM and ROM Manager tend to have quirky interactions with SD installs, performing some operations on the SD partitions and others on the internal partitions. I would advise anyone who finds that their SD install has become their sole or primary OS to eventually move it to eMMC. Even if you're still using stock quite a bit, an eMMC dual boot (see my sig link) has advantages over running one system from SD--mainly, that the two OSes can both use the SD for storage.
gyrfalcon said:
The CM7 SD card mounts internal memory on mmcblk0 and uses it... (I presume for caching, etc) Speed of the SD shouldn't cause crashes. Slowness yes, but crashes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=12964262
There's no such thing as "Speed of the SD." There are several metrics, primarily large sequential vs. small random reads and writes. Card class (what most people assume equates to "speed") is based on the former, whereas performance as a boot drive correlates with the latter. A card optimized for large writes tends to suffer badly in small-block random r/w. There's no such thing, presently, as a card optimized for small-block r/w, but SanDisk class 2, 4, and unclassed cards tend to have very balanced benchmarks, with reasonable performance across all metrics. This places their small-block r/w speeds 10x and 100x ahead of a card optimized to meet class requirements.
I've also been hearing there's an issue with some cards reporting their reads and writes using an oddball protocol that's currently unsupported in the kernel.

[Q] Milestone highest SD Class I can go with

I know it has been asked a lot in the past, but searching didn't provide Milestone specific answer.
So If I buy Class 6 or Class 10, will the milestone be able to utilize the full write speed? I am running Cyanogenmod 7 RC0 (latest). At the moment I have 8GB class 4 Apacer microSD and tbh its a terrible card. All I get is 2.5 mb/s write on large files, but I am getting the same speed when the card is in card reader too so its not phone issue.
Thanks.

Maybe I'm wrong, but what I know is that the card class is the limit. It doesn't mean it will read/write at full speed all the time.
How are you testing your speeds?
Maybe SD Speed Increase help you.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5zZGluY3JlYXNlLml0Il0.
I don't know how to test my speeds, but were getting 24mb/s read and 8mb/s write speeds in SD Tools ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/...1bGwsMSwxLDEsImFsZXMudmVsdXNjZWsuc2R0b29scyJd ). I'm using a Samsung 16gb Class2. I think the app is not calculating very well. Don't know.

I am using the SD card as USB mass storage instead of carrying separate thumb drive. I transfer a lot of large 1+ GB files.
I tried SD Speed increase last week and it does make a difference on smaller files, but when copying 2GB files it seems to start fast (like a burst mode), but if timed it takes exactly the same time to write something on the card.
I am going to change my 8GB card for 16GB today anyway I just wondered if class 10 is worth getting or should I get class 6 and save some money. Whatever I buy I will report back and test the speed.

I went ahead and bought Patriot LX 16 GB class 10 microSD. Now I get variable speeds from 3.5 mb/s to 8 mb/s depending on the file sizes. As I read somewhere this is due to fact that the phone is using MTP protocol to act as mass storage device.
Anyway with the old card I was topping only 2.5 mb/s no matter the file size, so it's definitely an upgrade and since class 6 was only 5$ cheaper I saw no reason not to buy the faster one, even if the milestone can't utilize its full capability. In the end its an old phone and I believe there weren't any class 10 cards out in 2009 anyway.
And one more thing, the camcorder isnt lagging anymore when recording videos
EDIT: After booting in recovery and clearing dalvik and cache partition I am getting 9.5 + mb/s, but it does start around 4.5 mb/s and then rises to its full speed. Cheers.

Except for the improvements in video recording, is there anything else that runs smoother for you when using the phone?

maango said:
Except for the improvements in video recording, is there anything else that runs smoother for you when using the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think everytime any app need to access your sd, it will be smoother, like gallery, taking photos, loading maps cached in sd, music apps indexing songs, etc. Accessing apps installed on sd card may be loaded faster too.

extrem0 said:
I think everytime any app need to access your sd, it will be smoother, like gallery, taking photos, loading maps cached in sd, music apps indexing songs, etc. Accessing apps installed on sd card may be loaded faster too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats right. Gallery loads faster, applications and games moved to SD start up faster etc. Don't know about maps, but I suppose they cache faster too.
However the main difference is when copying stuff to phone in mass storage mode. Thats why I got a higher class card in first place. While all other stuff related to reading from SD do seem snappier, the difference is not all that great since even Class 2 cards can read with high speed, but when it comes to apps that are writing the difference is obvious.

I'm using a Samsung Essentials 32GB Class 10 Card.
Gave me some troubles at first, something with sector sizes seemed wrong - but after formatting it with this tool https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/ it worked.
Someone in these forums suggested the tools - search for the link to find the recommended settings.

Alright, thx for the answer. For someone not using the phone the same way as you, do you think it would be worth the money to get a faster card?
Sent from my Milestone using XDA

The difference between class 6 and class 10 right now is only few bucks. I don't see why not. You never know, may come in handy.
Here check this out, less then 1$ difference in price.
16GB microSDHC CARD Class 6 - Transcend
16GB microSDHC CARD Class 10 - Transcend
I wouldn't go below class 6 since the camera is lagging when recording videos.

Is it true that if a formatted microSD often will make it slow microSD?

It' unlikely, but possible.
My Samsung Essentials 32GB Class 10 card gave my Milestone hiccups at first (rebooted several times when powering on, rebooted every time I left USB mass storage mode) so I re-formatted it using these instructions: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23494134&postcount=7417
Now everything works fine and I still get a little more than 10MB/s when copying movies via USB - so no loss here.