MiniSD card into RAM?

[snake0721]

I honestly do not see how people are all for a phone using flash memory, which is going to be writing, reading and deleting all the time no matter what, but are completely dissinterested against a memory card doing this to make the device run a bit faster.

I agree on the hypocracy of "I'll flash the ROM a million time, but I will NEVER use a SD card for RAM cause it will ruin the card"

It's replaceable y'all.

On terms of speed, I don't know the depth of such devices. So I can't argue much there.

Am I the only one who is willing to blow a few bucks every few months to replace an SD card? besides, I'll get a better phone eventually anyway, which I suspect most of you would be doing as well, I hardly doubt you will be investing in a PPC6800 for years to come.

[GoodThings2Life]

I agree with most of the comments here... those of us interested in the matter are already well aware of the performance hit but are willing to take a small, temporary hit until better devices come along (like the Diamond and Raphael).

For those commenting on the number of writes, I pose the question-- if implemented properly, what's the difference between doing this and let's say, flashing a new ROM every other day because you don't like the one you're on (or jack it up), or taking tons of pictures, or other daily high-use activity, etc etc etc?

[vesty16277]

Maybe this is a stupid question.What is the difference in the memory used in a PPC6600 that allowed you to use the slider bar to adjust the memory manually from storage to program and the moguls memory? I think thats what most of us are looking for.

[gator2k83]

On previous devices i think early wm5 and wm2003 the devices did not have actual flash memory but just a large chunk of ram that you could adjust for more ram or more storage. Hence the storage was just allocated ram that you could store files on. And if i am not mistaken the device had to have some sort of backup power in case your battery died you would not loose your data on the storage part. As ram can not save data once power is lost. The Rom and Ram on the Mogul is 2 separate chips one is actual RAM and one is flash memory chip.

[Shavkat]

If it was possible, many programmers had created this app!
Yes, it is possible to create app that can move all your tasks from RAM to MicroSD!
But it's impossible to work in device like that!
Any task from MicroSD wont work or work extremely slow!
If it was possible, believe me, HTC or others just REMOVED or REPLACED with cheaper and smaller RAM chip on their device, to make more profit!
It will be possible when our 400Mhg goes up to 1Ghz!
If your heard news, Samsung going to present and produce new 600Mgh chip!
If it will be, we don't need "3D Video Adapter"s like Nokia N95 or N82!
Our main chip will do it for US!

[pflatlyne]

Originally Posted by Shavkat

If it was possible, many programmers had created this app!
Yes, it is possible to create app that can move all your tasks from RAM to MicroSD!
But it's impossible to work in device like that!
Any task from MicroSD wont work or work extremely slow!
If it was possible, believe me, HTC or others just REMOVED or REPLACED with cheaper and smaller RAM chip on their device, to make more profit!
It will be possible when our 400Mhg goes up to 1Ghz!
If your heard news, Samsung going to present and produce new 600Mgh chip!
If it will be, we don't need "3D Video Adapter"s like Nokia N95 or N82!
Our main chip will do it for US!

If it was possible to use your flash memory stick to cache your page file in windows 2000,they would have done it. Must not have been possible. If it were possible in windows XP,they would have done it,must not have been possible. Yet NT,2000,XP,and Vista are all basically successively more refined versions of the same OS. The fact is,it WAS possible with 2000,they just didnt do it. The argument that anything you can possibly think of that is not done,must not be possible is just absurd.

It may well be that it would take more detailed knowledge of the WM os to make this work than is publicly available,but the fact is,it almost certainly IS possible. It may also be that the SD card reader on the mogul is too slow. It may also be possible that it is not. We dont really know that. (yes,reading from the sd card is slow on the mogul over the USB cable,but so is reading from internal storage,so that really tells us nothing)

I see one really good reason why MS does not do this in WM. With readyboost,they took care to make certain that removing the flash device would not leave the system unstable by keep a copy of the real swap file. On the mogul,you would lose the ability to swap the card out. If you did,you would leave the phone unstable,or hang it up completely. Those of us that want to use the card as swap space understand that. If you had the card setup like that,you just would know enough not to remove it. On the other hand,non technical type users might not understand that. All they would see is that if they removed their cards,the phone hangs,which would leave a very bad taste in their mouths. (Think of people like my gf,who cant even figure out how to pair her blackberry with her bt headset) These users are probobally 95% of their market so the phones are made for them.

The question isnt if its possible,its if the SD card reader hardware is fast enough,which it probobally is,and whether enough information can be found or figured out to create the software that can do this.

[gbm85]

You guys are misunderstanding how the page file works on Windows. WINDOWS DOES NOT USE THE PAGE FILE / READYBOOST AS MORE RAM!! It takes unused memory (i.e. from programs that are not currently being used) and writes it out to disk. While this would certainly be possible on a PDA, it would be pointless. It would take longer to write out unused memory to a flash card than it would to just close the program (which Windows Mobile currently does) and then open it back up when you need it again.

[snake0721]

Originally Posted by gbm85

You guys are misunderstanding how the page file works on Windows. WINDOWS DOES NOT USE THE PAGE FILE / READYBOOST AS MORE RAM!! It takes unused memory (i.e. from programs that are not currently being used) and writes it out to disk. While this would certainly be possible on a PDA, it would be pointless. It would take longer to write out unused memory to a flash card than it would to just close the program (which Windows Mobile currently does) and then open it back up when you need it again.

That being said, couldn't you just move some of the usual phone RAM nibbling but not so important processes to the card? and we aren' talking writing MB and MBSs of files, so I hardly doubt the "take forever to write" thing would have much of an effect.

Matt Ayers, when asked if Readyboost technology (such as the one we are discussing) is just putting the paging file onto a flash disk. He answered, "Not really. the file is still backed on disk. This is a cache - if the data is not found in the ReadyBoost cache, we fall back to the HDD."

The point of what many in arguments for the feasibility of establishing this "readyboost mobile" technology, is that the RAM on the phone does in fact look into the Harddrive anyway, why would this card not be able to outperform the HDD?

The earlier quoted Ayers even said, "This isn't a separate page file store, but rather a cache to speed up access to frequently used data."

So yes, you are correct... to some degree.

I'm seriously not talking about the feasibility of making the card ACTUAL RAM here, I am just talking a pseudonized RAM of sorts that gives better performance. I would love to see my SD card slot increase my text message loading speeds, or even my contacts list access. nothing major, just smaller things to allow the real RAM to focus on the bigger issues.

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[arparent]

The only real obstacle I can forsee if this were possible is... what would happen if you ejected the card?

[Shavkat]

Originally Posted by arparent

The only real obstacle I can forsee if this were possible is... what would happen if you ejected the card?

BLOW!
Can make "HARDWARE" to smoke!