Database Info

very poor Internal flash memory performance on new HTC devices

it is very surprising that file transfer performance hasnt improved a bit in the last years. i mean it takes my xperia the same time to install a cab or to launch the same app from my 6-year-old Magican
is there something that is preventing HTC from using these crazy SLC-based 100+MB/sec flash chips found in new SSD drives. really appriciate any insite on this

fatso485 said:
it is very surprising that file transfer performance hasnt improved a bit in the last years. i mean it takes my xperia the same time to install a cab or to launch an app from my 6-year-old Magican
is there something that is preventing HTC from using these crazy SLC-based 100+MB/sec flash chips found in new SSD drives. really appriciate any insite on this
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Click to collapse
Those chips aren't really that fast, they are just being run massively parallel in raid like arrays. Even still though, a setup as fast as what they use in compact flash cards would be nice.

- there are some major improvments in flash performance just take any normal flash drive (no RAID-like voodoo going on here) these days and compare it to the ones you used to have 3-4 years ago. the difference is MASSIVE even on low 1GB flash drives.
-what's wrong with running parallel flash chips in a raid-like fashion on a mobile device. it seems like one way to gain massive performance increases only

fatso485 said:
it is very surprising that file transfer performance hasnt improved a bit in the last years. i mean it takes my xperia the same time to install a cab or to launch the same app from my 6-year-old Magican
is there something that is preventing HTC from using these crazy SLC-based 100+MB/sec flash chips found in new SSD drives. really appriciate any insite on this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really don't think it is the chips, it is the CRAPPY Qualcomm processors HTC uses for our expensive phones.

With the size of the chips, the price, the controller, etc... would get sort of expensive. For example, an Intel SSD looks like this. http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/02/inside_an_ssd.jpg and costs a fortune. Their controller is the only one sofar that doesn't suck horribly at small file writes.
Look at this little glimmer of hope though
http://www.pretec.com/epages/Store....re.Pretec/Products/"news-March 03, 2009.no.2"
Too bad the a phone would probably make horrible use of it. My class 6 card might as well be a class 1 for how well my phone makes use of it.

oic0 said:
Look at this little glimmer of hope though
http://www.pretec.com/epages/Store....re.Pretec/Products/"news-March 03, 2009.no.2"
Too bad the a phone would probably make horrible use of it. My class 6 card might as well be a class 1 for how well my phone makes use of it.
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Click to collapse
thats exatly my point. why are $800+ 2009 devices perform identically (internal flash memory) to 2003 devices. people seem to only care about obvious things like CPU speed when hey talk about performance.

Can I/O issue be fixed by Software? Evidence based.

Undoubtedly this is the hottest topic on this forum (so it seems). Based on what I have seen, there has been no convincing proof on either way. The benchmarks score comparison are great, but my belief is it may not reflect day to day experience as most of time you never push the system to its max.
So my hypothesis is Transformer Infintiy's I/O issue related user experience can be fixed by software even if the underlying issue had been hardware related.
Since some people believes the opposite, and this is infinity forum. I wanted to make myself right for the sake of infinity owners. But given no previous good convincing test, I have decided to test one thing.
First video
This is one example video that Anandtech showed back in July that Infinity is indeed experiencing I/O issue. This video simply proved that while I/O is in use, the whole system slowed down. Based on the date of this post, which is 7/26/2012, I am assuming the firmware used was V9.4.5.22.
Second video
The credit of this video goes to BarryH. The reason why I included this is Galaxy note 10.1, which I owned for 3 weeks should be used as gold standard in this comparison as it is perhaps the only worth mentioning competition of TF700T and it is really great tablet of its own. You can clearly see that the downloading file in background really had no effect at all on the Galaxy Note 10.1.
Third video
The above is my very first Youtube video ever. But that's not a point. This is running stock ROM, rooted. No build prop tweaks. The only special thing I have installed here is Browser2Ram. So for this basically, I used AirDroid (WIFI file transfer application) and transferred 1G+ file over my network. While doing so, I basically opened browser, and went to the same site as Galaxy note 10.1 did in above. The little delay after opening browser is not hang in browser, but simply I forgot to set to landscape mode.
Conclusion: Based on these I believe I can conclude followings:
Compare first to third. Infinity had already significantly improved its I/O performance. How did it do? Clearly not by changing hardware, but rather software. So this proves my hypothesis of software can indeed fix I/O issue that user actually see.
*Please note that since I have browser2ram installed, this may be different for pure stock user experience. And Zeus users may even have better experience than me.
Special thanks goes to BarryH_GEG. Without him posting first two youtube clips I wouldn't have actually realized that Infinity's I/O issue had already been nearly completely fixed on my unit.
.
For clarification, basically all I am doing here is that there is indeed a way that what we call IO issue that can be alleviated by software modification. So if anyone state its all hardware and can never be fixed/improved, that is incorrect statement. However, this does not prove stock Infinity in the future will receive such update. So you can have a hope, but hope has no guarantee.
Different people use device differently so I say try the device and update to the latest firmware and see if you still face the IO issue that is significant enough for you. I can say that it is definitely not as bad as first video show. Whether you can tolerate the IO lag or not is simply your personal preference. In the end, all devices have lag to certain degree when stressed. Even PS3, Xbox 360, or high end PC games gets frame drops when you stress them. The question is whether you care, and whether you push to the limit.
If I ever get chance, I will try to turn off Browser2Ram and try do the same test again and see what the true stock experience is, though I am certain it is not as bad as Anandtech video.
Update 9/24/2012
Since some people are pointing to the issue resolution is purely due to Browser2Ram, I did same test with this time while AirDroid transferring 1.1 GB file over the WIFI, I launched Final Fantasy 3. No lag even while launching. Everything is smooth. However, if I launch Horn instead of FF3, I did notice significantly longer time to load. So this is simply proving what I have said. We can fix issue to certain degree but whether the certain degree is enough for a specific user is really dependent. I am ok not being able to play Horn while I am transferring 1GB data, but some may not.

Of course Browser2RAM will help on this, you're caching to just RAM instead of the stupidly slow NAND memory Asus decided to put in their flagship device. Try the same "test" on complete stock and you'll see that it's a vastly different experience.
Zeus ROM works around the I/O issue by reducing or even eliminating SQLite fsyncs. Risky business for your data, good for performance. I like my data without corruption, so I'll pass, but others may not see it that way. They simply want the performance this tablet should have had in the first place.
Asus did reduce the overall sluggishness slightly with the .26 update that changed from NOOP scheduler to CFQ in the kernel, but the tablet still stutters. Browsing is far from smooth, even with alternative browsers like Dolphin HD. Performance is decent right after a reboot, but once memory fills up and Android starts its memory management and closing down processes (doing a lot of fsyncs in the process) it grinds to a halt. This wouldn't be a problem if flash I/O performance was higher.
The CM-based ROMs starting to pop up for the TF700 seems to help on the performance as well, and that's still with the 2.6.39.4-based kernel. CM's always been smoother than pretty much any stock device in my experience though, so no surprise there. They can never completely get rid of it though, since it's a hardware issue. Asus were stupid and chose cheap, slow NAND that gets totally crippled if you're doing random writes. There's no magic software to just fix it.
I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything new here, and your "evidence" isn't really that, simply because you're not running stock. You're using Browser2RAM which greatly increases browsing performance by using RAM, which is several magnitudes faster than NAND flash. It's not even comparable. The TF700 (and TF201 and TF300 and TF101) I/O issue can never be completely fixed in software, only (slightly) improved, often at the cost of data safety (disable SQLite fsyncs or available RAM (Browser2RAM).
It's all well-known by now that Asus ****ed up (again!). If it weren't for the oh-so-sweet high resolution display and keyboard dock I'd get a different tablet.

Einride said:
I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything new here, and your "evidence" isn't really that, simply because you're not running stock. You're using Browser2RAM which greatly increases browsing performance by using RAM, which is several magnitudes faster than NAND flash. It's not even comparable. The TF700 (and TF201 and TF300 and TF101) I/O issue can never be completely fixed in software, only (slightly) improved, often at the cost of data safety (disable SQLite fsyncs or available RAM (Browser2RAM).
It's all well-known by now that Asus ****ed up (again!). If it weren't for the oh-so-sweet high resolution display and keyboard dock I'd get a different tablet.
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Hi Einride,
Sorry if I directed you wrong way. But my point here is not to prove stock has already fixed issue or not even to say IO issue can be completely fixed. The latter is simply unknown. But I am just proving here that there are ways software can make difference in user front, which some people questions.
To be honest, how do you even know RAM is not bottle neck? What about GPU, which is far inferior to the new Ipad in fact its even worth than iPad 2 by far margin? We see a number, and see its less than others so concluded its the conundrum, which could be true by good chance but not a proof.
Here I am basically proved whatever the method is, there is a way to improve what people call IO issue can be alleviated by software approach.
Because Anandtech showed IO issue originally on infinity stating background 2MBps download resulted in marked degradation in browser performance. I basically had 1GB file transfer over WIFI using Airdroid.
So I basically proved here that my infinity, which clearly has not touched anything on hardwarewise, but have improved performance since Anandtech review.
As for Zeus fsync, I don't use Zeus so cannot speak for it. But if they turn off fsync and still keep the system stable without data loss, why would you care?
Having said all this, I don't know if ASUS will ever put effort in fixing issue because if they would why won't they simply install browser2ram as part of their firmware? But they are doing something as I noticed they took out pixit from background with latest firmware, which kept running in background for no reason..

Einride is on target. This is a hardware issue, so any "fix" is going to be a kludge and come with a bunch of compromise. I can't believe ASUS specced the same crazy slow flash on the 700 that they did the 201/300.
FWIW, The best/cleverest hack I have seen is the TF201 dev who has been playing with remounting the internal SD card to point at the removable microSD card. If this can be made to work smoothly, it means that if you have an external card that is specced much higher than the stock internal flash you could eliminate the issue completely.
But of course that is really hacky. It's one of those you could brick if you don't install it right kind of deals so I don't ever see it being a mainstream options for these tabs unless ASUS productized it which would be a big expense in support for them, so, again, it'll never happen.

I've got to push back a bit. I think this is firmware related, but not of the device of individual components. I think this can be fixed with "software"

tf201 said:
I've got to push back a bit. I think this is firmware related, but not of the device of individual components. I think this can be fixed with "software"
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Click to collapse
You can continue thinking that if it makes you feel better. I like and enjoy my Infinity but as a digital design engineer, to me this seems to clearly be a design issue @ the hardware level and will always limit the overall system to some degree. There are hard limits in any hardware software system. <Shrug>
My best advice to an end user is what I would give for any device issue: to decide whether it is a deal breaker for you *as it stands right now* and not sit around and wait for or bank on some kludgy cure that may be worse than the disease.
It's not too bad for me, I don't do tons of random I/O or web browsing. In fact, I'd say it would have taken me a long time to notice this on my own without the benchmarking and threads here... If it was unacceptable I would cut my losses and sell the tab and get a different device. Life is short, guys.

zenaxe said:
Einride is on target. This is a hardware issue, so any "fix" is going to be a kludge and come with a bunch of compromise. I can't believe ASUS specced the same crazy slow flash on the 700 that they did the 201/300.
FWIW, The best/cleverest hack I have seen is the TF201 dev who has been playing with remounting the internal SD card to point at the removable microSD card. If this can be made to work smoothly, it means that if you have an external card that is specced much higher than the stock internal flash you could eliminate the issue completely.
But of course that is really hacky. It's one of those you could brick if you don't install it right kind of deals so I don't ever see it being a mainstream options for these tabs unless ASUS productized it which would be a big expense in support for them, so, again, it'll never happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, again (and I now added to opening post) my point is not denying IO hardware issue existence. I am just simply providing proof here that it can be improved by software (to certain degree). Whether it is to the extent of users complete satisfaction would be different issue. However, to be honest, if you see my video and it was original retail packaged Infinity fully on stock and from the day 1 performance, don't you think less people would raise a voice? It's because software workaround can change what you see as user, and that's all I am proving here. So yes. this should give a hope to someone who thought, it's hardware related so never can be fixed. However, this does not confirm or deny ASUS to take a step and fix this because I am sure it will take some effort on their part, which clearly they have not spent so far if this had been a problem existed since TF201.
To put into extreme, they can modify OS such that all front end basic programs such as stock browser, movie player or whatever to actually run on RAM if that is what makes the difference. But would they do it? Absolute not, because they won't spend money on such big project for device that had already sold well and gained essentially best Android tablet metacritic reviews (I did not take actual poll but just following Infinity news daily, it seems like pretty much most site gives the highest score for android tablet).
So yup. I don't disagree with you guys that IO issue there. But my point here was to help people clarify that there are indeed ways to make better by software. Whether happens or not is out of my control and would simply be guess for anyone.

I'm not just a noob either. Here's why I think this is software related:
1) The performance is so bad that it precludes just the hardware. Maybe the hardware sucks but there is alot of performance lost somewhere cheap NAND from 2 years ago outperforms SQLite operations by >10x.
2) Performance seems to degrade with time. This is indictive of a wear leveling and writing algorithm which may or may not be able to be adjusted with firmware.
3) SQLite fsync performance appears to be tied to T3 frequency, that suggest there is something with the T3 drivers that could be tweaked vs NAND hardware limitations.
4)...
I'll also mention the OP is right. ASUS could do things with caching data before writing, and writing in chunks the NAND is best with limiting Virtual Ram etc.

HoushaSen said:
Hi Einride,
Sorry if I directed you wrong way. But my point here is not to prove stock has already fixed issue or not even to say IO issue can be completely fixed. The latter is simply unknown. But I am just proving here that there are ways software can make difference in user front, which some people questions.
To be honest, how do you even know RAM is not bottle neck? What about GPU, which is far inferior to the new Ipad in fact its even worth than iPad 2 by far margin? We see a number, and see its less than others so concluded its the conundrum, which could be true by good chance but not a proof.
Here I am basically proved whatever the method is, there is a way to improve what people call IO issue can be alleviated by software approach.
Because Anandtech showed IO issue originally on infinity stating background 2MBps download resulted in marked degradation in browser performance. I basically had 1GB file transfer over WIFI using Airdroid.
So I basically proved here that my infinity, which clearly has not touched anything on hardwarewise, but have improved performance since Anandtech review.
As for Zeus fsync, I don't use Zeus so cannot speak for it. But if they turn off fsync and still keep the system stable without data loss, why would you care?
Having said all this, I don't know if ASUS will ever put effort in fixing issue because if they would why won't they simply install browser2ram as part of their firmware? But they are doing something as I noticed they took out pixit from background with latest firmware, which kept running in background for no reason..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No misleading here, don't worry
You are just describing software workarounds, though. None of which can permanently fix it entirely since it's a hardware limitation.
A proper "fix" would greatly increase I/O performance with no downsides. Browser2ram helps browsing, nothing else. Disabling SQLite fsyncs increases risk of data corruption or data loss at the cost of better overall performance.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

tf201 said:
I'm not just a noob either. Here's why I think this is software related:
1) The performance is so bad that it precludes just the hardware. Maybe the hardware sucks but there is alot of performance lost somewhere cheap NAND from 2 years ago outperforms SQLite operations by >10x.
2) Performance seems to degrade with time. This is indictive of a wear leveling and writing algorithm which may or may not be able to be adjusted with firmware.
3) SQLite fsync performance appears to be tied to T3 frequency, that suggest there is something with the T3 drivers that could be tweaked vs NAND hardware limitations.
4)...
I'll also mention the OP is right. ASUS could do things with caching data before writing, and writing in chunks the NAND is best with limiting Virtual Ram etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that they can probably make improvements with these kind of tweaks. The extent of the fix will always be limited by the low spec hardware in the end, though. So, I wouldn't encourage people to expect ginormous strides. For the most part, I expect more of the same with some evolutionary improvements but I doubt they will ever make a quantum leap. I would be angry if they made it worse but I'm an optimist at heart so I at least expect some slow improvement over time.
IMHO, as it stands it is usable and I'm hoping they can take it to "decent" (say the level pepole are seeing in Zeus). But to folks who are banging their heads against this constantly and unsatisfied as a result, I would still say there will be no true fix and you should bail on this device. It's a personal choice.
If you are willing to forgo your warrantly, I guess you could demo one of the custom ROMs. That probably shows you the extent of a software fix. But beware some of those fixes (cached writes) do put data integrity at risk. There is always a trade off.

Einride said:
Disabling SQLite fsyncs increases risk of data corruption or data loss at the cost of better overall performance.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I understand the fsync thing correctly it can only cause issues if the device suddenly powers off, correct? While that may be a risk, it's a *very* small risk and well worth the performance improvement, in my opinion... I've used ROMs that disable fsync for quite some time and have never had a single issue...
I tend to go by real-world results instead of "theory"...
Same thing with "browser2ram" - it can only cause an issue if the device suddenly powers off and even then - so you lose some web cache data - so what?? Who cares if you lose your browser cache - it's just a browser cache!
Besides, if your device is powering off suddenly, you have much bigger problems than worrying about your cached web data!
I truly agree with the OP. People get so caught up on benchmarks and "what could happen" (even though in practice, it really doesn't)... Truth is, we all just want a better end-user experience - if they can "work around" hardware limitations via software then it makes sense to do that.
Obviously, the hardware isn't going to change, so complaining about that will never help whereas implementing software tweaks to work-around these hardware limitations *does* actually help...
Just my two cents!
By the way, I've been *very* happy with the performance of my TF700 since installing the Zeus ROM - another perfect of example of someone using software to get around the hardware limitations - and it works very well! Another example of "real world" results - that's all of the evidence that I need!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

Unfortunately random reboots are not simply theory in case of the Infinity, especially if you're doing some memory-aggravating stuff on yours. I'm getting one every few days.

d14b0ll0s said:
Unfortunately random reboots are not simply theory in case of the Infinity, especially if you're doing some memory-aggravating stuff on yours. I'm getting one every few days.
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While I agree that random reboots are not simply theory, what does that have to do with what we are talking about here?
However, since you brought it up, I've personally never had a single random reboot on my TF700, which may be yet another example that most of this stuff can be fixed by software (since that does not occur on Zeus ROM)... So that just goes further to illustrate my point. I'm assuming that you are not running Zeus?
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

jtrosky said:
another example that most of this stuff can be fixed by software (since that does not occur on Zeus ROM.
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Click to collapse
This is from the Quadrant thread. The rest of the conversation describing what SQLite is and the role it plays in overall IO performance is in that thread. All Zeus' ROM does is tweak the SQLite settings and if you read more in the other thread you'll understand why that plays a relatively minor role in overall IO performance. Bottom line is whether or not someone has memory and/or IO issues is more determined by what they do with their device than the s/w running on it. Which is why some people running stock are perfectly content while others are pulling their hair out.
P.S. - Sorry HoushaSen, the lack of information on what SQLite is and the obsession with Quadrant brought me back in to the discussion.
BarryH_GEG said:
To show you what Zeus' impact is, here's a comparison to a Note and TF300 on JB. Red is perecent slower than the Note, green faster. After tweaking SQLite, the remainder of the TF700's IO scores remain significantly below that of the Note (or SGS3 or One X) and some are worse than stock. If you use the TF300 on JB as a proxy for how the TF700 would perform after the update the column on the far right shows the difference between the two.
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Click to collapse

Wait until you see Zeus on Jelly Been. It's going to be so smooth and snappy and you will never think about I/O issue again!!!!

BarryH_GEG said:
This is from the Quadrant thread. The rest of the conversation describing what SQLite is and the role it plays in overall IO performance is in that thread. All Zeus' ROM does is tweak the SQLite settings and if you read more in the other thread you'll understand why that plays a relatively minor role in overall IO performance. Bottom line is whether or not someone has memory and/or IO issues is more determined by what they do with their device than the s/w running on it. Which is why some people running stock are perfectly content while others are pulling their hair out.
P.S. - Sorry HoushaSen, the lack of information on what SQLite is and the obsession with Quadrant brought me back in to the discussion.
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Click to collapse
No problem. In the end this is still gray zone that (at least in my opinion) nobody knows what the end result is, and I think you stated well. It's really depends on user experience.
For those missed my last couple line update on opening thread. I actually had 1.1GB file download going on my infinity, and launched FF3 game, which was a breeze. No lag. So IO issue had been fixed partly from original already (assuming IO was really poor from get go, but I cannot confirm this because I do not have original firmware, and did not play FF3 when I had one). But I definitely noticed significantly far less ANR, which was one major reason I originally returned my infinity and hesitant to come back from Galaxy Note 10.1. However, if I launch Horn instead of FF3, it takes forever and even got ANR, which I hadn't seen for a while on my Infinity. Whether this is related IO or memory cap of 1GB or some other internal limitation is unknown, but since all I had was AirDroid transferring file and Horn is only other thing running, I am assuming 1GB is sufficient; hence, most likely related to IO issue. But having said this, how many would really complain about this? Not sure. Because even on my PC (which is not that high end) but I can basically get same issue. If I encode video and try to run high graphic PC game, the machine stalls, and even gives freeze. Would everyone complain about this? Some would and say that's why you get better PC. The other accepts it is what is, and simply don't encode, and play high end game at same time.
I am pretty satisfied with Infinity as all the concern I had before coming back to Infinity from Note seemed to be solved (at least for me) and got back to Full HD screen; however, there are clearly still people out there concerned of IO performance thus the topic continues to arise. Once everyone gets satisfactory IO result, I believe we will see significantly less discussion about this (if ever happens).
The fact we know are:
1. IO hardware on Infinity is last generation and not as fast as main stream current generation expensive tablets.
2. Software can change what user see (whole point my this particular thread)
Fact nobody knows
1. Degree of how much software can change user experience. Whether enough to completely hide relatively poor performance of underlying IO hardware. Or opposite extreme is basically just soften up a little without true effect on most users.
2. Whether ASUS will even try fixing it.
Benchmark number is great to assess, but I really don't think that's what users are really interested unless someone who just want to say "hey my benchmark score is high!" If this is the case, nobody probably would ever get Apple because they are usually not after benchmark of individual component but rather they use decent hardware, minimize bottleneck by deciding all the hardware on their own, and write optimized OS. But individual pieces are not cutting edge for its price.
And in all honest, I am a bit lost at this point after writing this thread, what is it exactly that we are calling IO issue? Browser2Ram improved my browser speed but even Final Fantasy 3 runs fine from launch while I download a big file at its maximum speed. So I don't think it's browser2ram that did trick here, but rather ASUS already fixed IO issue for downloading file completely hogs the system. If the issue is slow stock browser, that may not be IO related. It may simply be ASUS did not optimize the stock browser. Maybe my system runs so well because I have turned all the bloatware off and many stock user aren't?

I don't see Browser2ram in the store. Got a link?
Sent from my Rooted TF700T

i wish i saw this thread before i bought my Infinity + screen protector + case.
hope that JB will help with some of this, but i didn't realize it was just cheap-ass NAND.
ugh.

xPSYCHOTRONx said:
I don't see Browser2ram in the store. Got a link?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://mark-tech.blogspot.com/2012/06/browser2ram-fixes-transformer-prime.html

SERIOUSLY try fsTRIM tweak - on CROMI, OCed, fsync disabled

Delete

I have it installed too, and frankly speaking I do not see any real, angible improvement past placebo level. I'm sure someone will do some benchmarking (eventually) and prove me either wrong or right., but I will not be installing this on my next clean install. It doesn;t hurt, I guess, to try and see for yourself, but I just wanted to chime in with my exprience, which is drastically different from yours.
That said, I've gone from anyone but myself giving me homework to do, and may be too cynical. I'm a beta guy, though, and as such, I'd need tangible improvement. Again, I haven't seen any.
By the way: I tried running the app a few times in succession -- is it normal it keeps reporting to have 'trimmed' each and every time, although there's only seconds between the end of one run and the start of the next? I thought there shouldn't be new stuff to trim on that timescale... <?>

MartyHulskemper said:
I have it installed too, and frankly speaking I do not see any real, angible improvement past placebo level. I'm sure someone will do some benchmarking (eventually) and prove me either wrong or right., but I will not be installing this on my next clean install. It doesn;t hurt, I guess, to try and see for yourself, but I just wanted to chime in with my exprience, which is drastically different from yours.
That said, I've gone from anyone but myself giving me homework to do, and may be too cynical. I'm a beta guy, though, and as such, I'd need tangible improvement. Again, I haven't seen any.
By the way: I tried running the app a few times in succession -- is it normal it keeps reporting to have 'trimmed' each and every time, although there's only seconds between the end of one run and the start of the next? I thought there shouldn't be new stuff to trim on that timescale... <?>
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Click to collapse
I'm with you, see no improment, actually after browsing with stock browser on Yahoo finance for about 1 hour and my browser started acting up. It pause and sometime locked up then FC, I don't know if this caused by TRIM or something else, but again no improvement on my device.

buhohitr said:
I'm with you, see no improment, actually after browsing with stock browser on Yahoo finance for about 1 hour and my browser started acting up. It pause and sometime locked up then FC, I don't know if this caused by TRIM or something else, but again no improvement on my device.
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Click to collapse
I've had some apps lock up as well, but I have no idea if that's related to having this installed. The browser eems to be especially sensitive indeed, but I've had it on Redditmag+ as well (but that has been loading slow as **** anyway for the past two days).
Sent from a comfortable chair from the outer ring of Purgatory. The red guy asked me to say 'hi'.

MartyHulskemper said:
I have it installed too, and frankly speaking I do not see any real, angible improvement past placebo level. I'm sure someone will do some benchmarking (eventually) and prove me either wrong or right., but I will not be installing this on my next clean install. It doesn;t hurt, I guess, to try and see for yourself, but I just wanted to chime in with my exprience, which is drastically different from yours.
That said, I've gone from anyone but myself giving me homework to do, and may be too cynical. I'm a beta guy, though, and as such, I'd need tangible improvement. Again, I haven't seen any.
By the way: I tried running the app a few times in succession -- is it normal it keeps reporting to have 'trimmed' each and every time, although there's only seconds between the end of one run and the start of the next? I thought there shouldn't be new stuff to trim on that timescale... <?>
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Click to collapse
I ran 3 times in a row and it only trimmed anything the first time. I dont rely on subjective results. I time everything, every performance tweak i do involves a barrage of tests which are all timed. Since using this tweak my times are better overall. To be honest everything was alost too fast to time this time around lol. I havent benchmarked it as of yet. Everything happens a few ms faster than it did before. It took 1.5s to load my largest pdf before this tweak, now its at .8s. The first time i ran the app it trimmed over 10mB. I imagine the amount that gets trimmed impacts how much of an improvement you see.

Do we need a second thread for this?
I dont rely on subjective results. I time everything, every performance tweak i do involves a barrage of tests which are all timed. Since using this tweak my times are better overall.
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Click to collapse
Would you mind posting your before and after times?
My initial androbench, as suggested in the fstrim faq, showed no change. I plan to run the bench again tonight, just to be sure.

fortunz said:
Do we need a second thread for this?
Would you mind posting your before and after times?
My initial androbench, as suggested in the fstrim faq, showed no change. I plan to run the bench again tonight, just to be sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt that you're going to see any gain, TRIM is probably just clean up all the junks (cache), and data etc.. which something similar to you wipe cache and dalvik cache, so initialy so will feel the O/S is smoother, but after a few days, it should slowdown to your normal speed. I did a super clean install of cleanrom, took some reading, like how fast to open a heavy images website, then install TRIM and the results are the same. If you test TRiM before you clear your memory and cache, you may have a smoother/snappier feeling. This is my take on this.

Sample Before/After Times
buhohitr said:
I doubt that you're going to see any gain, TRIM is probably just clean up all the junks (cache), and data etc.. which something similar to you wipe cache and dalvik cache, so initialy so will feel the O/S is smoother, but after a few days, it should slowdown to your normal speed. I did a super clean install of cleanrom, took some reading, like how fast to open a heavy images website, then install TRIM and the results are the same. If you test TRiM before you clear your memory and cache, you may have a smoother/snappier feeling. This is my take on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cleared cache/dalvick a day before trying this, i clear after any major changes. I was trying new stock kernel but noticed more lag so i switched back to OCed kernel and cleared it.
Sample Before Times:
Boot - 40.3s
Very large pdf - 1.3s
Youtube - 1.1s
theverge.com - 6.4s
xda.com - 1.4s
LOTR3 bluray - 2.1s
Playstore downloaded apps page - 1.5s
Sample After Times:
Boot - 36.7s
Large pdf - .8s
Youtube - .7s
theverge.com - 6s
xda.com - .9s
lotr3 bluray - 1.7s
playstore downloaded apps page - .9s
Havent tested everything bc that sample is enough for me at this point, especially considering ive noticed things are more responsive and smooth in general, especially multi touch gestures via GMD Gesture Control. Ive also noticed streaming flash videos are more responsive, which is huge for me, but entirely subjective, i dont time it. The university i go to has a course website that is flash based (bblearn, aka blackboard) and things are also more responsive on it as well.
These small improvements may seem trivial, however, every week or so I find a way to slightly drop my times, which adds up significantly over time. A drop of .2s is large enough for me to try anything, especially if it doesnt harm stability, and this app hasnt for me at this point. Call me crazy, i dont mind, im a performance nutter. I cant stand lag. DEATH TO LAG.

lucius.zen said:
I ran 3 times in a row and it only trimmed anything the first time. I dont rely on subjective results. I time everything, every performance tweak i do involves a barrage of tests which are all timed. Since using this tweak my times are better overall. To be honest everything was alost too fast to time this time around lol. I havent benchmarked it as of yet. Everything happens a few ms faster than it did before. It took 1.5s to load my largest pdf before this tweak, now its at .8s. The first time i ran the app it trimmed over 10mB. I imagine the amount that gets trimmed impacts how much of an improvement you see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, we heard this before. You mention your objectiveness almost every other post. As I said, I'm a beta guy and as such I respect data, but ANY improvement whatsoever is ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS when it ONLY shows up on your "objective measurements" and not in your or someone else's "subjective measurements". Benchmarks are NOT a good representation of real-life performance.
Your stance towards people that want tangible improvement comes over as arrogant to me. I'm sorry. My largest background in online presence in from several digital photography fora, where we called people that (overly or exclusively) rely on "objective measurements" "pixel peepers" -- judging something, whether that be a camera or a photograph, or a person in your private life or an employee or co-worker, solely or overly dependently on such criteria leads to a loss of quality of "je-ne-sais-quoi", its mojo, if I may call it that. What in the world does the "improvement" you measured ("W00t! 0.1 increase in floating point operation?! I'M GOING TO TAKE ON THE WOOOOORRRRRLLLL.." <trips over power line of vacuum cleaning machine> </self-deridement>) bring me when it doesn ot result in any tangible improvement in speed of smoothness.
Sent from a comfortable chair from the outer ring of Purgatory. The red guy asked me to say 'hi'.
---------- Post added at 08:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:56 AM ----------
You do not have actual screenshots, only typed statements?
Sent from a comfortable chair from the outer ring of Purgatory. The red guy asked me to say 'hi'.

buhohitr said:
I doubt that you're going to see any gain, TRIM is probably just clean up all the junks (cache), and data etc.. which something similar to you wipe cache and dalvik cache, so initialy so will feel the O/S is smoother, but after a few days, it should slowdown to your normal speed. I did a super clean install of cleanrom, took some reading, like how fast to open a heavy images website, then install TRIM and the results are the same. If you test TRiM before you clear your memory and cache, you may have a smoother/snappier feeling. This is my take on this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, fstrim is more closer to defragging your hard drive, in a literal and figurative sense. What I'm saying here is yeah it's actually doing something (possibly) useful, but just like defragging, it's not always going to show a benefit unless your drive is really fragmented (which likely wouldn't even happen for a while, if at all). The nice thing about the ext formats is they don't exactly need this, but hey, if it works for somebody, then great!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using XDA Premium HD app

BossMafia2 said:
Actually, fstrim is more closer to defragging your hard drive, in a literal and figurative sense. What I'm saying here is yeah it's actually doing something (possibly) useful, but just like defragging, it's not always going to show a benefit unless your drive is really fragmented (which likely wouldn't even happen for a while, if at all). The nice thing about the ext formats is they don't exactly need this, but hey, if it works for somebody, then great!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using XDA Premium HD app
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Click to collapse
I agree with you on this!

There's no risk in trying, I grant you that. CROMI has been running a bit more stable without this fstrim ability than with it -- especially regarding apps force-closing. I guess everyone's mileage may vary.

Alternative to TRIM?

Like many of you, I've noticed that no matter what I do, my G2X just slows down over time. It seems like it is always faster after a reflash.
Now we find out that Android hasn't been performing TRIM functions on internal memory on many devices. I wonder if the G2X is one of them, and that's why we all seem to experience slowdown after a while?
Maybe just a Nandroid backup / Scrub / Restore is all that's needed to put everything back to spiffy condition, since I doubt cm7 is ever going to get TRIM support. Just a thought.

[Q] CyanogenMod 11 vs LineageOS 14.1

Hello,
I would like to ask you, the experienced modders and users of xda, what CFW would you recommend me to install in case I'm looking for a long lasting battery and a smooth experience (rather a minimalistic system than a sleek, but laggy one)? I basically only use my PhQ for reading and writing SMS messages and e-mails, for web browsing, for chatting and internet (video)telephony. Occasionally I watch a YT video or use the GPS navigator.
Given the fact, that the phone has only 1 GB RAM and a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, would you recommend me flashing it with the up-to-date LineageOS 14.1, or shall I stay with the older, but (supposedly more) stable build of CM 11? Or is there a different (slim) CFW, that would provide me high stability, fast response and good battery life?
Thanks.

I'd use newer than CM11 for sure. Lollipop (CM12) uses ART which makes stuff faster, and improved battery usage, so that's the minimum I'd consider.
I dunno exactly which version off the top of my head, but somewhere later than CM11 ZRAM was added, which keeps stuff from swapping to disk as often, so faster. F2FS support was also added, so if you reformat data/cache as f2fs before you install, that'll speed up disk access too.
I personally see no reason not to use the latest since it has all that, and is officially supported, so if you find something wrong there's people to talk to...

Well, maybe it was just my wrong assumption, but I thought I might want to keep using CM11, because I had read and heard, that Android 5.0 and above had higher HW requirements compared to Android 4.4.4, possibly making the phone with such specifications slower. On the other hand, I've read, that the RAM management and power management are both better with newer versions of Android, therefore I decided to post this question here and ask you xda guys (and girls) for your opinions.

You might be right, I'm no expert, and it's been quite a while since I ran kitkat. But lollipop (on our device) seemed faster to me, and battery definitely better. ZRAM also helps our low memory situation run modern apps, my understanding is it basically compresses what's in memory. Kinda like stacker did for hard drives back in the day if you remember the early 90s. So yeah, it slows down memory access all the time. However, the OS has to swap apps you're not actively using to disk when it needs memory for your current app, and in worst case scenario even will swap background apps out of memory that you expect to remain active. So by using zram, you get effectively more ram even tho its slower to access it, but overall makes things faster. And people who've done actual tests can confirm f2fs speeds things up on any device. I only just started using nougat myself so dunno how it affects performance, probably not any better than CM12/CM13 with zram implemented and f2fs format...
I belive KitKat even supports zram, but as far as I know wasn't implemented in CM11 for our device.
Also, dunno if it was in L or M, but you can now utilize external_sd cards easier. Don't have to keep setting paths for camera/etc to use external_sd, it blends it with your internal storage somehow, haven't paid attention to how it works, but haven't had a need to mess with paths ever since, and since we have only 8GB internal, that's also another nice feature; one completely easily fill that up without any photos or even going crazy with apps. Apparently our device will even work with 128G SDcards, although I only have the same 32G I've used forever. So for me on this device, it's CM12 or newer.

Alright, thanks for your advice. I will appreciate any other input and experience, though.

I'm interested what others might say too actually, I wanna know if other people agree or disagree with me! But being this is an older device, not very active community anymore. Only reason I'm on here every day lately is cuz I just updated myself, which had me checking into things, and am now looking for help getting the keyboard working right (in another thread).

I was running CM11 cm-11-20150626-SNAPSHOT-XNG3CAO1L8-moto_msm8960_jbbl.zip
finally decided to try CM12.1 cm-12.1-20151007-SNAPSHOT-YOG4PAO339-xt897.zip
Its smooth so far, but I'd love to try the lastnightyly/snapshot you have from March 2016 @enigma9o7