SD Card Speedup - G Tablet General

I was reading
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1010807
I found that on my device the sdcard was 179:16 (and sdcard2 is 179:24). I downloaded SD TOOLs from the market (free) and did some tests. A few runs at the stock size (128) showed write speeds of 5 to 8.5 and read speeds of 13.7 to 15.3.
At 2048 write speeds went up to about 9.5 (can't explain why) and the reads shot up to almost 28 to over 31. Best results if you can do this from a clean boot or with little running, I'm sure.
So this seems like a worthwhile fix. Quick web browsing session with Opera was ok so doesn't seem to cause any grief.
I'm using VEGAn which doesn't have init.d stuff, but I had already hacked up an rc.local file (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1014213) so very easy to make the changes there so that they are permanent.
So step by step:
1. Get a shell prompt. ADB or one of the shells off the market.
2. Go super user (su command, for example). Not necessary if you are putting it in rc.local or init scripts.
3. cd /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:16
4. echo 2048>read_ahead_kb
5. Repeat for /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:24
I assume we all have the same device numbers. If not, go to the bdi directory and do an ls. The major number (179) should be the same. Tell us what you have if different.
If you do the rc.local hack then you can just put the echo lines in your rc.local or any other place that runs as root at boot time.
I'll post back if there seem to be any "bad" effects from this, but so far so good.

I don't understand sd tools - I've tried many times (and after
fresh reboot) but sd tools give me ridiculous speeds, like
writes of 25MBs and reads of 175MBs !!
I'd like to believe it, but can't

I am guessing if you hit the card in cache you get the ridiculous speeds. However, if you change the readahead you can definitely see that there is a peak (on my hardware) at about 2K with baseline performance.
The tablet seems fast with this mod although hard to say if its actually faster or not other than the SD Tools benchmark says it is.

this is a nice fix. here is what I use in a file called 99fixmmcreadahead in /system/etc/init.d to set this up during every boot:
Code:
/system/xbin/echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:16/read_ahead_kb;
/system/xbin/echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:24/read_ahead_kb;
/system/xbin/echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/default/read_ahead_kb;

VegaN doesn't have an init.d structure which through me at first. Elsewhere I posted how I got it to execute an rc.local file and I put it in there.
However, it looks like autostart and/or script manager (both in the market) can do the job also. I've been running with the larger read ahead caches for about a week now and it seems ok. Hard to tell for sure what impact it has on real work, but the benchmarks like it.

OK - I've just installed sdtools again (my gtablet crashed and
burned, nvflash resurrected it and now running tnt lite 4.4).
But my readings are still ridiculous:
write: 16.9
read: 227.9 !!!!
How do you guys get reasonable readings out of
this batsh*t app?

Just to post back. Certainly no ill effects with this after several weeks. Hard to say if it is faster or not, but I think it is.
I know sd tools gives some people trouble.
Just now I have the following benchmarks:
SD Tools: Write 11.2MB/s, Read 18.4 MB/s
AnTutu: Write: 4.6MB/s (!), Read (13.6 MB/s)
Anyone else tried this?

OK since I have no thread posting abilities I'll ask on this thread
Ok so having some problems with my SD card.
First off I'm running VEGAn 5.1.
Ever since I got the Tab I have been trying to get my SD card to keep the movies and pictures that I have loaded from my computer on the card. Whenever I load it into the Tab.
I have formatted the card in my Tab. And I put the movies and pictures on the card. Then when I insert the card into the slot it takes a minute to read the card. I see the files that I have loaded onto the card. But after like a day or so I go to look at the files again and they are gone. I have reloaded the files a couple of times and I loaded them back again today. Then when I got to work they were gone again.
Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem or if it is new to you guys?
Thanks

This is a known problem. Search for .nomedia to find the details. The short answer is put a .nomedia file in your SD card directories. The downside is a lot of apps that show videos or audio won't find them now (because they aren't supposed to) so you have to use a file manager like Astro to go open the files.
It has never been clear to me why this is, what original firmware thought this made sense, or if I can protect a whole card by just putting .nomedia in the root or if I have to do it in every subdirectory I want to protect.
Quick Pic Gallery will show stuff by the way if you select "Show hidden" but sadly there is no way to make that a persistent setting.

Related

Faster SDHC With Registry Tweaking?

I ran SKtools benchmark and my class 6 8gb card was only doing 110KBs write and 1120KBs Read Pitiful huh? (was wondering why I was only getting 90KBsec Dl speeds on wireless).
I tried the SD Tuneup.cab made for the tytn devices and my SD card dissappeared that sucks but ohwell. Uninstalled and it is back again.
Next on the list, take the cab apart and look to see what registry changes it was making. Try them seperately.
Sofar I have found that "HKLM\System\StorageManager\FATFS">
CacheSize" value="4096" more than doubled both my read and write speeds. The cache was initally set to 0. Now I get 210KBs write and 2491KBs read. Thought I would share that little tidbit with anyone who has a slow as christmas SD card.
Also though, does anyone know which settings I should be farting around with so I don't have to trial and error all day? I can sort of guesstimate what a lot of them do from their names but some of them leave me .
*edit*
8192 cache setting = 242KBs write 4693.83KBs read after fresh reboot (all previous scores also from fresh reboot).
Repeating the benchmark seems to bring write speeds up to 6000KBs - 6700KBs. Unsure what is up with that.

Apps to SD questions (please)

Okay XDA tenured- please be gentle. I ve searched, but can not find specific answers to my questions. I ordered a 16gb class 6 (currently have class 2), but would appreciate information before making the changes.
1.) Is it possible to leave current apps on the device memory, then set up for apps to SD and then future apps will go to the card?
2) Based on question 1) if it works, when I update future apps on the device, I am guessing they would then uninstall from the device and then install to card?
3) Would it be best for performance to leave all cache on the device memory? Seems like the system would be faster then.
4) What is the meg space difference leaving all cache or moving it?
5) When changing over to apps to SD, is it not kind of like the same constrained system as an iPhone (Plenty of intitial space, but no ability for external storage)? Point being, if all the apps are on the card and you want to listen to or view media on a seperate card, you would not be able to, since the apps are on the "device" card. This is the whole point to my first question. Unless you can copy the app directory path on the card to another card and use as is- just like the card already installed too...
1: Yes, if you follow my tutorial, it has you copy the existing apps to the sd card and if you use my app, the checkbox tells it to do that as well.
2: No apps will be on your device. There's no way to have a hybrid here, it's either all apps on the sd card or none(not actually true but would be a pain in the ass to make symlinks for each app individually and I don't know of anyone who cared enough to actually try it)
3: I have all apps and caches on the sd card and it is running just as smoothly as normal(and with a class 2 sd card!) There might be some slowdown but it's imperceptible to me.
4: With the cache on device it'll vary depending on what apps you have and how often you use them. With everything moved the memory on the device seems to stay permanently at 72-73MB. That said, moving the normal cache(dalvik-cache seems to be ok) is pretty unstable and I wouldn't suggest it unless you really know what you're doing.
5: Yes, unfortunately this whole process relies on the system not knowing the apps are on the sd card so it's pretty strongly tied to one. That said, you could probably get away with different sd cards as long as they also have an ext2 partition with the app, app-private, etc. directories in it. You'd probably have to reboot when switching sd cards but it should be possible(interestingly you could use this to get different settings depending on what sd card you have in)
Thanks!
So basically we have an iPhone in regards to being stuck to device memory and no option for external storage beyond what is on the card.
I guess there are pros and cons to either set-up. App hounds would prefer apps2sd and media hounds may prefer leaving things alone.
If you are an app and media hound, you are kind of stuck juggling media from the card.
Yep. Although as I was talking about, you could theoretically move each app independently and set up symlinks in the /data/app directory for each app, pointing to where it is on the sd card and leave the ones you want on the phone as they are, but that doesn't sound particularly fun.

[Q] Can't access "My Photos" - via Gallery - on my microSD card anymore; HELP!

[Q] Can't access "My Photos" - via Gallery - on my microSD card anymore; HELP!
I don't know WHAT I may have done, but a few weeks ago, I updated my Droid 1's ROM to one of Bugless Beast's variants... and in the process, must have forgotten how to reselect my Gallery settings to recognize My Photos directory on the SC Card. I only get one folder with a bunch of logos in it, and that's it.
I can access all files and folders on my SD Card, and can even open each desired image - one-at-a-time in most file managers, but - try as I can, I can't seem to recall how to get Gallery to "see" the others on the SD card.
I even moved everything from the SD Card to my computer's hard drive (some 9 GB of files...) and did a format of the card - thinking it needed a wicked cleaning. Moved everything back, and - business as before... as in: "no luck". Still can't access any of the photo or movie files within Gallery.
...any takers??
Try as I might, I can't seem to find ANY location of a cache or data reference to Gallery. I used to be able to simply view ALL file folders that contained images... and now, it seems to be limited to a select few that have nothing to do with the "My Photos" folder or its respective sub folders. I wiped the cache and data on the device a good half dozen times prior to installing the latest Bugless Beast ROM V0.5, and yet - I still can't get it to "see" any of the desired image files on the microSD card. I even wiped all data on the card, formating it, and reinstalled all of the files. Still, no luck.
As an added bit of frustration, I attempted other ROMS, and had similar issues. Wasn't like this before I installed the latest 2.2...!
UPDATE... What's more, I also used to be able to select one of my sound files on my MicroSD card, and make it my ringtone, as well as assign similar audio files as alerts, etc. Now - I can't.
As my kids often text... "WTFIGO...?!?"
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to comment here, in this venue - so it might assist others, as well as post me - directly, to: [email protected]
Thank you for your kind assistance with this matter.
UPDATE STATUS REPORT:
After many attempts at trying different ROMS (Miui... VERY buggy; ShadowROM, Liquid Frozen Yogurt) I STILL had the same results - where only a few images still showed up in my Gallery (when I knew that NOT to be the case) and none of my audio files would save as ringtones, regardless of what I tried... I opted to go to "plan B" and to remove all files, reformat and reinstall the data to the 16 GB MicroSD card, resulting in the very same as before. VERY upsetting as noted earlier.
As I happened to have an extra 2 GB microSD card kicking around, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try to copy from my desktop - a few images of various kinds, as well as some audio files, and copy them into similarly desired and titled folders on the 2 GB card... then install same directly into the Droid 1.
Well, problem SOLVED. It was the ol' 16 GB microSD card. For future reference, it is marked as follows: "MicroSD HC C2 16 GB C16G Japan". I got this for my Samsung Omnia... a few years ago. I guess they really DO wear out after a while! Shame that. At least it's figured out! Thanks for listening to my rant...

speed up your sd card

This may be obvious to some people but not all...myself included
If you find that your apps/games (or anything else) stored on your sd card are starting to take longer to load than usual, try connecting it to your computer and running disk defragmenter (or whichever program you prefer).
I did it to mine after a good 6+ months of use and found that it was heavily fragmented (took a few hours to complete on class 2 8gb so left it running overnight!)
If that doesn't make much difference then you might want to invest in a higher class sd card which of course will give you faster read/write speeds
EDIT: sorry i just realised this is in the wrong section!!!
To have more of an impact you can change the readahead value in sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb from 128Kb to whatever suits your SD card type. In my case 2028Kb.
This cannot be achieved just by editing the file as it is overwritten on boot. Google for it or search market if you want an app to do it for you if you are rooted. Tasker works also.
Using a PC to defragment your phone's SD card can be bad. Bad as in, the computer will treat your SD card as if it's some memory expansion to itself. It will move files to places where it "thinks" they should be but actually they're in the correct place for the device. This is based on past experiences when I did it and that's exactly what it did. Example in the Android Secure folder (asec files), it caused apps which were moved to the SD card to have corrupted data (cause it depleted the values of some of the asec files). The method nobnut stated is the better option.
If you must do it on a pc, rather than use Windows own defragmenter, use an SD defragmenter program, like http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/index.html.

sd card issues

Hey guys I'm having a issue with my sd card. I am running AOKP and put ringtones, notification tones and music on the sd card. I set a music files as my alarms and use ringtones and such off this card. I've noticed after rebooting, after receiving a call or a failed alarm, that the ringtones under sound will show up as unknown instead of the tone I previously selected and the same for the alarm ...I can go to the alarm and instead of it showing whatever mp3 I selected it shows some like /file/45784 and of course reverts to some default insulting tone to wake up to. I been looking into what may cause this and the only think I can come up with is it's taking too long on a reboot to finish checking the sd card for errors and mounting it ..so the system and apps boot up but the files they are set to use are not available. This is a class 10 Sandisk card / 64gig. I formatted it with the phone itself and i've used gui format and tried various fat32 allocation sizes such as 4096 or 32768. Also transferring large files to the phone via the computer with the cable can fail ..the devices just stops responding, it will remount the drives in windows again but this is annoying. I have to take the card out for large transfers of say 2-3 gig. I have two different class 10 cards of 64 gig and a 16 gig one that all do the same things. If it is a speed on reading the card would changing the read ahead help it check and prep during boot faster so the apps can have access quicker as the phone boots? Can I change this in the vold.fstab? Right now I'm swapping the internal mount for the external mount so all my cam pics, sound recording etc..go to the sd card.
I see in this file " dev_mount sdcard /storge/sdcard1 28 / devices/platform/msm_sdcc.1/mmc_host/mmc0/mmc"
Is the 28 read ahead? I've read other threads on having to use a app to change this but thought I see if anyone has experienced these issues and if a fix is known.
Thanks and have a great day!
Have you tried copying your tones to system/media?
Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk 4
Somcom3X said:
Have you tried copying your tones to system/media?
Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would work for ringtones I guess but I wanted to put my music on the phone to stop carrying around a standalone player, and I wanted to use the mp3's for alarms with alarm clock plus. I might want to change alarm mp3's and don't really want to have to copy them over all the time to the /system partition.
Also, I'm wanted to swap the internal sd partition with the external sd card for extra space as I want pics, recording etc to go to this 64G drive. So having said that I'd like for the SD card to be read faster on boot so all data is available for the apps that need it.
I'm running into another issue, I created a simple shell script but I noticed init.d was not running it and upon future investigation I'm not able to run it in a terminal either.
#!/system/bin/sh
echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
I saved this to the init.d dir as 99sdboost and also tried 02sdboost!
When trying to run this script manually via terminal I'm getting the following:
[email protected]:/system/etc/init.d/ # sh ./02boost
: No such file or directory /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
That file does exist and cat-ing it shows the value as 128
I can however take the command above and execute it in the terminal with success:
echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
After that I get a result of 2048 in the file.
Anyways thanks for taking the time and offering suggestions / feedback as I greatly appreciate it.
Have a great day!
neal74 said:
That would work for ringtones I guess but I wanted to put my music on the phone to stop carrying around a standalone player, and I wanted to use the mp3's for alarms with alarm clock plus. I might want to change alarm mp3's and don't really want to have to copy them over all the time to the /system partition.
Also, I'm wanted to swap the internal sd partition with the external sd card for extra space as I want pics, recording etc to go to this 64G drive. So having said that I'd like for the SD card to be read faster on boot so all data is available for the apps that need it.
I'm running into another issue, I created a simple shell script but I noticed init.d was not running it and upon future investigation I'm not able to run it in a terminal either.
#!/system/bin/sh
echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
I saved this to the init.d dir as 99sdboost and also tried 02sdboost!
When trying to run this script manually via terminal I'm getting the following:
[email protected]:/system/etc/init.d/ # sh ./02boost
: No such file or directory /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
That file does exist and cat-ing it shows the value as 128
I can however take the command above and execute it in the terminal with success:
echo "2048" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
After that I get a result of 2048 in the file.
Anyways thanks for taking the time and offering suggestions / feedback as I greatly appreciate it.
Have a great day!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is a screenshot of the error:
I'm running AOKP with the X2 kernel.

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