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[Q] Would changing the microsd's file format improve its speed?

People keep complaining about the Sensation with the MicroSD card being slower with the Fat32 format vs the Galaxy II (or whatever) with its' 16GB internal memory using EXT3/4/whatever.
My question: would changing the file format of the included card to NTFS or EXT3/4/whatever maybe help speed the card up?

xnifex said:
People keep complaining about the Sensation with the MicroSD card being slower with the Fat32 format vs the Galaxy II (or whatever) with its' 16GB internal memory using EXT3/4/whatever.
My question: would changing the file format of the included card to NTFS or EXT3/4/whatever maybe help speed the card up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would make it unreadable for the Sensation as it can only read FAT32 format cards.
Also, the problem with FAT32 is not really the speed but the fact that you will be limited to 32GB(larger capacities like 64gb or more cannot be formatted to FAT32). Lastly, in FAT32, you cannot save a file more than 4gb (example: 5gb movie = not possible, you have to divide the movie into clips that are less than 4gb to be saved.)
SGS2's memory card is also formatted to fat32 so it is also affected by these limitation.
SGS2's I/O speed advantage against Sensation comes from the internal capacities, 1GB vs 16/32GB. As sensation's 1GB capacity will most like force the user to use a memory card. While SGS2 can keep most of its file on internal storage.
*Internal storage is always faster than external storage(memory card).

khein said:
That would make it unreadable for the Sensation as it can only read FAT32 format cards.
Also, the problem with FAT32 is not really the speed but the fact that you will be limited to 32GB(larger capacities like 64gb or more cannot be formatted to FAT32). Lastly, in FAT32, you cannot save a file more than 4gb (example: 5gb movie = not possible, you have to divide the movie into clips that are less than 4gb to be saved.)
SGS2's memory card is also formatted to fat32 so it is also affected by these limitation.
SGS2's I/O speed advantage against Sensation comes from the internal capacities, 1GB vs 16/32GB. As sensation's 1GB capacity will most like force the user to use a memory card. While SGS2 can keep most of its file on internal storage.
*Internal storage is always faster than external storage(memory card).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats not 100% true. 2.3.x added support for ext4 and part of the speed improvement in the SGS II comes from that support being used. In theory the Sensation also supports ext4 so MIGHT be able to mount and ext4 formatted sdcard. Unfortunately its one of those things you might need root for.

Bratag said:
Thats not 100% true. 2.3.x added support for ext4 and part of the speed improvement in the SGS II comes from that support being used. In theory the Sensation also supports ext4 so MIGHT be able to mount and ext4 formatted sdcard. Unfortunately its one of those things you might need root for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even if you can use ext4 formatted microSD card in both Sensation and SGS2, accessing data (I/O) in the internal storage of both Sensation(1GB) and SGS2(16/32GB) will always be faster than the external storage(SD card).
That's why I hope HTC will release variants with higher storage capacities.

khein said:
That would make it unreadable for the Sensation as it can only read FAT32 format cards.
Also, the problem with FAT32 is not really the speed but the fact that you will be limited to 32GB(larger capacities like 64gb or more cannot be formatted to FAT32). Lastly, in FAT32, you cannot save a file more than 4gb (example: 5gb movie = not possible, you have to divide the movie into clips that are less than 4gb to be saved.)
SGS2's memory card is also formatted to fat32 so it is also affected by these limitation.
SGS2's I/O speed advantage against Sensation comes from the internal capacities, 1GB vs 16/32GB. As sensation's 1GB capacity will most like force the user to use a memory card. While SGS2 can keep most of its file on internal storage.
*Internal storage is always faster than external storage(memory card).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FAT32 max volume size is 8TB... Its just windows->right click->Format tool that is crap. Use custom tools. MS limited its tools to promote NTFS.

draftQ said:
FAT32 max volume size is 8TB... Its just windows->right click->Format tool that is crap. Use custom tools. MS limited its tools to promote NTFS.
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Click to collapse
He was talking about FILE size, not volume size.
If ext4 is built in into Gingerbread it might be a way to overcome the file size limit...
I doubt NTFS would work as it's not natively supported in Linux and doubt Google added support to it in Android.

solsearch said:
He was talking about FILE size, not volume size.
If ext4 is built in into Gingerbread it might be a way to overcome the file size limit...
I doubt NTFS would work as it's not natively supported in Linux and doubt Google added support to it in Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do agree on the ext4. NTFS will never happen... nor should it happen.
Got file size problem in the post. but he stated that you cant format larger than 32gb. That why i just added a correction.
If I managed to offend someone.. sorry. But fact is fact.

draftQ said:
I do agree on the ext4. NTFS will never happen... nor should it happen.
Got file size problem in the post. but he stated that you cant format larger than 32gb. That why i just added a correction.
If I managed to offend someone.. sorry. But fact is fact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So sorry. When I read your post I had completely forgotten he'd mentioned a 32GB volume size limit I thought you'd made a mistake when it was actually I who did. My bad
I think it was because so far, 32GB is the limit of what we can do. There are no 64GB Transflash cards as far as I know and it's most likely that by the time they come out and become affordable to the masses that we'll be on to a new phone.
Sorry for "correcting" you...

solsearch said:
So sorry. When I read your post I had completely forgotten he'd mentioned a 32GB volume size limit I thought you'd made a mistake when it was actually I who did. My bad
I think it was because so far, 32GB is the limit of what we can do. There are no 64GB Transflash cards as far as I know and it's most likely that by the time they come out and become affordable to the masses that we'll be on to a new phone.
Sorry for "correcting" you...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries...

Ext4 needs to be supported by htcs kernel as well as Android 2.3.
Secondly windows cannot read ext4 which is why its only used for internal storage.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

ratchetnclank said:
Ext4 needs to be supported by htcs kernel as well as Android 2.3.
Secondly windows cannot read ext4 which is why its only used for internal storage.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I figured if it was supported by the phone I'd dual-boot with a Linux distro and thereby bypass the Windows ext4 limitation (now if it were ext2/3 then we could get windows to recognize it).

SDCARD File Format
It seems natural to ask: What custom ROMs have good solid support for ext2/ext3 SD-Cards on the Sensation?
Word is, ext2 is faster. I've had to repair my fat32 filesys 3 times. I'm not liking that. It seems to be related to getting a slew of SMS messages before power-up is complete. But that means I need to remember to set airplane mode before power down. That will not help if battery goes to zero.

storage question

Coming from the HTC Mytouch 4g i was under the impression i was upgrading from 1gb of storage(on the mt4g) to about 8gb of storage(g2x). I come to realize that in reality theres only about 1.5 gb of system storage and the other 5-6gb's acts like a secondary external sdcard...
I think that is soo stupid, i already have a 16gb class 6 sdcard and was needing the 8gb of internal just for apps/games(i have over 3+gb's of apps and games so don't even say why isn't 1.5gb of internal not enough)
Is there a mod or script that will allow the 5gb to be used as the system storage and the other 1.5 can be used as external sdcard storage? Or even a hack that would make my 16gb sdcard the main storage for my g2x?

d12unk13astard said:
Coming from the HTC Mytouch 4g i was under the impression i was upgrading from 1gb of storage(on the mt4g) to about 8gb of storage(g2x). I come to realize that in reality theres only about 1.5 gb of system storage and the other 5-6gb's acts like a secondary external sdcard...
I think that is soo stupid, i already have a 16gb class 6 sdcard and was needing the 8gb of internal just for apps/games(i have over 3+gb's of apps and games so don't even say why isn't 1.5gb of internal not enough)
Is there a mod or script that will allow the 5gb to be used as the system storage and the other 1.5 can be used as external sdcard storage? Or even a hack that would make my 16gb sdcard the main storage for my g2x?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock ROM allows you to move many of your apps to the internal "sd" card. Just go into manage applications and click on SD card and move the ones you want to the sd card. This will free up space in the 1.5gb storage area. Almost all custom roms have an even more versatile APP2SD capability.

[Q] Memory layout?

OK, so I knew this was limited to the internal 16GB, but now I'm reading that it is partitioned so that 4GB is system that I'll never see, 2GB is apps, and 10GB is media storage.
Is the 2GB the same as the internal storage on other Androids, and the 10GB same as an external SD card, so the 10GB has the same external SD limitations? I'm assuming that when an app has an option to store things on external SD I should take advantage of it to preserve the 2GB?
Finally, what are the paths for the different partitions (I'm on a non rooted stock TmoUS)?
Thanks!

THe main thing I'm wondering about is why the hell it's a 4gb system partition. That is HUGE!

htc sensation xe has the same 4 gb internal memory from which the user has only 1 gb for apps
so...only HTC knows the answer

Micro SD Card Performance

Hi there!
It seems in the beginning only the 32 GB version of Infinity will hit the stores in Spain, to my dismay 'cause I was eagerly waiting for the 64 GB model.
So, considering I won't be able to wait no more, I could get what's the available in the market along with a 32 GB micro SD card (for example SanDisk Mobile Ultra 32GB). I wonder if there would be performance difference between 64 GB model and 32 GB with 32 GB micro SD card in terms of storage benchmarks or software performance?

The mobile ultra cards should be around 30+MB/sec which should be about what the internal runs at. Get a 64gb card(about $70) and have 96gb storage total! You could use a 128gb card also or any xdhc micro sd, you just need to reformat the xdhc cards to fat32 and they work perfectly! Xdhc cards are faster than sdhc allows, so using an xdhc should test as fast as the internal controller will allow. Sdxc 64gb and up cards should test at over 40MB/sec in a sdhc slot. Sdxc cards should be able to do 100MB/sec which is way faster than the bus/controller in your device, so they will be faster than the built-in storage!
JUST REMEMBER TO REFORMAT SDXC CARDS AS FAT32! And only use SDXC UHS-1 type cards! UHS-2 cards will not work!
If you format a sdxc uhs-1 card as fat32 and it doesn't work, you need to write a new mbr on the card. Xdhc uses exFat file system and that uses ntfs mbr, you need fat32 mbr. Either repartition the card, or use a 3rd party format tool like fat32format which would take care of both issues at once. Shouldn't be an issue on the majority of newer devices.
A lot of devices won't care that the mbr is in the wrong location(exFat and ntfs use a different mbr location compared to fat32) as long as it is formatted fat32.
Good luck, and I hope you stuff a 128gb in there so you have 160GB total! SWEETNESS!
PM me if you need any help!
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

I would recommend to buy a SanDisk microsd xc 64gb, and and format it to NTFS. I'm using this card in my transformer prime and it's great because in NTFS file system I'm allowed to copy files larger than 4gb (movies). If you format it to fat32 4gb will be the limit. The SanDisk card is almost as fast as internal storage. You won't notice any difference.

josuetenista said:
I would recommend to buy a SanDisk microsd xc 64gb, and and format it to NTFS. I'm using this card in my transformer prime and it's great because in NTFS file system I'm allowed to copy files larger than 4gb (movies). If you format it to fat32 4gb will be the limit. The SanDisk card is almost as fast as internal storage. You won't notice any difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume Infinity will support sdxc format since Prime does.

None of these support "xdhc" yet, but it will work. Do not use ntfs. Linux support is still not 100% for ntfs(drivers are better than the past, but still not recommended). You can use ntfs if you need files bigger than 4gb. Fat32 is the best choice for reliability.
Again, xdhc uhs-1 will work in sdhc slot(with reformat to fat32), xdhc uhs-2 needs true xdhc slot(new pinout from what I have seen).
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

josuetenista said:
I would recommend to buy a SanDisk microsd xc 64gb, and and format it to NTFS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would NEVER format ANYTHING to NTFS. There is simply no reason to.

Hemidroids said:
I would NEVER format ANYTHING to NTFS. There is simply no reason to.
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Click to collapse
Really? I have hundreds of movies on my home server over 4 GB. I'm not going to spend hours to convert those to work on the FAT32 system.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2

amd1979 said:
Really? I have hundreds of movies on my home server over 4 GB. I'm not going to spend hours to convert those to work on the FAT32 system.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Edit: Nevermind I misread your post.

[Q)] About Swap on Class10 card

Hello my question is simple, everybody knows about fits low ram issue.
If i buy class 10 sd card (ex: 16gb), can i give 1 gb ram to phone with swap ?
Will it effect to performance ? System cpu speed enough but ram really low
Thx for answers...

amedra said:
Hello my question is simple, everybody knows about fits low ram issue.
If i buy class 10 sd card (ex: 16gb), can i give 1 gb ram to phone with swap ?
Will it effect to performance ? System cpu speed enough but ram really low
Thx for answers...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could use SD card with swap to extend the ram but it going to be dead within 2 weeks because of the exessive Reads/Writes
I did used for a couple of days a 10 class Sandisk of 8GB with swap enabled and did not impact so much on performance.

Today bought http://www.digitalversus.com/memory-card/lexar-micro-sdhc-32-gb-class-10-uhs-1-600x-p16172/test.html (not from amazon but same card), 512mb ext4 and 256mb for swap with CWM use... (I will use high values later )
Results are okay, everything faster than i imagine. A lot of cards have 2 year guarantee, like this one. If your card dead in 2 week like k3eNaNz said, you can change easily in my opinion ( so use local market). And developer said 7 years usage time...
However i'm so happy , i'll add more virtual ram to my fit without speed loss
1gb ram on galaxy fit not bad

amedra said:
Today bought http://www.digitalversus.com/memory-card/lexar-micro-sdhc-32-gb-class-10-uhs-1-600x-p16172/test.html (not from amazon but same card), 512mb ext4 and 256mb for swap with CWM use... (I will use high values later )
...
However i'm so happy , i'll add more virtual ram to my fit without speed loss
1gb ram on galaxy fit not bad
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can I do that with an 8gb SD!?
Aaaand, where's a noob guide on how to do it!?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

johnny208 said:
Can I do that with an 8gb SD!?
Aaaand, where's a noob guide on how to do it!?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes a lot of class10 - 8gb microsd card around. Search in xda " clockworkmode swap" you can find many topic about this.
But remember, you should need class 10 or above sd card, ext4 and swap supported kernel too. ( so a lot of kernel and rom support these functions)

amedra said:
Yes a lot of class10 - 8gb microsd card around. Search in xda " clockworkmode swap" you can find many topic about this.
But remember, you should need class 10 or above sd card, ext4 and swap supported kernel too. ( so a lot of kernel and rom support these functions)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just checked my SD... It's class 6
Time for a new one...
Thanks!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I also use 32GB class 10 sdcard. But I'll never try swapping. Coz even if I do have backup on my laptop but windows 7 disonnects the sdcard during copy/paste via card reader. So in case my sdcard is dead by applying swap & I buy new one...windows wont allow me copy files back... & using FTP to transfer files is very tiring process with possibility of errors...But it's my opinion guys.

Swapping not like real ram, like i said virtual ram. But All of you be can sure, virtual ram really boost the (our) phones x10 times.
Example: closed ext swap last night (from clock work mode) and installed "ram manager pro." And added 1gb (1024mb) (also will add 2048mb) swap ram to my fit. I did because of clcokworkmode give only 256mb swap ram.
Result: All apk's first open really open like vanilla (default). But after second one, you can see improvement. Speed comes with smile. And best thing for you, ram optimitizion scripts and task killers not necessary. Because swap file directly answer your response with 30mb/ps(+) read rate.
Recommend: Try with 8gb class 10 sd cards, they're cheap nowadays, you won't regret
Tip: Galaxy fit support only (maximum) 32gb sd cards.

I have micro sd card Lexar class 10 it support or not
if you know Can I do ram swap for my galaxy fit?

ahmetakin said:
I have micro sd card Lexar class 10 it support or not
if you know Can I do ram swap for my galaxy fit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartprojects.RAMOptimization
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.swapper2
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.azasoft.free.swapper
These programs enough for you, pick one.