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Class 10 MicroSD cards = faster app loading?

kanaida

Android Expert
Dec 2, 2010
788
336
I just ordered a 16GB A-Data class 10 MicroSd card. It's in hopes that it will speed up loading of apps etc... since that's where most of them are on my phone.

anyone else try that?
The freebie one that metro gives you is probably a class 4 or something.

That A-Data card actually exceeds class 10, supposedly roughly about 20MB write 20MB read.

If this is the case, then my phone should in theory gain a lot more speed than say overclocking it.
 
I just ordered a 16GB A-Data class 10 MicroSd card. It's in hopes that it will speed up loading of apps etc... since that's where most of them are on my phone.

anyone else try that?
The freebie one that metro gives you is probably a class 4 or something.

That A-Data card actually exceeds class 10, supposedly roughly about 20MB write 20MB read.

If this is the case, then my phone should in theory gain a lot more speed than say overclocking it.

I was considering a class 10 upgrade myself. However, I do not believe it would be like overclocking. Here are my reasons:

First, the cpu is way faster than anything outside of the cpu -- that includes L1, L2, and L3 caches, RAM, and the SD or HD or whatever. You will get your best increases directly on the cpu or on a front side bus. Following that, larger caches, more and faster ram, and then better storage afford better performance.

Second, when you load applications from the SD card, they will load into the memory faster. So, if you have 20MB bandwidth and you cache google maps to the SD, it will load transfer from the SD in less than a second. But, after it goes there it has to flow into the memory and then into the caches and then into the CPU. So, using a class 10 would only make the data transfer from the SD to the RAM faster. So, beyond that transfer, you will not note performance increases. The CPU will still process the data at the same rate as it always did.

However, I am interested in speeding up that transfer time from the SD to the RAM as well. If nobody gets back to us, I may buy a class 10 and see. If that happens, I'll post my results here.
 
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I just ordered a 16GB A-Data class 10 MicroSd card. It's in hopes that it will speed up loading of apps etc... since that's where most of them are on my phone.

anyone else try that?
The freebie one that metro gives you is probably a class 4 or something.

That A-Data card actually exceeds class 10, supposedly roughly about 20MB write 20MB read.

If this is the case, then my phone should in theory gain a lot more speed than say overclocking it.
One thing you should realize is that the class ratings only stand for minimum throughput. So at the very least you should have 10Mb and no less. You should always expect a higher average read/write speed depending on the number and/or size of the files being transferred.

You should be careful though with A-Data products. They are very hit or miss. Some work really well and some not so much. Many people have had issues especially with corrupt cards within the first few months of use which means that you can lose all of your data, so always run backups. Just a word of advice to be careful and possibly even consider another manufacturer.

One last thing, it's not as common anymore, but some people have had issues with class 10 cards not being recognized or running slower than class 6, 4, or even 2 cards on smartphones. That's why I went with a class 6 card personally.
 
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I ordered a 4gb class 10 card from newegg, I think $12 I have most of my apps stored on sd, via apps2sd and the load times are very good, I dont have hard numbers comparing them to the stock card the phone came with but I believe its quicker.
But I will point out as mentioned things will still only run as fast as the cpu and systems allow, but the initial calling from sd card is what I am talking about, and if we can use some part of the sd for swap it will be even better I believe.
I ordered patriot, I have used them for computer ram and had good luck so I figured I would try it.
 
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I found out something very important today :)

It turns out the default read ahead cache size is puny on most androids...
4K-128K, I can't remember exactly what mine was at first.

Anyways, there's an app that lets you adjust the setting called "SD Speed Boost". I tried tons of settings, but I found 3072 gave me the best results.

Cache
Kb Write Read
512 5.2 16.1 <-- Original speed
1024 6.2 20.9
2048 5.1 25
2944 7.8 24.9
3072 10.3 26.2 <-- My speed now!!
3200 7.8 24.5
3584 6.4 25.2

That's with the stock microSd that came with my phone!, can't wait to try this on my calss 10 :)

I can tell you this, each tiny increment can have a large impact as you see above. Try my setting first. I set it to apply at startup. It's very noticable when using dolphin browser + sd-caching enabled, and also the gallery images don't load anymore, they're just there when i open it.

I never bought any app before, but this was worth it. Unless you want to do it the hard way without an app at all:[FIX][CWM] SD Card fix for reading speed [Archive] - xda-developers
 
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I found out something very important today :)

It turns out the default read ahead cache size is puny on most androids...
4K-128K, I can't remember exactly what mine was at first.

Anyways, there's an app that lets you adjust the setting called "SD Speed Boost". I tried tons of settings, but I found 3072 gave me the best results.

Cache
Kb Write Read
512 5.2 16.1 <-- Original speed
1024 6.2 20.9
2048 5.1 25
2944 7.8 24.9
3072 10.3 26.2 <-- My speed now!!
3200 7.8 24.5
3584 6.4 25.2

That's with the stock microSd that came with my phone!, can't wait to try this on my calss 10 :)

I can tell you this, each tiny increment can have a large impact as you see above. Try my setting first. I set it to apply at startup. It's very noticable when using dolphin browser + sd-caching enabled, and also the gallery images don't load anymore, they're just there when i open it.

I never bought any app before, but this was worth it. Unless you want to do it the hard way without an app at all:[FIX][CWM] SD Card fix for reading speed [Archive] - xda-developers
Looking at root explorer mine shows as 4096kb I when I open gallery it says loading for a few seconds and I downloaded the sd card speed test you mention it shows my read speeds at 13.9 mb/s and write at 13.6mb/s
 
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I did alot of playing around with this, tried the instructions to do this manually though it wont work for me. I did however read that file using adb to pull it to the computer and found it is reading 128 so I changed it to 3072 and got write speeds of 14.6 to 16.9 and read speeds of 31.5 changed it to 4096 dropped the read just a small amount went down to 2048 dropped both read and write just a little. but could not make it a perm change.
I got the app and I set it for boot, check mark is lit up yet every reboot I have to go back in and change it from 128 to 3072.
I am running a class 10 card and I am disappointed in the speeds no matter what I set it too. even set at 128 I get read and write of 13.5-9.
 
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I did alot of playing around with this, tried the instructions to do this manually though it wont work for me. I did however read that file using adb to pull it to the computer and found it is reading 128 so I changed it to 3072 and got write speeds of 14.6 to 16.9 and read speeds of 31.5 changed it to 4096 dropped the read just a small amount went down to 2048 dropped both read and write just a little. but could not make it a perm change.
I got the app and I set it for boot, check mark is lit up yet every reboot I have to go back in and change it from 128 to 3072.
I am running a class 10 card and I am disappointed in the speeds no matter what I set it too. even set at 128 I get read and write of 13.5-9.

I have my class 10 set to 2304 and my phone has never been faster. I thought it would just make reading and transferring apps from the sd faster but since i have used the program my entire phone seems to be going much faster with everything i do.

If i go any higher then the read write speeds start to decrease
 
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I forgot to mention, every SD Card may need different settings.
Some people mention 2048.

What I would do is start at 512 and add 512 to it each time, benchmarking it and writing read and write to excel like I did. try all the speeds... litteraly as you saw in my results, it's a very narrow window for best performance.

My class 10 should be arriving soon, and I'll post my best result for that one too.

I would honestly run through all those 8 steps of 512,
then move in steps of 256 left or right until you find the best
then 128, then 64, then 32.

It will take a while but it's the fastest way to narrow down your exact number. It will wear down your sdcard a little bit but it's worth it. It's process of elimination basically.
 
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I did alot of playing around with this, tried the instructions to do this manually though it wont work for me. I did however read that file using adb to pull it to the computer and found it is reading 128 so I changed it to 3072 and got write speeds of 14.6 to 16.9 and read speeds of 31.5 changed it to 4096 dropped the read just a small amount went down to 2048 dropped both read and write just a little. but could not make it a perm change.
I got the app and I set it for boot, check mark is lit up yet every reboot I have to go back in and change it from 128 to 3072.
I am running a class 10 card and I am disappointed in the speeds no matter what I set it too. even set at 128 I get read and write of 13.5-9.

above I mentioned there was a link to do it the hard way... it's at your own risk, it helps if you know how linux works. the file is not a real file per say, it's a setting, just one that you can read and write to in linux as a regular file.
you may be able to edit it in R/W mode in root explorer and just save it.
/sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
It will not be there upon reboot this way though. Only till next reboot.
That would require editing init files and linux experience. This is why the app is convenient. Also, give it some time to run, because the app executes about a minute after your phone first boots up, not right when u can use it.

another way:
Benchmark, Try this, Benchmark again:
open up a terminal (you gotta download the app)
type (case sensitive):
su
/system/xbin/echo "3072" > /sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb


In theory, we should be able to find a setting for the internal memory's disk cache, and again use the same procedure on another file somewhere :) if anyone knows the file please share. I'm looking through all configs for anything else I can adjust the cache for. 300ish mb is far more than enough to increase the cache for many i/o devices, and I love caching!
 
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Good news guys, I just got my A-Data card in the mail!!!
nice way to start a monday :)

I took out my old card, I found it was a class 2 8GB, came with phone.

I'm copying all the files to a folder on my pc, then I will let the phone format the card for me, (as it may use a different default cluster size than windows, I'm curious to see. Plus it may be faster or slower, so knowing that I can format with my pc if needed.)

Then I will copy the card contents back and post the benchmarks!

Results:
A little more mixed up here, What I gather is that the phone was doing some background I/O and this makes for fluxuations. Either way, the max value you saw is the most possible.
I can gather this much,
Bigger cache makes writes faster at first, then slower the more you go up
Reads get faster and faster, past a point it seems to maybe be trying to read too much ahead slowing things down a bit.

Benchmarks results for new card:
Cache Write Read
128 18.8 12.9
1024 18.4 22
2048 18 25.9
2304 15.1 26.2
2432 19 26.3 << Best avereges so far
3720 13.8 24.2
4096 18.6 27.7 < got fastest read scrore, but not consistently

To sum it up:
Class 2, 8GB (tweak 512 cache) = Write: 5.1 MB/s, Read: 16.1 MB/s (**correction: actually default was slower, 128)
Class 2, 8GB (tweak 3072 cache) = Write: 10.3 MB/s Read 26.2 MB/s

Class 10, 16GB (defualt 128 cache) = Write: 18.8 MB/s, Read: 12.9 MB/s
Class 10, 16GB (tweak 2432 cache) = Write: 19.0 MB/s Read 26.3 MB/s

So using a read cache on a class 2 card, makes it read like class 10.
Class 10 only makes base read speed (before cache tweak, faster), but write speed is 4x more.
I have a funny feeling that something else might be limiting my read speed. I will do some research.
It's strange that I've seen other people get 40MB/s on other threads.
I will keep digging, there is much ram that is underutilized for better purposes like this.
If anyone has ideas please let me know. Also if you know where I can change the internal memory read_ahead_cache.
That will boost things by about another 50% if found.

For those who don't mind a good technical read about linux cache:

http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2010/ols2010-pages-83-90.pdf
 
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Hey thanks, good information, I am a newbie to linux but I have played around with it off an on for 6 years or so, I have a home server running headless ubuntu server the problem is I research enough to set it up and it just runs and runs so I never need to mess with it so the information gets forgotten. lol I was able to get things figured out though the problem I was having doing it manually is there does not appear to be init.d on my phone. I know in linux that is a required script but in the location mentioned there is not one. I think the problem with the setting it up on boot for me was conflict within the phone, I did a data wipe to clean up everything and since then it works.
 
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I can confirm on my end that when I used a class 4 sd card my sd-ext partition was so slow I couldn't even use it. I read up on sd card speeds, bought a class 10, and my phone is 10 times faster than with the class 4. I don't know how fast the actual internal memory is, but it feels the same when I'm using the class 10 with sd-ext holding all my apps (except for most system apps). I read the warnings on App2sd, cyanogenmod's sd-ext, and various other app/sd tweaks (At least Class 6 sd card recommended). It's true, class 4 just won't cut it. Not on my phone. The class 10 is working perfectly. Snappy.
 
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