Is Virtual Memory Possible

[cinicraft]

Don't know if anyone asked this before but does anyone know if we could just use some of the memory stick as RAM? I think since memory sticks use random access they would be relatively fast in case your on resource hogging websites.

 

[mcobit]

They won't be faster as swapping to sdcards, i suppose.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Don't know if anyone asked this before but does anyone know if we could just use some of the memory stick as RAM? I think since memory sticks use random access they would be relatively fast in case your on resource hogging websites.

I've heard that the sort of super-fast reads and writes implied with swapping ("virtual memory") could single-handedly butcher a flash drive, I'd imagine it'd be the same with an SD card as well. I looked into it to providing some extra memory for my retired Linux laptop a couple years ago. Things might have changed since then, however.

 

[mcobit]

Some people encourage the use of a usb stick for swapping. It can be faster than really old low end EDO ram or something.
Of course, a lot of fast writes an d reads can damage Flashmedia relatively fast. Today it gets better, but is still not as good as on real magnetic harddisks

 

[TrashyMG]

Don't know if anyone asked this before but does anyone know if we could just use some of the memory stick as RAM? I think since memory sticks use random access they would be relatively fast in case your on resource hogging websites.

It's possible but my guess is that not so fun stuff could happen when you accidentally remove the SD Card / USB stick.

 

[WizardStan]

You can swap, but it won't really help.
Current SD cards are about 6 years behind hard drives, in terms of speed. To say again, the average SD card that you buy now is capable of about the same speeds as hard drives from 6 years ago.
Now true, we've been swapping for about 15 years, but applications have gotten larger necessitating more swap. Swapping a 100k program in and out of memory is different from swapping multimegabyte web page cache.
If you're reaching a point where you are filling the 256MB on the Pandora and need to start swapping, odds are you're falling into the multi-megabyte category, in which case speed is essential. SD cards just don't have that kind of speed.

There should be no need for swap space so long as you remember one very important thing: the Pandora is not a full blown desktop computer. It can do computer things, but if you treat it as a desktop replacement and try to do all the things you might do with a desktop you will be disappointed. It can multitask, but that doesn't mean you should run a dozen different applications. If you find yourself running out of memory, kill some of the unessential things you've got running.

 

[Tor]

Not only is "virtual memory" possible, there is only virtual memory - as far as all our applications are concerned.
What the OP is asking is if it's possible to extend VM by adding swap. And yes, it is. And I'm not entirely in agreement with WizardStan in that it'll not be needed. It depends on what you do. From my experience with my Nokia tablets and the N900 it doesn't do any harm to add a bit of swap, it'll simply sit there to handle the occasional RAM overflow, e.g. when you manage to hit a web page with lots of pictures, for example. With swap you'll handle that gracefully, without swap you won't. I wouldn't add too much swap though, and only on a fast SD card - never on a USB stick.
The N900 has 256MB RAM plus 768MB swap (on internal flash), for a total of 1GB VM. 768MB swap is more than I would have added, but it's the default and I haven't changed it. The system will use RAM as much as possible. Right now there's 42MB in swap, which is probably just some stuff that hasn't been touched by RAM for a while.

 

[droneb]

You can swap, but it won't really help.
Current SD cards are about 6 years behind hard drives, in terms of speed. To say again, the average SD card that you buy now is capable of about the same speeds as hard drives from 6 years ago.
Now true, we've been swapping for about 15 years, but applications have gotten larger necessitating more swap. Swapping a 100k program in and out of memory is different from swapping multimegabyte web page cache.
If you're reaching a point where you are filling the 256MB on the Pandora and need to start swapping, odds are you're falling into the multi-megabyte category, in which case speed is essential. SD cards just don't have that kind of speed.

There should be no need for swap space so long as you remember one very important thing: the Pandora is not a full blown desktop computer. It can do computer things, but if you treat it as a desktop replacement and try to do all the things you might do with a desktop you will be disappointed. It can multitask, but that doesn't mean you should run a dozen different applications. If you find yourself running out of memory, kill some of the unessential things you've got running.

hmm, i had this conversation with someone of M$ the day Vista went out, the response was:

yes HD have larger bandwidth, but nowadays USB Flash memory have a faster response time than mechanical Harddrives.
of course we would have to see the latency added by internal structure also the state of the USB host.

 

[WizardStan]

yes HD have larger bandwidth, but nowadays USB Flash memory have a faster response time than mechanical Harddrives.
of course we would have to see the latency added by internal structure also the state of the USB host.

There's a strange thing: if you look at Toms Hardware for reviews of SDHC and USB flash drives, the flash drives have typically better performance than the SD cards. I don't understand why, I just look at the numbers and say "huh, these ones are higher than the others".

 

[ashdjones]

I'd love to hear from someone who actually wore out an SD card with constant writing. Isn't this just one of those myths?