micro sd card
vanigo
Contributor - Level 2

does adding a micro sd card speed up the os system on my phone, like adding ram on my computer?

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Re: micro sd card
stef7
Master - Level 2

No.  

...wait must be different than bearone21 and Ann154...

...must be needlessly long winded...

The answer to your question is even if you open your phone and ruin it in the process looking for the surface-mount integrated circuit that is the non-Volatile memory... you also need to know information about the clocking of the CPU, the electrical circuitry that connects the CPU of the phone to the memory, then you need to know the speed of the SD card and the circuitry of the SD card interface, and the software drivers for it... Make some to many assumptions, and fall on a SWAG. Google SWAG.

Most likely, the non-volatile memory in the phone is faster than that of a fast SD card.

Back to the original question posed, the answer is most probably No.  

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Re: micro sd card
sprmankalel
Champion - Level 3

It may help if you have a lot of pictures and videos saved to your device's storage. Offloading the will free up space and then the CPU won't have to look through all of that stuff to find what it is looking for.

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Re: micro sd card
vanigo
Contributor - Level 2

sprmankalel wrote:

It may help if you have a lot of pictures and videos saved to your device's storage. Offloading the will free up space and then the CPU won't have to look through all of that stuff to find what it is looking for.

So does that mean that the os android does not share memory with the sd card keeping everything separate ?

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Re: micro sd card
stef7
Master - Level 2

In your phone is RAM (used by the operating system and running programs), and there is non-Volatile storage (for holding the actual operating system, the programs that came with the operating system, and what you have downloaded, and information that needs to be "persistent", i.e. if you power-down, or if you pull the battery, it doesn't forget it.

You can add more non-Volatile storage in the form of an SD card.

In general, I don't think non-Volatile memory is as fast as RAM. So I don't think there is any real speed-up to adding non-Volatile storage. What you can do though, is move some or part of programs that are downloaded, and some of that persistent data that needs to be stored to the SD card. Go into Settings | Manage Applications on an Android. You can also move pictures and videos that were taken with the camera, or that have been downloaded, and move it to the SD card. You can tell the camera app, next time you take a photo, or video, put it on the SD card (go to options in the camera app). Doing these things frees up non-volatile memory that now can be used to download more applications. Smiley Happy

Will there be any appreciable speedup? Well it depends on is the non-volatile memory that came with the phone slower or faster than that on the SD card. I can't comment on that - I'd have to research it. Not all SD cards are created equal. My gut feel is that in general, the non-volatile memory on the phone will be faster than that on the SD card. Some SD cards are VERY slow.

But I don't think you should think it would speed things up like adding RAM does. And I don't think you should think of the non-Volatile memory (on the phone or on the SD card) as the exact same thing as a computer hard-disk or a solid state drive that may suffer from some level of fragmentation, which if re-organized or de-fragmented would make file access faster.. You could research it though if you're interested and report your findings.

Re: micro sd card
vanigo
Contributor - Level 2

Thanks  stef7  I did not no that and you explanation was helpful.

Since I am just a beginner your comment>>Well it depends on is the non-volatile memory that came with the phone slower or faster than that on the SD card.<<

Is that info easy to find?

Also I might add that I am not having any problems but trying to understand as much as I can about cell phones.

Thanks again

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Re: micro sd card
bearone21
Legend

no

Re: micro sd card
vanigo
Contributor - Level 2

sorry which question r u answering?

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Re: micro sd card
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

vanigo wrote:

does adding a micro sd card speed up the os system on my phone, like adding ram on my computer?

No.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: micro sd card
stef7
Master - Level 2

I like the way you guys cut to the chase... What was I thinking?  

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Re: micro sd card
stef7
Master - Level 2

No.  

...wait must be different than bearone21 and Ann154...

...must be needlessly long winded...

The answer to your question is even if you open your phone and ruin it in the process looking for the surface-mount integrated circuit that is the non-Volatile memory... you also need to know information about the clocking of the CPU, the electrical circuitry that connects the CPU of the phone to the memory, then you need to know the speed of the SD card and the circuitry of the SD card interface, and the software drivers for it... Make some to many assumptions, and fall on a SWAG. Google SWAG.

Most likely, the non-volatile memory in the phone is faster than that of a fast SD card.

Back to the original question posed, the answer is most probably No.