Having IE Cache files saved to SD card very slow....

[ToddJ]

Awhile back I had a problem with running out of memory. I would be surfing on Pocket Internet Explorer and would run out of memory. So I found out about MemMaid and saved the IE cache files to the SD card instead. However, I have noticed it is much, much slower. When I take out the SD card, it must default back to caching onto the Ipaq itself and goes much quicker. Could this be that the SD card I have is a slow one (PNY) or is this normal when having the cache folder on the SD card?

[GSmith]

There is wide variation in SD speeds. The two factors that affect your apparent speed will be raw write speed and file creation speed. My old Kingston 256MB card is notoriously slow. Expect Mennisyss to chime in with the definitive answer. The Ultra II SD is reportedly much faster. There are others now that are above the 60x write speed of the Ultra II(although they don't usually advertise file creation speed).

Many have found significant improvement with even a 32x card.

[Menneisyys]

Expect Mennisyss to chime in with the definitive answer.

Thanks :)

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 - here, you'll find all the answers and a lot of benchmarks, also on this subject. As GSmith has already pointed out, it's the file creation speed that counts. Traditional, non-Ultra SD cards are have pretty bad file creation speeds so I wouldn't put the PIE cache on them. The NetFront cache, on the other hand, is a completely different beast - check out my benchmarks.

[zilla31]

so at the end of the day does it make a huge difference in browsing speed (no matter which SD card) if you store the IE cache on card or main mem?

[Menneisyys]

so at the end of the day does it make a huge difference in browsing speed (no matter which SD card) if you store the IE cache on card or main mem?

It all depends on what pages you're browsing. If they contain no images, the difference will "only" be some 20-40% with slower SD cards. With tons of different images, the difference may be as high as 100-500 %.

[zilla31]

i'm thinking i'm going to move my cache back to main memory and just limit it's size...

[Menneisyys]

i'm thinking i'm going to move my cache back to main memory and just limit it's size...

1, You could test other SD (or, for that matter, CF - what device do you have?) cards - Ultra cards may be (but not necessarily are!) faster. In my tests, my fast Ridata CF card "only" slows down PIE cache with some 100% in the worst-case scenario.

2, you could use NetFront instead of PIE, its cache is much faster than that of PIE. (It's another question it's practically useless for online browsing, because of a severe programmatic bug the authors have made)

[zilla31]

personally i can't wait for minimo (firefox for PPC)

[Menneisyys]

personally i can't wait for minimo (firefox for PPC)

The first beta has been released some days ago. It really sucks... hope later versions will be much better.