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View Full Version : CF or SD memory cards same as extra RAM onboard?


lderooy
12-13-2002, 04:45 AM
If I go out and purchase a CF sleave for my ipaq (or buy a new device) I was wondering if inserting a CF or SD card is the same thing as adding more base RAM, ie anything on the CF card is readily available or is it like having a remote drive where I would have to copy the data from the CF card to base RAM to use it.

Janak Parekh
12-13-2002, 05:00 AM
It's not the same as RAM (a bit slower, can't act as program memory), but it's always-accessible within a Pocket PC. It's certainly not the same as the currently-broken Palm file system... :)

It appears as a "Storage Card" within File Explorer, at the top-level.

--bdj

Pony99CA
12-13-2002, 07:25 AM
It's not the same as RAM (a bit slower, can't act as program memory), but it's always-accessible within a Pocket PC. It's certainly not the same as the currently-broken Palm file system... :)

It appears as a "Storage Card" within File Explorer, at the top-level.

Yes, CF or SD memory has to be storage memory. You can install programs there, put data files there, etc.

However, besides what you mentioned, there are some other issues.

First, and probably largest, files in the memory card's My Documents directory will not automatically be synchronized.

Second, if you don't put a My Documents folder on the storage card, you may have problems later on if you do. This Web site had a thread about this (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2863) back in August.

Third, if you have a program on the memory card displayed in the Start Menu, the program's icon will not be displayed correctly after a soft reset (at least on my iPAQ 3870). Making any changes to the Start Menu (or the Windows/Start Menu directory) will get the icon to display until the next soft reset.

Steve

P.S. Why the new name?

shawnc
12-13-2002, 07:19 PM
If I go out and purchase a CF sleave for my ipaq (or buy a new device) I was wondering if inserting a CF or SD card is the same thing as adding more base RAM, ie anything on the CF card is readily available or is it like having a remote drive where I would have to copy the data from the CF card to base RAM to use it.

Take a look at your Private Message box. I may have something of interest to you.

Pony99CA
12-14-2002, 11:28 AM
If I go out and purchase a CF sleave for my ipaq (or buy a new device) I was wondering if inserting a CF or SD card is the same thing as adding more base RAM, ie anything on the CF card is readily available or is it like having a remote drive where I would have to copy the data from the CF card to base RAM to use it.

Take a look at your Private Message box. I may have something of interest to you.
Now share with the rest of the class -- we might be interested, too. :-)

Steve

Matt Cassidy
12-14-2002, 03:57 PM
So what did we see? Anything to answer the question?

shawnc
12-14-2002, 04:58 PM
Take a look at your Private Message box. I may have something of interest to you.
Now share with the rest of the class -- we might be interested, too. :-)

Steve[/quote]

I have some ipaq supplies that iderooy may be interested in (targus keyboard, vaja case, SS2 etc. all in mint condition). Didn't want to get flamed for an inappropriate posting :agrue:

But since you asked............ :wink:

Sven Johannsen
12-14-2002, 05:11 PM
So what did we see? Anything to answer the question?

I suppose it was talked around a bit.

If I go out and purchase a CF sleave for my ipaq (or buy a new device) I was wondering if inserting a CF or SD card is the same thing as adding more base RAM,

No it is not. It is much more analagous to adding hard drive space to a desktop. You can load programs there (for the most part) and have significantly more file storage space, but it does not add to base RAM, in that it does not increase program execution space.

ie anything on the CF card is readily available or is it like having a remote drive where I would have to copy the data from the CF card to base RAM to use it.

Yes the data is readily available, just as it would be on a hard drive. You do not have to do any manual 'copying', the OS takes care of that. Just like clicking on an app on a hard drive, clicking on an app, or a shortcut to and app, on a flash card will cause the executable code to load what and where it needs (to base RAM, program space), and any document you open from a flash card will do the same.

Imagine if you had a GIG of RAM on your desktop and configured half of it to be a RAM Disk (if you remember those). You could install programs to the RAM Disk and they would load very rapidly, but you would only have 512M of RAM to operate in. Your performance is better with more RAM on the desktop, just as the performance is better on a PPC with more available Program space in Main RAM.

The Storage Space in main RAM will expand to fit what you put in there at the expense of Program space, the area all programs need to execute. You can use the flash cards to augment storage space which indirectly gives you more program space to work with, but it does not add to program space directly.

What are the drawbacks to flash storage. A bit of speed hit when loading. Can be significant if the app needs to do a lot of code swapping into limited RAM. A bit of power hit since the read/write to a flash card takes more power than reading/writing to RAM. Though retaining data on a flash card does not take power, while retaining it on a main RAM does. Moving things to flash doesn't save you anything though, since the Main RAM is powered whether anything is there or not. There is some delay in accessing flash at startup (reboot actually), so startup apps don't always take well to being on flash.

How's that?

lderooy
12-15-2002, 07:34 PM
OK I think I kinda understand the differences. I guess in kind of a back around way I was leading to this question. What is the main difference between two identical pocketPC devices one with 32M RAM and a 32M SD or CF card and the other with 64M RAM?

As you all responded it looks like the device with 64M RAM might be better because you can load up either more data (as in a hard drive analagy) or more concurrent programs (as in the RAM analagy). Where the one with 32M RAM and 32M SD card would somewhat have the same capability but at times might be a little slower, may use up more power to access the SD, and will need extra help to sync to my computer.

Oh I also did not know that I had a private message box but I will respond to shawnc :D

Janak Parekh
12-15-2002, 09:08 PM
As you all responded it looks like the device with 64M RAM might be better because you can load up either more data (as in a hard drive analagy) or more concurrent programs (as in the RAM analagy). Where the one with 32M RAM and 32M SD card would somewhat have the same capability
The capacity will be the same, but not the capability. As you mentioned, the 64MB machine will be able to run more programs simultaneously. Even if you were to stick most of your programs on the SD card on a 32MB device, you'd still have to use some of the 32MB for data; and having a unified 64MB RAM is always convenient.

Mind you, PPC2002 is not completely unusable on 32MB of RAM. I had a 3650 for 2 years and managed just fine. 64MB is really nice, though, if you want SimCity 2000, Acrobat Reader, or other large programs.

--janak

Pony99CA
12-17-2002, 09:53 AM
Mind you, PPC2002 is not completely unusable on 32MB of RAM. I had a 3650 for 2 years and managed just fine.

First, you didn't have a 3650 with Pocket PC 2002 for 2 years (unless you were beta testing it). :-) Pocket PC 2002 wasn't released until October 2001.

Also, did you really manage fine with Pocket PC 2002 on that 3650? One reason I replaced my 3650 with my 3870 was because the entire Pocket PC 2002 upgrade wouldn't fit entirely in ROM, and I didn't want to lose any of the 32 MB that I had.

Also, the upgrade was only Pocket PC 2002 Professional (AKA PPC 2002 Lite :-)), not PPC 2002 Premium, and Compaq was charging money for that upgrade.

Steve

lderooy
12-17-2002, 02:30 PM
It so happens that I have a 3650 with the 2002 upgrade. It seems to work well for the things that I do with it but I need more memory to store bigger data files (Hence the start of this topic). Thanks to a hidden message I should soon be a happy owner of a used CF sleeve. :D

There were time when I needed to swap out datafiles with my main computer and there are various things that I want to do with my PPC but are currently limited. (Ie I don't do email on it)

Am I really managing fine with Pocket PC 2002 on that 3650? Yes
Would I like a faster PPC? Yes
Can I afford one (Or justify it to my wife?) No

Janak Parekh
12-17-2002, 04:38 PM
First, you didn't have a 3650 with Pocket PC 2002 for 2 years (unless you were beta testing it). :-) Pocket PC 2002 wasn't released until October 2001.
Ah, you got me! :) Sorry, I used it with PPC 2000 for a year plus, followed by PPC 2002. Mind you, PPC 2000 didn't have that much a smaller footprint -- upgraded WMP's sat in RAM...

Also, did you really manage fine with Pocket PC 2002 on that 3650? One reason I replaced my 3650 with my 3870 was because the entire Pocket PC 2002 upgrade wouldn't fit entirely in ROM, and I didn't want to lose any of the 32 MB that I had.
Yes, actually, I did. I only kept a core of applications installed in RAM: WMP, MS Reader, PocketDivX, Pocket Informant, the MS Entertainment Pack, Cubicle Chaos, and maybe one or two more productivity apps. No problems, RAM was a little tight, but I didn't ever run into low-memory messages.

If you think about it, that's more than the non-power-user would ever have used.

Also, the upgrade was only Pocket PC 2002 Professional (AKA PPC 2002 Lite :-)), not PPC 2002 Premium, and Compaq was charging money for that upgrade.
That is absolutely correct. Gotta love MS's terminology (Professional? Premium? How about Platinum? :))

--janak

Gen-M
12-17-2002, 04:58 PM
Good things never die.... :roll:

PPC 2002 Professional is what is installed on the iPaq 1910 8O

Pony99CA
12-18-2002, 03:47 AM
Also, did you really manage fine with Pocket PC 2002 on that 3650? One reason I replaced my 3650 with my 3870 was because the entire Pocket PC 2002 upgrade wouldn't fit entirely in ROM, and I didn't want to lose any of the 32 MB that I had.
Yes, actually, I did. I only kept a core of applications installed in RAM: WMP, MS Reader, PocketDivX, Pocket Informant, the MS Entertainment Pack, Cubicle Chaos, and maybe one or two more productivity apps. No problems, RAM was a little tight, but I didn't ever run into low-memory messages.

If you think about it, that's more than the non-power-user would ever have used.

Probably. I read a statement (without much proof :-)) that most users never install anything extra on their devices. I guess I just like to load up my device; 32 MB was too small before Pocket PC 2002 came out.

It's odd that 16 MB didn't seem too small on my Handheld PC. :-)

Steve

Janak Parekh
12-18-2002, 04:36 AM
Probably. I read a statement (without much proof :-)) that most users never install anything extra on their devices. I guess I just like to load up my device; 32 MB was too small before Pocket PC 2002 came out.
Well, as soon as you start doing things like SimCity 2000 or Acrobat Reader...

It's odd that 16 MB didn't seem too small on my Handheld PC. :-)
That's because there's still not enough software out for it. :D

--janak