Database Users

Touch HD SD, RAM and internal storage.

SKTools tests:
Integer;325.4344;Moves/25 usec
Floating point;6.517;MWIPS
RAM access;459;Speed index
Draw bitmaps;570;Speed index
Main storage (write);1503.67;KB/sec
Main storage (read);5120.00;KB/sec
Storage Card (write); 260.04;KB/sec
Storage Card (read);7366.91;KB/sec
Tests Explained:
- Integer: Comparable to other MSM7201a devices and in SKTools listed as one of the fastest.
Only faster devices are Touch HD2 and Samsungs OmniaII, scoreing 813 and 530 respectivly, showing what we already knew, the new generation of ARM's is quite a bit faster.
- Floating Point: Okish with only new CPU's being much faster (HD2 is 5x faster in FPU operations.)
- RAM Access: REDICULOUSLY SLOW, but exactly the same as all other MSM7201a devices. But scoring just around old 200Mhz device speeds. There are PXA2xx based devices with a RAS from 4x that of what our MSM7201a's show to 20x that speed.
- Draw Bitmaps: Okish compared to other MSM devices, but way slower then Intel PXA's and even the HD2 is only 2ce as fast. (PXA's go up to 3x-4x as fast, Omnia 1 and Omnia 2 being nice examples.)
-Main Storage (Write): Here is where it gets interesting and clear something is funky as hell, either the HD has ****ty ROM chips or the interface in Windows Mobile is messed up. There are devices scoring from 2x to 10x the speed the HD does and some of them (notably the Diamond and Sony X1i which are MSM72xx devices) are 10x faster.
-Main Storage (Read): Same as with Write, slow as ****, the Diamond scores 3x the Diamond, same for X1i, with the HD2 surprisingly being able to read its internal storage at 64MB/s! Our HD's around 5MB/s, pitifull, even a Class 2 SD reads 2ce that easily.
- Storage Card (write): I ran this test a billion times and found the score going from 50KB/s to 500KB/s but never higher. There is a serious problem here, I use class 6 SDHC's of several sizes and all of them score very low. The SD interface is slow as hell which I'm certain is a software / driver problem, because I've tested some drivers from other devices, which worked mindbendingly fast.
As you can see, Ram, Internal Storage and SD speed are all lacking extremely.
Compared to other devices (notably, even the Diamond) its quite ridiculous how slow the HD's internal storage really is.
I propose taking a new approach to speeding things up, most other projects so far have been about tweaking graphics drivers, to offload graphics to more optimized routines, streamlining roms, etc etc.
I propose we start looking for ways to get Ram, Internal storage and SD storage speeds up to par with other devices. That is, if its not all limited to hell by substandard hardware. Which would piss me of even more, since the HD is the most expensive phone HTC had at the time and way cheaper devices like the Diamond score much much better.
A few weeks ago, I tested a driver for the SD Interface in Windows Mobile and overal, read and write for the SD were boosted to phenomenal levels, Class 6 cards were actually worth using (while the above results show a class 2 card doesn't even get used right)
Problem was that after a while I was experiencing data corruption on the SD card, mostly after syncing the phone with Outlook to my Exchange account and getting several thousands of small files on there.
I cleaned the card and did the sync again and the same corruption happend.
My tests with big files (MP3's and AVI's) showed no corruption.
So, I'm at least sure that SD speed can be improved quite seriously. And seeing there are devices like the Diamond, which have a lot of the same hardware the HD does, internal storage should be possible to be boosted quite a bit too.
RAM is weird and I don't really see how it can be so bad because of software alone. Did HTC really set us up with ****ty ram chips there? I don't know.
So yeah, anyone with me to explore the storage area to improve the HD's speed?

USB (not SD!) Readyboost

I'm still running my Shift with the original 1Gb of RAM and its original slow 40Gb hard drive.
Readyboost using the SD card has been discussed plenty on these forums, with the general conclusions that it doesn't make much difference because the extra processing probably eliminates the gain in read speed.
But I am surprised that no-one has discussed using readyboost with a USB stick. Obviously this is only of use when the HTC Shift is sitting on a desk. This site has concluded in the past the read/write speed to the SD card is limited by the shift, and using a faster SD card does not make a difference. But USB memory is quite different, and the HTC Shift is capable of reading and writing to the USB memory stick very quickley indeed.
So I would have thought it would be a no-brainer, when using your HTC Shift on a desktop, to bung in a modern 8Gb USB stick with Readyboost enabled for the full 8gb (or more). I do this, and although I don't perceive any increases in speed, I would have thought an 8Gb cache would really help a slow 40Gb hard drive bottleneck. Unfortunetely I'm too rubbish technically to perform any sort of performance text.
I'm running Windows 7 BTW, but the same idea applies to Vista.

Flanimal said:
I'm still running my Shift with the original 1Gb of RAM and its original slow 40Gb hard drive.
Readyboost using the SD card has been discussed plenty on these forums, with the general conclusions that it doesn't make much difference because the extra processing probably eliminates the gain in read speed.
But I am surprised that no-one has discussed using readyboost with a USB stick. Obviously this is only of use when the HTC Shift is sitting on a desk. This site has concluded in the past the read/write speed to the SD card is limited by the shift, and using a faster SD card does not make a difference. But USB memory is quite different, and the HTC Shift is capable of reading and writing to the USB memory stick very quickley indeed.
So I would have thought it would be a no-brainer, when using your HTC Shift on a desktop, to bung in a modern 8Gb USB stick with Readyboost enabled for the full 8gb (or more). I do this, and although I don't perceive any increases in speed, I would have thought an 8Gb cache would really help a slow 40Gb hard drive bottleneck. Unfortunetely I'm too rubbish technically to perform any sort of performance text.
I'm running Windows 7 BTW, but the same idea applies to Vista.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably readyboost is efficient when Shift has to deal with a lot a small files requiring frequent reads and writes, where the flash memory has better access times than the HDD. I'm not experienced to point out to such cases, but as you say in most of the cases you cannot perceive an increased speed.
But maybe there are other members here who can be more specific.
Anyway, I'm using XP for which readyboost does not work, but there are commercial programs available,

New Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" (SSD) 88.99

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Crucial-M4-128GB-2-5-SATA-III-Solid-State-Drive-SSD-/150866835241
Seen this and it looked like a realy good deal. 88.99 with free shipping
Product Description
Get the superior performance of a solid state drive with the Crucial Technology CT128M4SSD2 SSD. The Crucial Technology SSD has read speeds of up to 415 MB/s, making access to data quick and easy. Featuring second-generation SATA 6 Gbps, this solid state drive is capable of high transfer rates. The Crucial Technology CT128M4SSD2 features Native Command Queuing, which means that the performance is further enhanced. Having no moving parts, this solid state drive is remarkably quiet. The Crucial Technology CT128M4SSD2 will give you reliable operation even in the most challenging environments. Low power, light and sturdy, the Crucial Technology SSD is a must-buy for your system.
Product Identifiers
Brand Crucial
Model CT128M4SSD2
MPN CT128M4SSD2
UPC 649528752185
Key Features
Enclosure Internal
Capacity 128 GB
Hard Drive Type SSD (Solid State Drive)
Interface SATA III
Technical Features
External Data Transfer Rate 300 Mbps
Seek Time 0.1 ms
Dimensions
Height 0.37 in.
Width 3.95 in.
Depth 2.75 in.
Weight 0.17 lbs

Nvidia Shield TV 16GB vs 500GB performance comparison

Hi all, so I've purchased the Nvidia Shield Pro (500GB) model the other day and noticed the device made some slight disk spinning noise, only to realize that this console comes with an HDD rather than flash memory. I also noticed that even thought this device is still running lollipop, I'm still able to utilize any one of the external ports as the default memory.
This question is mainly for those of you who had the opportunity to try both models. I'm not a fan of HDDs much, but the voluminous internal storage is convenient in a way, although I could easily do without it, if the 16gb is the more stable model. From my experience NAND flash based devices seem to run fast, but are they noticeably faster than their hybrid HDD counterparts? Is there any difference in speed and performance between the 16gb and the 500gb Shield TV devices? I'm asking because I noticed the Shield controller's home and back buttons don't always respond, and my device is running build v2.1 which supposedly fixed any known controller bugs. I'm tempted to return the 500gb and grab a 16gb just for the sole fact that the Pro model runs on dated hard disk technology, not to mention the faulty HDD units in some of these models. Let's hear some opinions on this, I've not found any comparison on these from a performance perspective. Every comparison I found so far brags about how advantageous 500gb is over 16gb, but no one seems to compare their performance side by side. So if you've tried out both variants, do you find the standard 16gb edition to process data quicker than the Pro model, and are you experiencing any unresponsiveness with the back and home buttons on shield's controller?
***edit***
Just ordered a 16gb Shield TV Console from GameStop. Since no one's chiming in on the topic, I'll have both versions in a few days and will post my findings after testing them side by side.

I did a little research and from what I understand the only real difference between them is the internal storage. Performance speeds are the same and it support external hard drives and SD cards. I know music, pictures, games, ect. can be stored on the SD card but can apps be stored to or is a root required. Either way I plan on getting the 16GB version and using this 128GB SD I have and rooting it and seeing how it goes. If it's what I think it's like, then this may be one of the greatest things to run the Android OS.

Hello some news ?

To me I went for 16gb version as it would be flash memory so much quicker and no mechanical drives which equal less heat and less fan spooling.
Also the fact that they recalled the 500gb version and we're withdrawn from nvidia site.
Let us know your findings.

TalkDubby2Me said:
I did a little research and from what I understand the only real difference between them is the internal storage. Performance speeds are the same and it support external hard drives and SD cards. I know music, pictures, games, ect. can be stored on the SD card but can apps be stored to or is a root required. Either way I plan on getting the 16GB version and using this 128GB SD I have and rooting it and seeing how it goes. If it's what I think it's like, then this may be one of the greatest things to run the Android OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apps can be stored on the SD card without root access. Keep in mind that the developer of the app must allow for this so there a few apps out there that will only install on internal storage, though I have yet to come across one.

Hey everyone, sorry it took me a month to post back, now that I've owned a 500gb for two weeks and a 16gb for a month, I've noticed a few slight differences. The 500gb was a tiny bit noisier as it utilizes an HDD alongside a nandflash for its internal storage. The HDD disk spins even while the device is in sleep mode, which is normal behavior with HDDs from what I gather. I'm just not a fan of having more moving parts in a device than necessary. Also, software updates and initial installation takes much longer on the 500gb model, probably due to slower write speeds on HDD. WiFi disconnecting bug after waking up from sleep mode on lollipop 5.1.1 seemed more persistent on the 500gb model as well. The only other difference I noticed was with fluidity, the 16gb doesn't seem to have much hiccups/stutters, where as on the 500gb (maybe mine was one of the defective units) it wouldn't respond right away after returning to home screen or in some apps the back and home buttons wouldn't register on first press more often then not (dolphin emulator being one of them). Once I set up the 16gb model, I haven't experienced any such issues, the back and home functions work every time in any app perfectly fine.
From what I can tell, the 500gb model was somewhat of a last minute decision as it feels less refined than the 16gb model. It's also not as great for modding as there seems to be less dev support for it. 500gb model may be a good choice for someone not looking to tweak this device, but rather for simple plug and play without much thinking involved. For all the mods and tweaks, custom ROMs, the 16gb seems to be the more popular choice. It's also the more refined and tested variant in my opinion.

Syndrome666 said:
Hey everyone, sorry it took me a month to post back, now that I've owned a 500gb for two weeks and a 16gb for a month, I've noticed a few slight differences. The 500gb was a tiny bit noisier as it utilizes an HDD alongside a nandflash for its internal storage. The HDD disk spins even while the device is in sleep mode, which is normal behavior with HDDs from what I gather. I'm just not a fan of having more moving parts in a device than necessary. Also, software updates and initial installation takes much longer on the 500gb model, probably due to slower write speeds on HDD. WiFi disconnecting bug after waking up from sleep mode on lollipop 5.1.1 seemed more persistent on the 500gb model as well. The only other difference I noticed was with fluidity, the 16gb doesn't seem to have much hiccups/stutters, where as on the 500gb (maybe mine was one of the defective units) it wouldn't respond right away after returning to home screen or in some apps the back and home buttons wouldn't register on first press more often then not (dolphin emulator being one of them). Once I set up the 16gb model, I haven't experienced any such issues, the back and home functions work every time in any app perfectly fine.
From what I can tell, the 500gb model was somewhat of a last minute decision as it feels less refined than the 16gb model. It's also not as great for modding as there seems to be less dev support for it. 500gb model may be a good choice for someone not looking to tweak this device, but rather for simple plug and play without much thinking involved. For all the mods and tweaks, custom ROMs, the 16gb seems to be the more popular choice. It's also the more refined and tested variant in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I am kinda thinking I would've been better off grabbing the 16 gig model and adding a 128GB sd card. Does anyone know what kind of HD they use on it?

I bought both - one for general living room tv use (16gb) and the 500gb for myself to put in my man cave and play games on. I couldn't wait to set the 500gb up for myself as I had already got the living room one working and I was absolutely gob smacked at what it could do - however - upon setting it up and filling it full of emulation stuff, I found it to be really disappointing. HOWEVER, upon further investigation, I discovered that if you have an external HD attatched to it - in my case a USB 3 2tb one - it dragged like hell, probably due to the fact that the HD is full of emulation artwork etc. Unplugging it seemed to solve the problem and now i'm back up to full speed (more or less) again.

Anyone else think its strange that Nvidia chose to go with completely different designs for both types? Surely it would have been easier, and more cost effective, to just leave the hdd port unoccupied on the 16gb version, so a hdd/ssd could be added at a later date. And £70 just for a 500gb hybrid drive? It certainly seems a bit on the steep side.

I would like to know how much of a difference a SSD would bring to the Pro version compared to the SSHD it has inside, if it's worth it when using it for Plex only

The SATV and the SATV Pro boards are the same with the Pro version having connectors added for the SSHD. The SSHD can be replaced with an SSD, but in my experiences I do not recommend the swap. The SSHD draws .74ma and a 500GB Samsung evo SSD draws 1.5A. I noticed strange behavior of the USB ports (perhaps from current starvation). I guess if one wanted to dive into the power circuit to see if the balance of the components would handle replacing the voltage regulator with a high output current replacement, then with a beefer regulator I would be on board with the ssd swap.
If you are after what the box is meant for the buy a SATV. If you are after dev, then buy a SATV PRO.
The SSHD can be added to the SATV buy soldering on a SATA connector and modifying the device tree....

From what I've read, the Pro model just isn't worth it. Everything runs off the hard drive, including the system ROM, so it is definitely slower. For the $100 difference you could buy a 2 TB external HDD instead and still keep your apps on the internal flash.

Mogster2K said:
From what I've read, the Pro model just isn't worth it. Everything runs off the hard drive, including the system ROM, so it is definitely slower. For the $100 difference you could buy a 2 TB external HDD instead and still keep your apps on the internal flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Plex Server, is the 16GB version still worth it? I indirectly heard that the Plex Server quickly fills up the 16GB data of onboard memory, and cannot be used on an external USB 3.0 drive. Is this correct?
Can we also plug in a USB 3.0 SSD drive to the Shield, and have the system ROM and all apps run from the USB 3.0 SSD drive, leaving the 16GB onboard memory empty? If the answer is yes, then it's a nobrainer to use a regular Shield rather than a Shield Pro.

I can't answer the first question (I run Plex on a PC, not the Shield) but for the second: there is a method but it's a little tricky. I'm using it now with an old SSD.
http://www.videomap.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1580&start=410#p3628
Be sure to format the SSD on your PC and not the Shield or it won't work.

SSD vs. normal hard drive speeds

I am about to upgrade my hard drive and never tried before an SSD, so what members recommend on this?
Does it worth to move to an SSD? as I understand they're much more expensive than traditional ones.
Any suggestion is kindly appreciated

What are you hoping to achieve, obviously you can see the cost difference, but unless you've used them the speed difference may be harder to describe.
I have HD on my home PC, boot time and system start up is where I see the most difference.
SSD start up time is much faster. So you may be able to get an SSD for the system partition only, run your OS from the SSD and some key programs, then use HD for storage.
If cost is not a factor then you could go all out and get a higher capacity SSD and run everything from it

orb_selektor said:
I am about to upgrade my hard drive and never tried before an SSD, so what members recommend on this?
Does it worth to move to an SSD? as I understand they're much more expensive than traditional ones.
Any suggestion is kindly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using SSD's since 2013 and still using the Samsung SSD 840 120GB from that time together with another Samsung SSD 850 Evo + 2 M.2:
- Corsair Force MP510 240 GB, SSD NvME M.2
- Samsung MZ-V7E1T0BW 970 EVO 1 TB NVMe M.2
With the limited access time of HDD's and the limited speed compared to the very low prices of solid state drives you can't go wrong in any way except the storage, or GB per $/€/¥ which is still higher than HDD's.
But since you can get cheap SATAIII SSD's for 30 bucks or even M.2 ones for simply system partition hosting, you benefit in that way a lot and have a fast system experience

orb_selektor said:
I am about to upgrade my hard drive and never tried before an SSD, so what members recommend on this?
Does it worth to move to an SSD? as I understand they're much more expensive than traditional ones.
Any suggestion is kindly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just make sure the interface is compatible. Older PCs may not be. Had that issue with a SATA hybrid hdd.
A SSD for the OS drive and a hdd as a data drive should work well.

andrewmurray86 said:
What are you hoping to achieve, obviously you can see the cost difference, but unless you've used them the speed difference may be harder to describe.
I have HD on my home PC, boot time and system start up is where I see the most difference.
SSD start up time is much faster. So you may be able to get an SSD for the system partition only, run your OS from the SSD and some key programs, then use HD for storage.
If cost is not a factor then you could go all out and get a higher capacity SSD and run everything from it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice mate, cost is an issue now, will consider your idea here.
Cheers
strongst said:
I'm using SSD's since 2013 and still using the Samsung SSD 840 120GB from that time together with another Samsung SSD 850 Evo + 2 M.2:
- Corsair Force MP510 240 GB, SSD NvME M.2
- Samsung MZ-V7E1T0BW 970 EVO 1 TB NVMe M.2
With the limited access time of HDD's and the limited speed compared to the very low prices of solid state drives you can't go wrong in any way except the storage, or GB per $/€/¥ which is still higher than HDD's.
But since you can get cheap SATAIII SSD's for 30 bucks or even M.2 ones for simply system partition hosting, you benefit in that way a lot and have a fast system experience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So SSD it is!, thanks buddy, will check those ones for cheaper investment for now.
Gracias!
blackhawk said:
Just make sure the interface is compatible. Older PCs may not be. Had that issue with a SATA hybrid hdd.
A SSD for the OS drive and a hdd as a data drive should work well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Luckily not my case but good to consider!
Thanks

andrewmurray86 said:
What are you hoping to achieve, obviously you can see the cost difference, but unless you've used them the speed difference may be harder to describe.
I have HD on my home PC, boot time and system start up is where I see the most difference.
SSD start up time is much faster. So you may be able to get an SSD for the system partition only, run your OS from the SSD and some key programs, then use HD for storage.
If cost is not a factor then you could go all out and get a higher capacity SSD and run everything from it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I do. OS, Browsers and Games are o the SSD. Everything else is installed on my D: Drive

orb_selektor said:
I am about to upgrade my hard drive and never tried before an SSD, so what members recommend on this?
Does it worth to move to an SSD? as I understand they're much more expensive than traditional ones.
Any suggestion is kindly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SSD is an absolute game changer. Going from HDD (even a fast 10k RPM one in RAID) to an SSD makes everything dramatically faster...even if you're just using a lot of Chrome etc. I'm using an NVMe drive, which is even faster than traditional SSD.

svetius said:
SSD is an absolute game changer. Going from HDD (even a fast 10k RPM one in RAID) to an SSD makes everything dramatically faster...even if you're just using a lot of Chrome etc. I'm using an NVMe drive, which is even faster than traditional SSD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Be fun to setup 2 or 3 in RAID 0

orb_selektor said:
I am about to upgrade my hard drive and never tried before an SSD, so what members recommend on this?
Does it worth to move to an SSD? as I understand they're much more expensive than traditional ones.
Any suggestion is kindly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i put SSD's in all my computers a bit ago and havent looked back. Only thing better is the M.2 stuff, and not all hardware supports it. SSD all the way