Just got me a new microSDHC card, (16GB! class 10! whoo!) Now, what should I do with it?

I was going to try to move the swap file over to the SDHC, and to install NITdroid on it. What are some other fun things to try? And if there are dependencies, in what order should I try them?

Happy New Year!

I have just added a 32GB class 10 microSDHC. I put large vfat, 768MB swap and 5GB ext4 partitions on it. I'm using the swap space at the same priority as the internal swap partition and this seems to help quite a bit when doing things like simultaneously running mappero, the media player and microb. The ext4 partition is dedicated to easy debian, again a nice improvement over the loop device file.

Sorry to say that, but my suggestion would be to sell it, and buy exactly same one but class 4. It is *much* more efficient, when using it for swap on microSD, Easy Debian, and things like that. Class 10 cards are inferior @ random read&write - their only advantage is (much) faster bulk write speed (sometimes, bulk read to).

Also, there is no much sense on using both internal swap and swap on microSD with same priority - use swap *only* on microSD. The main benefit from such setup, is that You're free of I/O conflicts, between opt (/dev/mmcblk0p2) and swap (/dev/mmcblk0p3). Performance gain from simultaneous usage of both swaps is negligible (You can google for flash RAID 0 article, it's much laugh to read. Almost, like floppy RAID 0 one).

/Estel

I know that you and others have been making this point for some time. My only concern with using only the sdhc for swap is what might happen during simultaneous heavy swapping and easy debian use. So the compromise was my first go. I'll have to try it the other way as well.

Good point, but I think it's more sane (performance-wise) to have swap on microSD and ED on ext4 dedicated partition, using eMMC. Generally, optfs and ED under chroot should not generate I/O conflicts, unlike swap partition, where as-close-to-real-time-as possible reaction is desired.

/Estel

w00t?!
I just received my transcend 16GB class 10 microSD yesterday!
Without even thinking for a moment, I went right to installing Nemo!

@Estel - that's interesting about class 4 cards being faster. Where are you getting that info?

@jacktanner,

The class number is not really a standardized, formalized, classification. Meaning anyone can almost give whatever class they want to their cards.

Class 10 means the card can be written to *sequentially* at 10Mb/s or more. This is useful if you record HD videos on the card (i.e. for a digital video camera).

Some (most?) class 10 cards manage that, at the expense of a usually lower performance under random writes when compared to "lower" cards, such as class 2 or 4.

I have a Sandisk class 2 (or 4?, not sure now) card and it can do 10Mb/s when writing, perhaps not consistently, but I don't care. Performance for swap, as well as for a debian squeeze chroot I installed on an ext3 partition, is perfectly adequate.