7 ms·

I wonder how much of that is the software demands increasing and the flash storage itself wearing out over time. As flash storage wears it'll often go slower an

I wonder how much of that is the software demands increasing and the flash storage itself wearing out over time. As flash storage wears it'll often go slower and slower as the error correction needs to process more to actually get you the uncorrupted bits. This is why a lot of cheap devices tend to just become unbearably slow after a while, their storage just gets to be way too slow. Flash storage doesn't last forever, and it's got a whole gradient of failure and wear experiences.

lencastre 3y ago
is there something like crystaldiskinfo for iOS?
chimeracoder 3y ago
> I wonder how much of that is the software demands increasing and the flash storage itself wearing out over time. As flash storage wears it'll often go slower and slower as the error correction needs to process more to actually get you the uncorrupted bits. This is why a lot of cheap devices tend to just become unbearably slow after a while, their storage just gets to be way too slow. Too bad no flagship phones have removable storage anymore, because that would be a really easy fix to this problem.
- vel0city 3y ago
  If we're looking at older phones with removable storage, it usually limited what could be put on the SD card. And in the end the OS and system libraries were still on the on-board storage which would wear out over the years. And there's good reason for the OS not being on a microSD card. Run a Raspberry Pi without locking the storage and see how fast it'll corrupt itself. Most SD cards have pretty miserable reliability compared to the storage on-board. Imagine if you had to re-image your device every few weeks after your storage device corrupted itself again. Not really a great experience.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Perhaps SDcard isn't the right standard. Or some stress testing certification is in order
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    IDK, I've never had a RPi corrupt an SD card to my knowledge. Also, there are now SD cards optimized for the load patterns similar to that of an OS. There's unfortunately slightly different issue here: if the phone vendor puts the OS on an user-replaceable SD card, then the UX quality and reliability of the device depends on the SD card vendor, which is a bad position to be in, given how much fraud is happening in this space.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Phones could ship with a good SD card which will get the vast majority of consumers to end-of-useful-life for their device. At that point if a user replaces it with crap, it's kind of on them. Similar to how cell phone chargers are now.
    - ascagnel_ 3y ago
      I've never had an RPi corrupt an SD card, but I had one (running pi-hole) wear out a card over the course of about six months. It was pretty easy to get everything back up and running (it needed a new card with the most recent version of the default OS package), and I was able to resolve the situation long-term by using log2ram to space out writes to the SD card (at the risk of losing a day's worth of logs).
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    With cloud backup... this isn't as defensible as it used to be. Today, Apple/Google could design a phone with (a) a user-replacable battery & (b) no flash, only RAM + removable SD storage + long-life EEPROM. Boot loader, SD validator, and minimal image retrieval goes in EEPROM. Storage contents continually backed up, encrypted, to cloud with delta updates. Customer prompted to replace SD card and device reimagined whenever there's an issue. Apple/Google sell cloud storage subscriptions. Aka the cockroach phone. That they aren't even interested in that model is because they're in a Faustian bargain with cellular carriers to drive device renewals and post-paid plans. And integrated batteries and flash memory happen to be a convenient "Oh well, we can't possibly design it any other way" excuse.
- p1necone 3y ago
  I just don't buy flagship phones, you can get midrange stuff with removable micro sd, oled, >60hz screen etc. Sure the CPU isn't as fast but unless you're playing games it makes almost no difference.
codethief 3y ago
Interesting, finally I have an idea of why my phones have always gotten slower over time. Is there a way to measure error rates and/or average storage latency on my (Android) phone somehow?
- azzentys 3y ago
  eMMC usually has csd and ext_csd registers that tells information regarding wear level and such. It's easy to access these from Linux, but not sure how we would do it on Android.
  - starkparker 3y ago
    You can build/install mmc-utils on the device (even from Google's repo,[1] if outdated) but can't access the storage device paths without root. If you're on a custom ROM, the mmc command might even be part of it. 1: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/mmc-utils/ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/mmc-utils...
entropicgravity 3y ago
Don't be surprised if your latest 'update' is a 'downdate' in disguise. IE it's purposely designed to go slower when the maker has decided that it's time for you to upgrade your device.

lencastre 3y ago

is there something like crystaldiskinfo for iOS?

chimeracoder 3y ago

> I wonder how much of that is the software demands increasing and the flash storage itself wearing out over time. As flash storage wears it'll often go slower and slower as the error correction needs to process more to actually get you the uncorrupted bits. This is why a lot of cheap devices tend to just become unbearably slow after a while, their storage just gets to be way too slow. Too bad no flagship phones have removable storage anymore, because that would be a really easy fix to this problem.

vel0city 3y ago
If we're looking at older phones with removable storage, it usually limited what could be put on the SD card. And in the end the OS and system libraries were still on the on-board storage which would wear out over the years. And there's good reason for the OS not being on a microSD card. Run a Raspberry Pi without locking the storage and see how fast it'll corrupt itself. Most SD cards have pretty miserable reliability compared to the storage on-board. Imagine if you had to re-image your device every few weeks after your storage device corrupted itself again. Not really a great experience.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Perhaps SDcard isn't the right standard. Or some stress testing certification is in order
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  IDK, I've never had a RPi corrupt an SD card to my knowledge. Also, there are now SD cards optimized for the load patterns similar to that of an OS. There's unfortunately slightly different issue here: if the phone vendor puts the OS on an user-replaceable SD card, then the UX quality and reliability of the device depends on the SD card vendor, which is a bad position to be in, given how much fraud is happening in this space.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Phones could ship with a good SD card which will get the vast majority of consumers to end-of-useful-life for their device. At that point if a user replaces it with crap, it's kind of on them. Similar to how cell phone chargers are now.
  - ascagnel_ 3y ago
    I've never had an RPi corrupt an SD card, but I had one (running pi-hole) wear out a card over the course of about six months. It was pretty easy to get everything back up and running (it needed a new card with the most recent version of the default OS package), and I was able to resolve the situation long-term by using log2ram to space out writes to the SD card (at the risk of losing a day's worth of logs).
- ethbr1 3y ago
  With cloud backup... this isn't as defensible as it used to be. Today, Apple/Google could design a phone with (a) a user-replacable battery & (b) no flash, only RAM + removable SD storage + long-life EEPROM. Boot loader, SD validator, and minimal image retrieval goes in EEPROM. Storage contents continually backed up, encrypted, to cloud with delta updates. Customer prompted to replace SD card and device reimagined whenever there's an issue. Apple/Google sell cloud storage subscriptions. Aka the cockroach phone. That they aren't even interested in that model is because they're in a Faustian bargain with cellular carriers to drive device renewals and post-paid plans. And integrated batteries and flash memory happen to be a convenient "Oh well, we can't possibly design it any other way" excuse.
p1necone 3y ago
I just don't buy flagship phones, you can get midrange stuff with removable micro sd, oled, >60hz screen etc. Sure the CPU isn't as fast but unless you're playing games it makes almost no difference.

codethief 3y ago

Interesting, finally I have an idea of why my phones have always gotten slower over time. Is there a way to measure error rates and/or average storage latency on my (Android) phone somehow?

azzentys 3y ago
eMMC usually has csd and ext_csd registers that tells information regarding wear level and such. It's easy to access these from Linux, but not sure how we would do it on Android.
- starkparker 3y ago
  You can build/install mmc-utils on the device (even from Google's repo,[1] if outdated) but can't access the storage device paths without root. If you're on a custom ROM, the mmc command might even be part of it. 1: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/mmc-utils/ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/mmc-utils...

entropicgravity 3y ago

Don't be surprised if your latest 'update' is a 'downdate' in disguise. IE it's purposely designed to go slower when the maker has decided that it's time for you to upgrade your device.