Flash SuperCharger
Gets Rid of Hesitation

Nearly all Android phones, as well as iPhones, and laptops with early SSDs sometimes pause for no apparent reason.  With early SSDs on Windows desktop and laptops, this was studied at length and found to be caused by lack of random write performance.  Android is no different.  In many respects Android is in worse shape as laptops have more hardware options with fewer cost, size, and power restrictions.

To study the scope of hesitation in existing Android devices, we copied about 4GB of data (the entire /userdata partition) from one device on a Motorola Zoom with Stock Android ICS to another drive on the same device with 'cp -a'.  We not only measured the time of the test, but also watched await on the target device to see how responsive it was.

This test shows the bare cards actually do OK in terms of linear throughput, as would be expected based upon the Flash device specifications.  On the other hand, the high latency numbers clearly demonstrate that this device was unusable while the copy was occurring except when managed by Flash SuperCharger. For instance, at both the typical and peak await level, a wake up request requiring only 10 reads or writes would have taken fifteen seconds to a minute, and led to a lost phone call.

Conversely, no matter how intensely the Flash SuperCharger was involved in data operations, it always found time to answer users requests in just a few milliseconds. The device was totally responsive even though processing a massive amount of information.

Those who seek consolation in the amount of data involved in this copy need to remember that linear data copies far more quickly than random data. A few megabytes of 4KB updates would have the same effect of putting the device out to lunch for ten minutes. Conversely, with Flash SuperCharger, the device would continue highly responsive.