Just a thought about memory utilization....
So Oneplus 3 is the first mainstream (not the first overall) android phone with 6Gb. Apparently all that memory is not currently utilized. Most likely it is not fully utilized even on 4Gb phones. There is really no point in wasted RAM. Having a lot of open apps in memory is truly great and could be the best use for it, but it also can present some issues. Background apps on android are not always suspended in the best way and can waste resources (CPU, battery). Of course if app and system are optimized correctly this shouldn't happen, but unfortunately it is not always the case. While google optimizes the system with dose features etc, I'm wondering about a simpler option until the better one is built into the system.
RAM is 10 times faster than storage, so why not use a portion of it as a RAMDISK, like in old days (MS DOS times). For those who don't know, RAMDISK is a portion of RAM that is used as a temporary storage (like flash memory), that will be 10 times faster than permanent flash storage.
Basically out of 6Gb RAM that phone has (Oneplus 3), 3Gb would be used as regular RAM and 3GB would be used as a RAMDISK. RAMDISK completely looses all the data after reboot, but the good thing is that phones don't really need to be restarted often. So RAMDISK would be almost permanent. Lets say you have 100 apps on your phone. Out of those you use 30 all the time. It is a bit inconvenient when app that you use often (for example Facebook) is kicked out from the memory and has to reload from flash storage (slow). Instead you could have those 30 apps to be loaded/copied/synchronized to the RAMDISK during initial boot. If app is kicked from regular RAM and needs to be restarted/resumed it would load 10 times faster from the RAMDISK. During regular intervals and before reboot data/cache from RAMDISK can be permanently saved (synchronized) back to the flash storage. If you have your favorite app that keeps misbehaving in the background (uses too much CPU, doesn't let phone to go into deep sleep and kills battery) you can just have it removed from background processes (swipe away, greenify, kill it etc), but then it will be almost instantly reloaded from RAMDISK when you need it later. So in the end you would have all your favorite apps loading super fast, even if it is not currently running in the background. You would sacrifice some RAM for faster app loading, possibly also minimizing battery loss due to some bad apps.
My knowledge of Android system is very limited and I might be very mistaken regarding this option, it's implementation and benefits. I would love to hear what people with better knowledge can say on this topic.
So Oneplus 3 is the first mainstream (not the first overall) android phone with 6Gb. Apparently all that memory is not currently utilized. Most likely it is not fully utilized even on 4Gb phones. There is really no point in wasted RAM. Having a lot of open apps in memory is truly great and could be the best use for it, but it also can present some issues. Background apps on android are not always suspended in the best way and can waste resources (CPU, battery). Of course if app and system are optimized correctly this shouldn't happen, but unfortunately it is not always the case. While google optimizes the system with dose features etc, I'm wondering about a simpler option until the better one is built into the system.
RAM is 10 times faster than storage, so why not use a portion of it as a RAMDISK, like in old days (MS DOS times). For those who don't know, RAMDISK is a portion of RAM that is used as a temporary storage (like flash memory), that will be 10 times faster than permanent flash storage.
Basically out of 6Gb RAM that phone has (Oneplus 3), 3Gb would be used as regular RAM and 3GB would be used as a RAMDISK. RAMDISK completely looses all the data after reboot, but the good thing is that phones don't really need to be restarted often. So RAMDISK would be almost permanent. Lets say you have 100 apps on your phone. Out of those you use 30 all the time. It is a bit inconvenient when app that you use often (for example Facebook) is kicked out from the memory and has to reload from flash storage (slow). Instead you could have those 30 apps to be loaded/copied/synchronized to the RAMDISK during initial boot. If app is kicked from regular RAM and needs to be restarted/resumed it would load 10 times faster from the RAMDISK. During regular intervals and before reboot data/cache from RAMDISK can be permanently saved (synchronized) back to the flash storage. If you have your favorite app that keeps misbehaving in the background (uses too much CPU, doesn't let phone to go into deep sleep and kills battery) you can just have it removed from background processes (swipe away, greenify, kill it etc), but then it will be almost instantly reloaded from RAMDISK when you need it later. So in the end you would have all your favorite apps loading super fast, even if it is not currently running in the background. You would sacrifice some RAM for faster app loading, possibly also minimizing battery loss due to some bad apps.
My knowledge of Android system is very limited and I might be very mistaken regarding this option, it's implementation and benefits. I would love to hear what people with better knowledge can say on this topic.
