Root zRam

[gmfausey]

I've seen a couple post about changing the setting for the zRam in Memory Management. What exactly is this for? I pretty new to this android thing so if this is a silly question I apologize.

 

[manukohli]

It's basically virtual RAM from what I understand (like the SWAP space on a linux install) - sets disk space to be set aside to be used as "backup RAM" of sorts.

 

[gmfausey]

SO it's limits the space available for apps to run in the background?

 

[bobloadmire]

Bottom line. Will this improve performance?

 

[gmfausey]

Bottom line. Will this improve performance?

Exactly

 

[thangfish]

It's basically virtual RAM from what I understand (like the SWAP space on a linux install) - sets disk space to be set aside to be used as "backup RAM" of sorts.

It sets aside compressed ram to swap to, instead of swapping to disk.

*Might* improve performance.
Similar to (or same as?) Compcache in CM7.

Faster than swap to disk... But the compressed aspect may increase CPU load.

 

[marc12868]

Here's the article from the wiki:

zRam is an available feature for certain distributions of Linux, that was previously called "compcache". It increases performance by avoiding paging on disk and instead uses a compressed block device in RAM in which paging takes place until it is necessary to use the swap space on the hard disk drive. Since using RAM is faster than using disks, zRam allows Linux to make more use of RAM when swapping/paging is required, especially on older computers with less RAM installed.
Even though the cost of RAM hardware is relatively low this feature still offers advantages for netbooks and other lower-powered latops, virtualization and in the case of embedded devices, especially those that use flash memories that have a limited lifespan, dependent on write-use and thus wear out quickly when used as a swap device.

 

[Whyzor]

It trades CPU cycles for RAM, and only when memory is low. In those situations, without virtual RAM (swapspace), Android kills apps, with zRAM, it would try to compress & save them in swapspace (leaving less regular usable RAM for apps). I personally never used CompCache before, so zRAM is just a newer updated version. To verify it's even enabled, in terminal emulator type 'free -m', and the swap column has to be non-zero.