RAM vs App Storage on Bold 9900/9930 and why we only have 6.2GB of free media storage

I keep seeing this conversation pop up, and so I thought I'd do a little expose on the topic. I just thought I'd talk a little bit about RAM, application storage, and why the numbers don't all add up.

People see the 768MB of RAM, and assume that is application storage: it's not. This memory is used when applications are loaded, much like RAM on your PC, you don't install anything on it.

Binary vs Decimal counting:
Why don't we have a full 8GB of storage? 8GB of memory, when formatted isn't actually 8GB in size, it's closer to 7.5GB. For example, I have a 750GB hard drive in my computer, but when you look at the drives properties, it only says 698GB. This is due to binary vs decimal counted bytes of storage.

8GB advertised (but counted in decimal) is really 8,000,000,000 bytes of data. Manufacturers of memory and hard drives advertise in decimal, so 1000 bytes is a kilobyte, but in reality, 1024 bytes is a kilobyte.

Count that now in binary, by dividing the 8 billion number by 1024 three times, and you've got a true 7.45GB of binary counted storage, again, the way your computer will see it.

So why do I only have 6.2GB of total media storage? Obviously we know that part of this total amount is shared with application storage, much like many android devices are, and media storage is a separate partition. Now, your Bold lists 6.2GB of total built in media storage, so there's about 1.2GB of memory left over somewhere after we've figured out the correct true storage at 7.45GB.

According to the Application Management tool built into OS7, the device has about 543.9MB of application storage (used + free), and Memory (RAM) is 767MB, so let's just round that to the advertised 768MB, close enough.

Here's a screenshot of the 768MB of RAM, again, memory used to execute apps, but does not store them.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2...1091484859.png

Now here's a screenshot of the 543.9MB odd amount for application storage.
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1...1091484913.png

So, I hope that clears things up a little bit, granted it makes me ask: "So where is the other approximately 650MB of phantom storage we should have in our media storage folder?" Well, most likely, the rest of this storage is used up by ROM tools and software used to load new OS images to the ROM partition(app storage), and additional files such as a boot sector like on your HDD, partition information, and other permanent/non-flash-able system files.

Please add to this post if you find an error in my thoughts or just have something to share.

so, when a memory leak is concerned, is the leak referring to the apps storage, or memory?

Memory leak is RAM. An application is taking or using more than is needed, so your left with less ram which will result in slower processing and a slow down in performance. But its not always noticeable.



Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

This is a great post and explains very well the concept. I have a 9700 running 6.0.0.615 which I have shrunk with BB BOSS. When I do a cold boot I have about 55MB free, but over the course of 24 - 48 hours it starts getting used up until there is no space left and the phone becomes unberably slow needing a battery pull.

I took a screen shot of the App Storage and it says that 77.4MB are being used for "Other" but it really doesn't say much else.

What is other? How can I manage what takes up space and what doesn't? I have tried uninstalling apps, etc. The picture is more or less the same. If it's cached app data there must be a way to tell the unit to discard or overwrite old data?

Thanks for the comments.

Does OS7 not use a RAMDisk?
That's shocking, but it does explain some things.

hmm,

till I got my OS7 /9900 I was really confused about all RAM/ Application memory etc as on my 9000 it was really tricky (especially with the translations into my language)

Still am a little bit

One time my RAM got up to 940MB with 0 free (of course). So this was probably something like Windows does with it's virt. RAM, wasn't it?

Where I am still confusing is the used RAM of apps. My BB browser gets "bigger and bigger" up to 200MB but even if I delete cache etc. it won't go down till auto off/on. As one time the browser got frozen/stuck it used a lot more RAM and CPU time (the reason for the 940MB) so I had to do a battery pull.

Oh and today was the my first JVM Error on OS7 :/ 106 or so - I found here a information that this is something with GPU.

Apropos GPU - is there blocked memory for the GPU?

So two forced battery pulls in three weeks. Not good but probably we're all used to it :/

Right now I have 490MB used of RAM/Memory of the 767. 380system 112applications 274free. Does cleaning help etc. with bbck etc. here too? or only for applications memory?

Originally Posted by mgateno

This is a great post and explains very well the concept. I have a 9700 running 6.0.0.615 which I have shrunk with BB BOSS. When I do a cold boot I have about 55MB free, but over the course of 24 - 48 hours it starts getting used up until there is no space left and the phone becomes unberably slow needing a battery pull.

I took a screen shot of the App Storage and it says that 77.4MB are being used for "Other" but it really doesn't say much else.

What is other? How can I manage what takes up space and what doesn't? I have tried uninstalling apps, etc. The picture is more or less the same. If it's cached app data there must be a way to tell the unit to discard or overwrite old data?

Thanks for the comments.

yeah I saw that too and would also like to know. ("other")

I have a new bb9900 and I installed whatsapp and I connected it to BB desktop manager to see how I was doing for app storage and it says I only have 125mb left...of 512.

I thought the BB9900 was suppose to have 1gig app storage? Am I wrong? That's a little disappointing... is this an error... or is this normal? I'm completely new to blackberry and I'm coming from an iOS system...

Please, any help or nudges in the right direction would be appreciated!

What is Other in Application MEmory.... i am using a Bold 9900 ... and the Others in Application Memory Show 180MB my Phone keeps hanging up because of it... Please Help me With it ASAP ! :confused:

Thank you for clearing this up! It's so annoying when people confuse Flash storage and RAM

I also moved from iOS&Droid recently, and this is /still/ RIM's major flaw for me.
Having a device with 8GB (or 6.x) just to have these application problems hanging the device at the end of the day because of the 600MB "partitioning" is really proof that RIM, in some aspects, still lives in the stone age.

I wish we could just reformat the whole thing and say "hey, I want 2GB for app storage", like it was made possible in Android.

Originally Posted by M3ta

I wish we could just reformat the whole thing and say "hey, I want 2GB for app storage", like it was made possible in Android.

That old security thing with Blackberry strikes again. The memory used for application storage has hardware support to prevent unauthorized modifications to the OS and applications. It is one of the reasons that Blackerry has been such a difficult target for virus writers.

What is "Other"? I have 200 MB in the Other Category. What is that? Don't think anyone ever answers this.

Also worth noting that just because your memory fluctuates or goes down doesn't mean you have a memory "leak".

If you really have a memory leak you will run out of memory entirely eventually....

Originally Posted by chi1ddd

What is "Other"? I have 200 MB in the Other Category. What is that? Don't think anyone ever answers this.

"Other" in the Application Storage page? I got the impression is that is for memory allocations by applications that they want to be persistent across reboots, and is different from files in the device memory and SD card file systems. The application storage that you see charged to a specific application seems to be the installation size (the .cod files) and never changes, whereas the "other" varies dynamically, and you cannot see what is charged to which application.

I'd rather have more RAM and less media storage as my BB has a 32 GB micro sd for media.

I do think RIM was very deceptive in their advertising relying on the confusion between RAM and App storage.

When they compared the 9800 to 9810 Torch in advertising (9810 is same as 9900 under the hood) they gave the illusion that you would have 768 of app storage compared to the 9800's 'meager' 512 meg. Both the 9800, 9810 AND 9900 have 512 of app storage. RIM COULD and SHOULD have upped it too 768.

Originally Posted by audiosupernova

I keep seeing this conversation pop up, and so I thought I'd do a little expose on the topic. I just thought I'd talk a little bit about RAM, application storage, and why the numbers don't all add up.

People see the 768MB of RAM, and assume that is application storage: it's not. This memory is used when applications are loaded, much like RAM on your PC, you don't install anything on it.

Binary vs Decimal counting:
Why don't we have a full 8GB of storage? 8GB of memory, when formatted isn't actually 8GB in size, it's closer to 7.5GB. For example, I have a 750GB hard drive in my computer, but when you look at the drives properties, it only says 698GB. This is due to binary vs decimal counted bytes of storage.

8GB advertised (but counted in decimal) is really 8,000,000,000 bytes of data. Manufacturers of memory and hard drives advertise in decimal, so 1000 bytes is a kilobyte, but in reality, 1024 bytes is a kilobyte.

Count that now in binary, by dividing the 8 billion number by 1024 three times, and you've got a true 7.45GB of binary counted storage, again, the way your computer will see it.

So why do I only have 6.2GB of total media storage? Obviously we know that part of this total amount is shared with application storage, much like many android devices are, and media storage is a separate partition. Now, your Bold lists 6.2GB of total built in media storage, so there's about 1.2GB of memory left over somewhere after we've figured out the correct true storage at 7.45GB.

According to the Application Management tool built into OS7, the device has about 543.9MB of application storage (used + free), and Memory (RAM) is 767MB, so let's just round that to the advertised 768MB, close enough.

Here's a screenshot of the 768MB of RAM, again, memory used to execute apps, but does not store them.
Click to view quoted image


Now here's a screenshot of the 543.9MB odd amount for application storage.
Click to view quoted image


So, I hope that clears things up a little bit, granted it makes me ask: "So where is the other approximately 650MB of phantom storage we should have in our media storage folder?" Well, most likely, the rest of this storage is used up by ROM tools and software used to load new OS images to the ROM partition(app storage), and additional files such as a boot sector like on your HDD, partition information, and other permanent/non-flash-able system files.

Please add to this post if you find an error in my thoughts or just have something to share.