Shouldn't it be possible to activate caching on MicroSD?

[Mastiff]

I have a MicroSD card for extra storage, it's a SanDisk Ultra MicroSDXC 128GB 48MB/s Class 10. But when I try to activate caching, I get a message saying that Window's can't do that, and the unit may not support it. Shouldn't that work? There is no radio button for choosing between better performance and quick removal either. Is this a thing with the Surface's SD controller?

 

[Afy]

It's not going to help in any case. The SD card is much slower than the disk, and you wouldn't gain anything. IMHO.. YMMV

 

[Mastiff]

Probably right. I see that the max speed I get on writing big files is around 15 mb/s. Not impressive, since the card is rated for 48 mb/s! Is this a limitation in the bus, the chip, or what?

 

[Afy]

I am no expert on SD cards, but I suspect that is the read speed.

 

[Mastiff]

According to the shop it's a a 48/48. Maybe they have marked it wrong?

 

[Mastiff]

Yeah, they seem to... 48 is the read speed according to Sandisk's web page, while the write speed is lower. Annoying, I bought this one because it was marked with a high write speed.

 

[Foreverseeking]

Isn't the point of caching simply storing the used files of the Storage device within the RAM. This means that when saving files or working with files, instead of writing straight onto the SD, it looks up if it's in the RAM first and then saves there. This would mean having much "faster" appearing cards and also saves on wear and tear of constant re-writes, or have I understood that wrong? If that is the case, then caching should be able to work on any storage device, and would actually aid slower devices such as SD cards.

As for the read speeds, 15MBs is very very slow. My Micro SD card writes at that speed! read is closer to 80MBs. The surface can definitely handle faster speeds.

There are many fake cards being sold, inc on Amazon. I think you may have gotten a cheap Chinese Knock-Off.

 

[Mastiff]

Well, I'm not really that into caching, but I think you're about right. It fills up the designated RAM first, and then saves to the card. So it would only help on small files, that can be written in bulk after a caching on single files to memory (I think...).

As for the card itself there's no chinese knock-off here, Norwegian webshops are killed if they try that. Which reminds me that I need to specify my country in the forum settings somewhere. But I never said that the read speed that's slow, it is the write speed that's around 15. Read is pretty close to the 48 mb/s that the card promises.

Edit: Put it in the signature, didn't find any place to define country elsewhere.

 

[leeshor]

Corrected it for you. It's now in your profile.

 

[Mastiff]

Thanks, mr. Bear! Almost, though. I am Mastiff and I live in Norway. but I'm not associate with Mastiff Media, which this leads to. I actually use "Mastiff in Norway" as my signature many places, since people often suppose that I live in the US, especially on US forums. But I'll poke around the settings and find out of that myself.

 

[Mastiff]

Found it. No idea why I didn't see it before... So back to the scheduled programming.

 

[leeshor]

Glad it's all squared away.