Understanding the Treo 650 Memory System

I already explained that the Treo 650 uses a nonvolatile memory system that is different from the volatile memory approach the Treo 600 takes. What I didn't explain is how this change affects the Treo 650 on a practical level, which ultimately led Palm to offer free memory cards to Treo 650 users. Maybe the word "free" got your attention. Although I can't promise that the offer is still available, continue reading to find out how you might be able to snag a free memory card for your Treo 650. In the process, you'll learn some important information about how your device works.

The Treo 600 relies solely on random access memory (RAM) for storing device data and applications that you install. The core Palm applications are stored in read-only memory (ROM) and, therefore, are protected from being lost, but everything else is subject to being lost on a whim if the device should somehow lose battery power. Granted, you'd have to completely forget about charging your device and ignore its low-battery warnings for this to happen, but it's entirely possible. The volatile memory in the Treo 600 makes the device a little like a pet, in that you have to feed it regularly (charge the battery) or it will die (lose the memory). Pets are great, but I don't need that kind of responsibility in my handheld communicator!

Palm realized the memory problem with the Treo 600 and set out to solve it in the Treo 650. The result is the Non-Volatile File System (NVFS), which uses Flash memory, a form of rewritable memory that retains its content without power. Although the 650's new NVFS memory system solved the volatility problem, it introduced a new problem of its own: storage inefficiency. The internal design of the NVFS required a minimum memory allocation of 512 bytes for any discrete piece of information, even if it's far less than 512 bytes. In practical terms, this means that a 32-byte memo takes up 512 byes, which is obviously a serious waste of space.

Note

The Flash memorybased NVFS is also used in the Palm Tungsten T5 handheld device to give it nonvolatile memory.

If the Treo 600 was equally as inefficient in its memory management as the Treo 650, no one would ever know the difference. But the 600's memory management system doesn't have the 512-byte minimum allocation size; a 32-byte memo on the Treo 600 really takes up only 32 bytes. You're probably starting to see where the problem lies. A considerable number of Treo 600 users, possibly even you, made the logical upgrade path to the Treo 650, only to find out that their data suddenly ballooned in size. More important, some users found that their existing data wouldn't even fit on their Treo 650. Sure, it's great knowing that you won't lose your data if your battery dies, but that doesn't help much if you can't even fit your data onto your shiny new Treo 650!

The NVFS memory inefficiency problem wouldn't be that big a deal if Palm had included more internal memory in the Treo 650. The 650 has 23MB of usable nonvolatile memory (22MB in the multilingual version of the device) as well as 10MB of true RAM used as a buffer for the NVFS. The nonvolatile memory is further reduced by the Documents To Go application, which is installed when you first synchronize your device with your PC; see Appendix B, "Conserving Memory on Your Treo 650," for information on how to move applications to a memory card to reduce internal memory overhead. If the nonvolatile memory had simply been increased to, say, 64MB or 128MB, the increased memory requirements of the NVFS wouldn't be an issue.

One other interesting limitation of the NVFS has to do with the internal 10MB RAM buffer. The NVFS is designed so that large chunks of data are read from it into the RAM buffer, where they are then made available to applications. The problem is that you have a maximum of 10MB of true RAM available at any given time. This means that even if you install a hefty 1GB or 2GB memory card, you might encounter an "out of memory" error if you attempt to open a piece of data larger than 10MB. This doesn't apply to all data, as some applications don't open all the contents of a file at once. For example, the RealPlayer application enables you to play MP3 songs that are larger than 10MB.

Note

On average, Treo 650 users have reported that most applications require about 30% more memory than they did on the Treo 600. Using average assumptions for PIM data (contacts, calendar, tasks and memos), the Treo 650 requires approximately an extra 800KB to store PIM data, compared to the Treo 600's storage requirements.

Now the good news. The engineers at Palm realized their mistake with the Treo 650 NVFS memory system and developed a new version of it that uses smaller blocks of memory (32 bytes instead of 512 bytes). This newer memory system is still nonvolatile, yet it has the efficiency of the Treo 600 memory system, giving you the best of both worlds.

The new memory system is available as a software update for some Treo models. Check the Treo 650 Updater page at http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/treo650updater/ to see whether an update is available for your Treo.

Note

Palm's move to the NVFS memory system in the Treo 650 has been interpreted by some as a first step toward shifting to a Treo with an internal hard disk drive for nonvolatile storage, similar to popular digital music players such as Apple's iPod.

If for some reason an update isn't yet available for your device, all is not lost. In a goodwill effort to compensate Treo 650 users for the NVFS memory problem, Palm has an alternative campaign to offer Treo 650 users free 128MB memory cards. It isn't clear how long this offer will last, but visit the following link to see whether you're eligible for a free 128MB memory card: http://web.palmone.com/support/sd.jhtml.