Long waits after inserting a SD Card

[mikew]

Hey all,

Well I finally broke down and bought myself a PRS-505 this weekend. I've spent the last 2 years looking at ereaders, and lurking around places like this. On Saturday I happened to go into a Sony store and saw that they finally got off their butts and released the device into Canada. I played with it for roughly 1 minute in the store (the GF was in the waiting and running car) before I said to the guy "ok, lets do this!".

All in all, I'm really happy with the device. Especially since I removed the Sony software and installed Calibre!. The only problem I is when I insert a sdcard that I loaded up with a bunch of books from project Guttenberg. The card has maybe 1600 titles on it right now (excessive I know), and when I insert it the reader takes over 10 minutes to come back to life. I've tried several times now thinking that perhaps it just had to build a database or something. Is this normal? Is this something I can fix? Should I not be such a book whore and only store a few books at a time? If that's the case, what's the point of expanded memory?

Thanks all!

[NatCh]

Welcome to MobileRead, mikew! And congrats on your new toy.

What you're describing is pretty normal: when you put an SD or Memory Stick into a Reader (this is true for the 500 as well as the 505), it goes through the entire contents of the card looking for files it recognizes (books, pictures, MP3s, etc.). When your card is big, and/or has lots of files on it, it takes the Reader some time to sort through all that stuff and index it so that it can serve it up to you when you want it.

One way to speed things up is to load your files onto your memory card through the Reader's PC side software (if you have a PC, of course). When you do that, the PC does the heavy lifting of indexing all the files.


However, I'd suggest that you think about how much your really need/want to carry around on your Reader. Most folks seem to eventually conclude that they really only need a few books at a time on the thing, and ditch the bulk storage.

Personally, I just have the things I'm reading, and a few that I intend to read next (6 or 8 titles at a time, typically) -- I kinda use the Reader as a "Reading Shelf," as well as an actual reading device, simply adding books to it as I decide I want to read them, and pull ones I've already read off at the same time.

There are exceptions, of course, if you plan to be away from any computer for extended periods of time (like months and months) then, yeah it's probably worth cramming an SD card with books. If it's just the novelty of carrying the whole world around with you ... well, that usually wears off pretty quickly.

The other drawback to using memory cards is that they tend to noticably drain your battery faster, because the Reader has to power them as well as itself.

[BookishDreamer]

Welcome to the forum!

Have you considered just loading the hundred or so books you think you'll read in the next few months onto the Reader and use the SD card for long term storage? That's what I do. Right now I have about 150 books on my Reader and permanent storage on 2 SD cards. I only add/delete books on the Reader about once a month. It works for me.

I know there are people who like to use the SD cards for daily reading. Hopefully one of them will chime in. Otherwise, you might be able to search old threads and find some helpful information.

Dreamer

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mikew

Is this normal?

Unfortunately yes.

Originally Posted by mikew

Is this something I can fix?

No.
Unless, that is, you are an electronic genius and you want to write a completely new software for PRS505.

Seriously, you can aleviate this situation when you use the original Sony Library software and copy the books on card while it is inserted. In this case the fantastic Sony Library software builds the database so you reader doesn't need to go through all the books to find out which ones have changed.

Originally Posted by mikew

... and only store a few books at a time?

This is what I tend to do ;-)
I really dislike Sony software very *very* much

Originally Posted by mikew

If that's the case, what's the point of expanded memory?

It looks very good in "technical specification" section of the PR materials ;-)

Plus, it enables us - ubergeeks to use other operating system than Windows and just mount an SD card in a cheap card reader to our Franken PCs and copy reading material for the next few weeks (months) directly.

[mikew]

Hey All,

Thanks for the prompt replies, and telling me what I really should have known from the start. I don't really plan on running the sony software since I have a pretty mixed and varied computing environment (I live on macs, linux/bsd machines, and windows), but since Calibre seems to be able to move books onto the device and it just shows up as a usb mass storage device I should be fine.

I guess I was just trying to flex my nerd muscles when I bumped into friends by carrying around a few thousand books. I'm sure I'll live fine with only 200 or so :P

Once again, thanks.... you guys and this forum rock.