Maximum number of books?

[bookp]

I got a T3 and inserted a 16GB SD card with 25,000 books. After working for 10 minutes, the reader found just 3,351 books. I let it work for another 30 min, but the number is not increasing anymore.

Is 3,351 books the maximum number the software can read from an SD card? On the internal memory I already have 2,399 books which adds to a total number of 5,750.

I'm quite disappointed because I purchased the device so I could carry my entire collection.

I'm also curious if other Sony Readers don't have this problem.

[Ashjuk]

25,000 - crazy!!

If you read one book a day - every day of the week, every week of the year - it is going to take you nearly 70 years to read all of those, and that does not allow for any new books that take your fancy.

Just be realistic.

[bla]

I don't know of any intrinsic limit but I suspect the software may eventually choke on loading that number of titles lol take the card out do a power recycle and try again

good luck

[Ripplinger]

When I got my first ereader I wanted to keep every book I owned on it. When I hit around 1200 books, I noticed that all reader functions in general slowed down and quite a bit as to make it very noticeable, and very annoying.

I realized how silly it was to insist on carrying around every single book I owned with me at all times and got over that obsession. I now stick to between 300-400 books at most on the reader at any time, deleting books after I've read them. I have my entire book collection backed up on 2 PCs as well as in cloud storage, so there's no chance of losing them, and 300 gives me enough of a variety to load so I'll always have something to read that strikes the mood at any time. And with cloud storage, in case I absolutely must have a book not on the reader at any moment, I can download it.

I don't know of any reader that won't slow down considerably when adding an excessive amount of books. Even if it could complete the task of indexing 25,000 books, all reader functions would also slow down considerably. Yes, they all claim they can hold an enormous number of books, but the reality of using a reader with that many books in its memory make you realize it's best to never do it.

[speakingtohe]

I had 4,000+ on my PRS-600 and on my T1. I didn't have an SD card so that was that.

There seemed to be processing problems with the T1 when the reader went to sleep while processing. Sometimes not all the books showed up and sometimes series info from plugboards not complete etc.

Ejecting my reader after sending the books unhooking it, hooking it back up to computer without connecting seemed to keep it awake long enough to process the books IIRC

Helen

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

When I got my first ereader I wanted to keep every book I owned on it. When I hit around 1200 books, I noticed that all reader functions in general slowed down and quite a bit as to make it very noticeable, and very annoying.

I realized how silly it was to insist on carrying around every single book I owned with me at all times and got over that obsession. I now stick to between 300-400 books at most on the reader at any time, deleting books after I've read them. I have my entire book collection backed up on 2 PCs as well as in cloud storage, so there's no chance of losing them, and 300 gives me enough of a variety to load so I'll always have something to read that strikes the mood at any time. And with cloud storage, in case I absolutely must have a book not on the reader at any moment, I can download it.

I don't know of any reader that won't slow down considerably when adding an excessive amount of books. Even if it could complete the task of indexing 25,000 books, all reader functions would also slow down considerably. Yes, they all claim they can hold an enormous number of books, but the reality of using a reader with that many books in its memory make you realize it's best to never do it.

Other than the initial indexing I did not encounter any slowdown with 4000 books, and basically I put that many on out of curiosity.

I did (forgot to mention when making my last post) 8000 books on my T1 with an SD card inserted. It did take an extra 15-20 minutes to index but was just as fast opening a book or collection or turning pages.

I did encounter a lot more application close and black screens which I did not have before.

They were the same books I just used a different plugboard to write them as I was curious. So I don't think it was a bad book. I am thinking it is an SD card issue.

I will perhaps try it on my T3 one of these days and as I have not had one application close on it, no matter how hard I try, so the difference when using an SD card if there is one should be apparent.

Helen

[filmo]

With number of books your trying to install turn off display of covers for library. Adding books 1,000 or less at once from Calibre should be all right. If reader stalls loading books remove last book installed might solve problem or maybe one after last book trying to install. When that happens I install fewer books at once so I can discover the problem book.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by bookp

I got a T3 and inserted a 16GB SD card with 25,000 books. After working for 10 minutes, the reader found just 3,351 books. I let it work for another 30 min, but the number is not increasing anymore.

Is 3,351 books the maximum number the software can read from an SD card? On the internal memory I already have 2,399 books which adds to a total number of 5,750.

I'm quite disappointed because I purchased the device so I could carry my entire collection.

I'm also curious if other Sony Readers don't have this problem.

Why would you want to carry your entire collection with you? Are you going somewhere important?

Reading 100 titles a year would take.....would take....let's see now.....1000 titles would be 10 years. Let's see now: Wouldn't that be about 250 years?

My suggestion: Put calibre on your computer and let that program manage your collection. Use your Reader to manage your interest in what you're thinking about reading.



Don

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Why would you want to carry your entire collection with you? Are you going somewhere important?

Reading 100 titles a year would take.....would take....let's see now.....1000 titles would be 10 years. Let's see now: Wouldn't that be about 250 years?

My suggestion: Put calibre on your computer and let that program manage your collection. Use your Reader to manage your interest in what you're thinking about reading.



Don

Problem with that approach is still having to make reading choices before leaving calibre... I make my reading choices when I've finished current book(s) therefore want a pocket library so that my choices are from all my ebooks. It doesn't matter that I am unlikely to read everything I have, I don't care... I just want the choice of everything I can get that I might want to read, when I want to choose rather than being constrained to choosing by not having titles on the reader - hence one of the main reasons some people want to have thousands of books on their reader - choice when you want to choose rather than choice before you want to choose...

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by elcreative

.... I want to choose rather than being constrained to choosing by not having titles on the reader - hence one of the main reasons some people want to have thousands of books on their reader - choice when you want to choose rather than choice before you want to choose...

I agree, and I think it's ridiculous to say that a device can use large micro-SD cards if they can't handle the amount of files that the card can carry.

I feel like it's false advertising. If a device can't handle anything over what a 2gig card can carry, they shouldn't advertise that it can take a larger card. Or at least make it clear that anything over the size the device can handle is wasted space. And you certainly should be able to use the internal space without any problems with access or indexing.

Frankly, the "Carrying that many books is crazy" is beyond old. Any time someone wants to figure out what the limitations of their current device is, there are those who post that they shouldn't be doing so. Then we get into discussions about why some of us want to do so, just to get ignored, when the question wasn't 'should I' carry them, but 'can I on this device.

Questioning why someone wants to something is not helpful, and is just beating a dead horse. We want to, so that's all that matters. If you can't help with the specific problem on that specific device, then why even get in on the thread?

Because 'We Want To' should be enough reason to ask for technical help.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

I agree, and I think it's ridiculous to say that a device can use large micro-SD cards if they can't handle the amount of files that the card can carry.

I feel like it's false advertising. If a device can't handle anything over what a 2gig card can carry, they shouldn't advertise that it can take a larger card. Or at least make it clear that anything over the size the device can handle is wasted space. And you certainly should be able to use the internal space without any problems with access or indexing.

Frankly, the "Carrying that many books is crazy" is beyond old. Any time someone wants to figure out what the limitations of their current device is, there are those who post that they shouldn't be doing so. Then we get into discussions about why some of us want to do so, just to get ignored, when the question wasn't 'should I' carry them, but 'can I on this device.

Questioning why someone wants to something is not helpful, and is just beating a dead horse. We want to, so that's all that matters. If you can't help with the specific problem on that specific device, then why even get in on the thread?

Because 'We Want To' should be enough reason to ask for technical help.

Except that there is no technical help to solve this issue. It happens with all readers. We're offering suggestions on how to get around the issue, which invariably will come down to not expecting to have 25,000 books on an ereader. The software, hardware and memory with e-ink readers obviously isn't as robust as your desktop PCs. If you still want to use an e-ink reader to have the benefits of reading in sunlight, long battery life, and changing fonts, then you need to work around the issue.

Some can have thousands of books without issues, possibly it's the formatting of the books, number of images within a book, size of the books, whether there's any errors in the books (errors can choke any reader if they're bad enough even with 100 books on the reader), or any combination of these. But I think 25,000 books is unrealistic on any ereader.

False advertising? Maybe. Because your car is advertised to go 150mph, do you drive at 150mph?

Someone asked, a few of us answered as best we could thinking they're not aware of ereader issues. We're not beating a dead horse. Complain to the manufacturers, we can't change the limitations of ereaders, we can only offer suggestions on how we live with the limitations.

[Shopaholic]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

False advertising? Maybe. Because your car is advertised to go 150mph, do you drive at 150mph?

Excellent example! Same as gas mileage. In an ideal world you can get xyz mileage but in the real world it's something else. Or even battery life of a reader. 2 months if you read only half an hour per day. Sony says you can put a 32gb card in the device & hold thousands of books but as far as I know, no data on specifics of those books nor are there details on how it affects usage of the device.

Not to add to the frustration of those wanting to carry their entire library but I too feel carrying 25,000 is too much. I like choice too but if it's going to bog down my device or take me too long to decide because I have too many to choose from, it's not much use to me. Heck even at a few hundred I have a hard time remembering what books I have. I wouldn't stand a chance at 25,000.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

False advertising? Maybe. Because your car is advertised to go 150mph, do you drive at 150mph?

Some might, and most would like it capable of going 50MPH don't you think?

The OP was asking

Is 3,351 books the maximum number the software can read from an SD card?

and your answer was at least both polite and reasonable.

Someone asked, a few of us answered as best we could thinking they're not aware of ereader issues. We're not beating a dead horse. Complain to the manufacturers, we can't change the limitations of ereaders, we can only offer suggestions on how we live with the limitations.

Being a curious type with a new T3 I am putting more books on and have 2000+ on main memory and 6000+ on SD card with no issues so far. Still the same time opening books or menus whether the SD card is inserted or not. Does take about 15 minutes to index after loading or reset, but I am not thinking that it a big problem.

I have reached the limit of the SD card, but I have a 32G one somewhere and no doubt I shall try that.

I don't need or even want 25,000 books although it certainly wouldn't take me 250 years to read them if I was to last that long. I don't have 25,000 books I want to read, but I can simulate that many using a plugboard, so I shall probably carry on.

Personally I am happy with about 2000 books on my readers and can survive just fine with less. But if I did want 25,000, I might take it a bit personal if someone implied I was being totally unrealistic and that 100 books at a time was more than enough for anyone (not saying that you implied that).

And while I might never drive above 30MPH I would have the expectation that my car could go pretty well as fast as it was advertised, just in case I was being chased by bandidos or had to rush someone to the hospital or possibly venture out on the freeway.

Helen

[Ashjuk]

And the question that no one seems willing to ask - where do you get 25,000 books from anyway?

Not legally I suspect.

[Ripplinger]

If you download the entire public domain pack from Project Gutenberg in a zip file, the last time I downloaded it, it was at 29,000 books or there abouts. So yes, it could easily be done legally.

Edit: Looks like it might be up to 42,000 books now after a quick look at the site.