Clara 512Gb Confirmed

[sdfgg]

Dang! I just love this little e-reader, its way faster than the pocketbook Inkpad3 . Its a shame that its the only current kobo model that allows for micro sd storage .

Anyways, following the tutorials from https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/07/29/kobo-sd.html I was able to upgrade the puny Sandisk Edge 8Gb included from factory for a Samsung evo plus 512Gb [MB-MC512GAEU], in reading and writing about twice the speed (although its debatable if the host of the kobo can take advantage of it) (and for sure A1, A2 new monikers for other high-end SDcards... yeah, almost certain that this device wont be able to take advantage of that, sadly... )

It works, no problem at all, so I hope this helps for those interested

Side note: installing Koreader is worth the hastle (not in the pictures). Koreader FTW for having a file manager which is lacking in the kobo software, this feature is needed when having to deal with so many files

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sdfgg

Dang! I just love this little e-reader, its way faster than the pocketbook Inkpad3 . Its a shame that its the only current kobo model that allows for micro sd storage .

Perhaps a firmware update as well? 4.8.10959 is getting a bit dated though you aren't making much use of Kobo's firmware.

[pghaworth]

totally cool

[sdfgg]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps a firmware update as well? 4.8.10959 is getting a bit dated though you aren't making much use of Kobo's firmware.

Oh! could it be that the latest firmware adds file explorer functionality? that would be a nice update

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sdfgg

Oh! could it be that the latest firmware adds file explorer functionality? that would be a nice update

No file explorer functionality. Though personally, I prefer using Kobo's firmware search functionality. A lot faster than tapping my way though multiple levels of directories. KoReader does have the ability to search if you are using calibre so metadata.calibre is on your ereader.

[xyclonei]

Nice! I did a similar upgrade on my Clara HD as well and went with the 64GB Toshiba M203 mSD (product page).

I don't know if it's some sort of nocebo effect, but tapping on the "Go back Home" button from within a book takes ~5 seconds to go back to the home screen. Have you observed this as well or is it my imagination?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

Nice! I did a similar upgrade on my Clara HD as well and went with the 64GB Toshiba M203 mSD (product page).

I don't know if it's some sort of nocebo effect, but tapping on the "Go back Home" button from within a book takes ~5 seconds to go back to the home screen. Have you observed this as well or is it my imagination?

Looked up reviews and seems like it only has 0.7 MB/s random 4K writes. Iirc, SanDisk does around 2.5 MB/s and Samsung EVOs ~4 MB/s

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/test-c...cards-3640745/

I use a Sony 64GB mSD (rebadged Samsung) on my Glo HD and it actually felt faster after mSD replacement.

[Semwize]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

~5 seconds to go back to the home screen.

This is a lot.

Perhaps you have too many books, a large base.

Or in vain did you change the sd card by choosing such a sd card, because of which everything began to work slowly.

[mathil]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

Nice! I did a similar upgrade on my Clara HD as well and went with the 64GB Toshiba M203 mSD (product page).

I don't know if it's some sort of nocebo effect, but tapping on the "Go back Home" button from within a book takes ~5 seconds to go back to the home screen. Have you observed this as well or is it my imagination?

It might be the microSD card you're using - I upgraded my Glo HD (so, older model than the Clara) with a 64GB Samsung card and it felt much faster in everything than before. I also have a huge database file (500mb ca.). The only slowdowns I've experienced are when I have to switch between the books and the collections tabs (I have almost 200...)

[xyclonei]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Looked up reviews and seems like it only has 0.7 MB/s random 4K writes. Iirc, SanDisk does around 2.5 MB/s and Samsung EVOs ~4 MB/s

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/test-c...cards-3640745/

I use a Sony 64GB mSD (rebadged Samsung) on my Glo HD and it actually felt faster after mSD replacement.

Interesting. I did a benchmark of the Sandisk Edge (Crystaldisk) that came with the Clara HD and it has a random 4K write of 0.5MB/s, which in theory, going back to the home screen should feel slower when it is faster.

Originally Posted by Semwize

This is a lot.

Perhaps you have too many books, a large base.

Or in vain did you change the sd card by choosing such a sd card, because of which everything began to work slowly.

I only have ~500 books on the device, though some books are around the 100MB mark.

I checked the database size and it's at 110MB.

Originally Posted by mathil

It might be the microSD card you're using - I upgraded my Glo HD (so, older model than the Clara) with a 64GB Samsung card and it felt much faster in everything than before. I also have a huge database file (500mb ca.). The only slowdowns I've experienced are when I have to switch between the books and the collections tabs (I have almost 200...)

I reckon so as well. Unfortunately, I don't have Samsung cards where I'm from and ordering them online plus taxes comes to twice the price of the product. My options were the Toshiba or a Lexar which was even slower (class 4).

The interesting bit is though that the device feels faster, navigating and opening books are snappier as well. It's just the going back to the home screen from a book the issue.

Do you guys reckon it's a cover image issue? Is it redrawing all the covers in the background when I switch to the home screen?

[retro]

Sweet! I now have 64gb on my Clara and it was easy.
I probably won't ever use the whole 64gb, but it does respond faster with a Samsung EVO Plus card.

This is my first Kobo and I had no idea it was so configurable and I haven't even figured out what most of the hacks are for yet.

Thanks for the info and the link!

[pghaworth]

Originally Posted by retro

Sweet! I now have 64gb on my Clara and it was easy.
I probably won't ever use the whole 64gb, but it does respond faster with a Samsung EVO Plus card.

This is my first Kobo and I had no idea it was so configurable and I haven't even figured out what most of the hacks are for yet.

Thanks for the info and the link!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

Interesting. I did a benchmark of the Sandisk Edge (Crystaldisk) that came with the Clara HD and it has a random 4K write of 0.5MB/s, which in theory, going back to the home screen should feel slower when it is faster.

I only have ~500 books on the device, though some books are around the 100MB mark.

I checked the database size and it's at 110MB.

I reckon so as well. Unfortunately, I don't have Samsung cards where I'm from and ordering them online plus taxes comes to twice the price of the product. My options were the Toshiba or a Lexar which was even slower (class 4).

The interesting bit is though that the device feels faster, navigating and opening books are snappier as well. It's just the going back to the home screen from a book the issue.

Do you guys reckon it's a cover image issue? Is it redrawing all the covers in the background when I switch to the home screen?

Except for the covers, the navigation through the UI is all based on the database. But, it should in memory. There will be writes to the database to store the reading status, but, on my devices, there isn't any appreciable time taken to return to the homes screen from a book. Returning to the home page when finishing a book can take a bit longer, but, not much.

Rendering the covers can have an impact, but, it should only happen when going through the library. They are rendered and stored as needed. The cover image for books on the home screen should already be generated if you are returning there from reading. They might need to be read from disc.

Your 110MB database size sounds big for only 500 books. My Clara HD has about 2700 books and the database is about that size. With a 100MB books size, are they comics? If so, each page in a comic is treated as a chapter, which does make the database bigger. You could try compressing the database and see how much space it frees. You need to do a VACUUM using an SQLite database management took, or the database compress in my Kobo Utilities plugin if you are a calibre user.