Any benefit to *completely* wiping a device?

[Coldblackice]

Would there be any benefit to *completely* formatting a device's storage -- specifically, a device without an SD slot, which uses the "virtualized" SD storage? (Galaxy Nexus)

I'm wondering if there could possibly be any benefits to completely wiping both of these partitions and starting fresh, as I've never done so on my phone in 2+ years, and it's been seemingly getting worse and worse. I'm wondering if there's perhaps some manner of fragmentation or cache backlog, even though I've done full resets/flashes since.

 

[Trimlock]

Depends, if you have been running 4.3 fragmentation shouldn't be an issue and mostly it isn't an issue with eMMC storage. On the other hand app swapping can be a detriment to Android speed, it can also lower the life of your on board storage.

In other words, wiping will almost guarantee a noticeable increase in response times, maybe not when it was first stock but noticeable regardless.

 

[T4rd]

I found the RAM to be the culprit in most performance issues on my Gnex. I used Greenify to keep background services at a minimum and it helped out a lot in terms of overall performance. But occasionally the Gnex was still a turd while multitasking.

I couldn't imagine still using that phone.. battery and reception were retarded bad (on the Verizon variant at least). The display had some significant ghosting too at lower brightness levels.

To answer your question about wiping internal storage though; I'm not sure but it couldn't hurt, I suppose. But somehow I doubt it's going to solve any performance issues you're having.

 

[kuyaglen]

Well you bypass a lock screen and get access to a fresh device without getting interrupted by the store demo mode.

 

[username00]

If your gnex is a GSM model, it almost sounds like the beginning of brickbug. Do a Google search and you should find some XDA forum links.

 

[Coldblackice]

Depends, if you have been running 4.3 fragmentation shouldn't be an issue and mostly it isn't an issue with eMMC storage. On the other hand app swapping can be a detriment to Android speed, it can also lower the life of your on board storage.

In other words, wiping will almost guarantee a noticeable increase in response times, maybe not when it was first stock but noticeable regardless.

Gotcha, thanks. I'm actually still on 4.2.2, believe it or not. Does that mean I'm in the thick of a fragmentation issue? I hadn't heard of such till now.

And by app-swapping, do you mean multitasking between apps? Or filled-to-brim memory, so active apps get swapped out to disk?

I suppose I'll just full-wipe everything either way. And I should probably upgrade to a higher Android version in the process

I found the RAM to be the culprit in most performance issues on my Gnex. I used Greenify to keep background services at a minimum and it helped out a lot in terms of overall performance. But occasionally the Gnex was still a turd while multitasking.

I couldn't imagine still using that phone.. battery and reception were retarded bad (on the Verizon variant at least). The display had some significant ghosting too at lower brightness levels.

To answer your question about wiping internal storage though; I'm not sure but it couldn't hurt, I suppose. But somehow I doubt it's going to solve any performance issues you're having.

Good idea, thanks. I've been meaning to dig into Greenify, buying the full version. And yeah, it's nigh time to upgrade, but I'm penniless to do such. I'll have to make do for a while more. Thanks for the suggestion.

Well you bypass a lock screen and get access to a fresh device without getting interrupted by the store demo mode.

Are you meaning swapping out my device with a store display model? There might be some things I'd risk going to jail for, but a new phone isn't one of them

If your gnex is a GSM model, it almost sounds like the beginning of brickbug. Do a Google search and you should find some XDA forum links.

It's TDMA. Is this the issue from a couple years back about "TRIM" support? If so, I remember getting an app to supposedly take care of storage cells not getting cleared, but I don't remember it feeling any different. Maybe this is something else, though.

 

[kuyaglen]

Are you meaning swapping out my device with a store display model? There might be some things I'd risk going to jail for, but a new phone isn't one of them

Well its not like formating C: on pc that somehow rebooted into safemode back when Packard Bell pc's were on display at Good Guys.