What Tablet would be best to study Logos?
I suffer from a painful Back and am best sitting on an armchair to study.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Colin
I received my Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 and have installed Logos on a 128GB Lexar UHS-II microSDXC card. It is one of the fastest cards out there, but unfortunately the SD card reader in the 5855 limits the read/write speeds to less than half of the potential speeds of this card. Nevertheless, Logos runs fine on it -- when the program is not indexing. Start up takes a minute or so, but once in the program and with everything settled down, the tablet fulfills its intended purpose of being a mobile reading device that gives me access to all of my resources, including PBBs. Indexing is the biggest drag on the performance of the tablet. I'd like to try installing Logos on the internal eMMC, which according to Crystal Mark runs faster than the SD card. To do that I will need to delete the recovery partitions and, if I have calculated correctly, will leave me with only about 7GB free after installing Logos. That may not be enough leftover space and I am reticent to delete the recovery partitions.
Hi, Bill,
Here you will find instructions from Microsoft on how to create a USB recovery disk. You'll need a flash drive compatible with your 5855's USB port. Once the drive is created, check it by rebooting to the flash drive. You should be able to do so through Windows 10. Once you know that the flash drive works, you won't need the recovery partition.
Here, if you feel a bit more adventurous, is a link to a Dell forum where some folks (myself included) discuss various options as to how to do this. You can install Macrium Reflect, which will make a backup image of any and every partition, including the recovery partition, on your sd card. I have set up a USB recovery disk on a flash drive and then deleted the recovery partition on my 5855. But I can use the flash drive, and/or restore the recovery partition if needed.
Still, given the size of your Logos data, I'd say that you're better off running Logos from the microSD card. Doing what I did is a bit of fuss, and it still might not produce enough eMMC space for you.
Even in my setup - which gives me about 12 GB free on my eMMC, whenever Verbum does any serious indexing, I get the popup window warning me that my internal storage space is getting small and that I may wish to delete some programs! At that rate, only 7 GB free would be even tighter.
On second thought, you're better off with your solution!
I am reticent to delete the recovery partitions
Thanks, Mark. This tablet would have been great with 128GB eMMC. The screen is gorgeous, the digitizer and pen work great and the tablet runs relatively cool. One question you may be able to answer: Aside from formatting the SD as NTFS (which I did) and going to "Storage" under Settings to tell the tablet to install programs on the SD, are there any other steps I need to do? The reason I ask is that I installed Office from my Office 365 subscription, but I don't see the installation files on the SD card.
Yes. This tablet would be great with a 128 GB eMMC - and perfect with a 128GB SSD!
Beyond what you already did in Storage, I can't think of anything else. Any app you download from the Windows Store should install to your SD card now. Some older programs will give you the option of choosing where you want them installed. I would have thought that Office 365 would have either given you the option, or gone along with your settings in Storage.
I just did a search, and apparently Microsoft doesn't support SD card installations of Office 365, no matter what your settings say. See it here. There might be some trick to do it, but I don't know what it would be.
I just wanted to chime in with my experience. I have the original Dell Venue 8 Pro. This is the 2GB RAM/32 GB storage version. My library is relatively small in comparison to most people here but I still ran into major storage issues due to the tiny amount of on-board memory and the seemingly bloated size of the original Windows install. I initially attempted to run my copy of Verbum from the SD card but the speed was disappointing. After doing some research, I learned that many other people had successfully regained storage space after doing a clean install of Windows. For whatever reason, the Windows image that Dell ships is much larger than it needs to be. This can be resolved by installing a fresh copy of Windows. The "Windows 10 Media Creation Tool" can be downloaded directly from Microsoft to the SD card. The Windows installer will boot from the SD card to reinstall the OS. It will install Windows 10 without any Dell additives. This gained me about 6 GBs, which was about average of what others had regained. Beware that this will be a generic copy of Windows and things specific to the tablet (like the touch screen) won't run out of the box. Before I ran the install, I went to Dell's website and manually downloaded the individual Windows 10 drivers designed for my tablet and saved them to the SD card. I needed to use a USB keyboard and mouse to interact with the device until I was able to add the touchscreen driver to the new Windows 10 install. I can say that after doing this, it felt like I had an upgraded tablet. Not only did I gain storage but things generally moved much faster and lots of little bugs were gone. By the way, according to Microsoft, it is not possible to install the full version of Office to anything other than the C: drive. The Windows-Store mobile Office apps can be installed to the SD card however.
Augustine,
Thank you for your reply. I hadn't thought to take into consideration Dell bloatware in its Windows image. Maybe that would get me over the onboard storage limitation I face with a library of 34GBs. So, if I wipe this out and reinstall a clean image of Windows 10 Pro, will the tablet activate Windows?
Augustine, Thank you for your reply. I hadn't thought to take into consideration Dell bloatware in its Windows image. Maybe that would get me over the onboard storage limitation I face with a library of 34GBs. So, if I wipe this out and reinstall a clean image of Windows 10 Pro, will the tablet activate Windows?
If you go this route, you'll need to find the Redstone version of Windows 10 (the one that came with the 5855) or it won't activate. Augustine's idea has promise, but make sure you have your ducks lined up before trying it!
Bill,
It's my understanding that the license number of an activated copy of Windows 10 is forever tied to the device that it is installed on. Every Windows device has an ID that is imbedded in the actual hardware. Starting with Windows 10, Microsoft maintains a database of Windows licenses/machine IDs. I had the very same doubt as you did when I attempted this and I did some research online. A blogger named Paul Thurrott (thurrott.com) looked into this very issue and, after reading his articles, I felt satisfied.
My Venue device actually shipped with Windows 8. When Microsoft offered the free upgrade to Windows 10, I did an in-place upgrade (installed Windows 10 on top of Windows 8) which actually made performance worse. Despite that however, I had an activated copy of Windows 10 on my device. Since my device had become associated with a Windows 10 license, I then had the freedom to install a clean copy of the OS and thus import that new license number into the clean install. Since your device came with a Windows 10 Pro license, you have already have the right to reinstall the OS whenever you want, regardless of whether it has been subsequently updated. When running the tool, be sure to choose the same version of the OS, (Pro/32 bit or 64 bit depending on what you currently have). You should be able to reinstall whatever happens to be the current update as often as you want without running into activation issues because Microsoft has already associated your device ID with a Windows Pro license on their servers. Mark may know something that I don't but I'd be very surprised if you were restricted to installing an the old Redstone version rather than the current mainstream release version of Windows, which, for the moment, I believe is still the Anniversary Update. As long as you run the Media Creation tool from your Venue, your current license should be injected into the image that it creates on your SD card. If you want to hedge your bet, leave the recovery partition intact until you have completed the reimage. That way, you can always go back to the factory version. If all else fails, you can always call Microsoft and request a phone activation in the event that it doesn't work. But again, I'd be very surprised if you ran into any activation issues when using the Media Creation Tool. Also, FYI, Microsoft is on the verge of moving Windows to the Creator's Update. Once that hits mainstream release, that will be the image that the tool will provide you. So, if you'd rather not be an early adoptor of the new version, you may want to at least get the current version downloaded to your card.
Interesting reading the reviews of Dell machines on this thread.
FWIW, I'm using a ThinkPad 10 Gen 1 tablet with 2GB RAM, 64GB HDD and a 32GB microSD card. All the Logos resources are on the microSD card.
I only have about 12GB of resources. Logos is responsive, no lag or stuttering during scrolling. Everything synchronizes with another copy of Logos on my desktop including highlighting, personal books and Notes.
Still plenty of room for Office 365 too.
I have the custom keyboard but find I haven't used it much.
Logos on a Windows 10 tablet is highly recommended. No need to be restrained by a limited feature set, still possible to navigate with a finger, and using a stylus is available for handwriting input and navigation if required.
Windows tablets are pretty light and the price performance curve is pretty good. There are lots of manufacturers out there so there's plenty of choice. OTOH this also means that there is a bell curve for build quality. Be sure to read lots of reviews before pulling the trigger.
I have created an image of my Dell Venue 8 Pro's eMMC and tucked that away safely. I have a USB flash drive with Windows on it that the DV8P sees when accessing the boot menu on startup. When I select it, the tablet just boots to my desktop.[:(] I had another USB drive that it wouldn't recognize at all from the boot menu. All settings in BIOS appear to allow booting from USB. Unfortunately, Augustine's idea to use the media creation tool to create the image on microSD didn't work. The media creation tool didn't see it.
Does the DV8P need to use a powered hub for this or a USB-C dock with power pass-through in order to initiate recovery?
Are you attepting this from the "reset this PC" option?
I have created an image of my Dell Venue 8 Pro's eMMC and tucked that away safely. I have a USB flash drive with Windows on it that the DV8P sees when accessing the boot menu on startup. When I select it, the tablet just boots to my desktop. I had another USB drive that it wouldn't recognize at all from the boot menu. All settings in BIOS appear to allow booting from USB. Unfortunately, Augustine's idea to use the media creation tool to create the image on microSD didn't work. The media creation tool didn't see it. Does the DV8P need to use a powered hub for this or a USB-C dock with power pass-through in order to initiate recovery?
I have created an image of my Dell Venue 8 Pro's eMMC and tucked that away safely. I have a USB flash drive with Windows on it that the DV8P sees when accessing the boot menu on startup. When I select it, the tablet just boots to my desktop. I had another USB drive that it wouldn't recognize at all from the boot menu. All settings in BIOS appear to allow booting from USB. Unfortunately, Augustine's idea to use the media creation tool to create the image on microSD didn't work. The media creation tool didn't see it.
I found that I needed to reboot my 5855 a couple of times before it could "see" the USB flash drive and boot from it.
Secondly, Macrium Reflect will allow you to create an image of your eMMC on microSD, with each partition available to be restored as needed. Macrium is free to try for 30 days. Then, you'll need to buy it if you like it and it works for you. It's a powerful piece of software.
Thirdly, don't forget that the 5855 is not the same as Augustine's older DV8. What worked for him may or may not work for you.
Paul, I am trying to boot to USB cold, by turning on the tablet, hitting Volume + when the Dell logo appears and selecting my drive from the one-time boot menu.
Mark, I'll keep trying, but that isn't reassuring. I don't want to wipe out partitions and such until I know I have a bootable medium.
Bill, it's very strange that the tool didn't see your SD card. I recall that it offered to install it there when it saw that my internal storage couldn't accommodate the image. Have you attempted selecting "Advanced Startup" in the Windows 10 settings? That should boot to a recovery mode that would then allow you to select the USB device to boot from. You shouldn't have to deal with the bios in order to boot from a USB drive.
~
I now have a. bootable USB drive that works. I may sign up for a basic version of Logos to see how it runs on my existing setup before I blow everything away and try to install my 33.5 GB installation. I ran out of time this weekend to do it. Maybe next weekend when I have a big block of time.
....and here I thought I was making progress by buying Surface Pro 3 finally. Sigh.
I thought I was going to wind up with some svelte little powerhouse to run Logos. In the process, I've returned to my resurrected desktop PC. It runs Logos better than anything else I've got. Praise the Lord!
Josh, you DID make progress buying a SP3. It is so much better than the Dell Venue 8 Pro performance wise.
I reintstalled Windows on my Dell Venue 8 Pro and installed Logos to the main drive. Everything ran better from the internal eMMC drive than from microSD, but alas, I only had something like 1GB left on the internal eMMC. I turns out I had miscalculated the amount of space my Logos setup took on disk. So, I had to revert to my previous setup. Macrium Reflect made it very easy to create a restore disk and then to restore my tablet from the backup image I had created.
Running Logos from microSD is my way forward.
Colin, I also have back problems. In my case, I'm best sitting in my Ekornes recliner and I've essentially made the chair my office by setting small tables on either side and adding a wooden lapdesk on which to rest my laptop. When not in use, I set the laptop/lapdesk on the table to my left. My wireless mouse rests on the table to my right. I love this arrangement, especially with the larger screen my laptop offers. I do have an android tablet, but only use it for reading -- not study.
If you do use or buy a laptop, I highly recommend a solid state drive. Logos runs immensely better on an SSD. SSDs like to have substantial unused capacity and will slow considerably without it. I therefore suggest acquiring a drive with approximately twice the storage capacity you are currently using. If you're modifying an existing laptop, the free Macrium Reflect software makes it easy to clone your old HDD to an SSD. And if that's what you're doing, you can easily determine which Crucial SSDs are compatible with your machine at http://www.crucial.com/. Crucial is the brand name Micron uses for its after-market sales (a Crucial SSD is a Micron SSD). And you may very well find a Crucial drive you like at a better price from Amazon. I did.
I only had something like 1GB left on the internal eMMC
I only had something like 1GB left on the internal eMMCDid you do a disk cleanup...remove previous Windows installations? That could easily recover 10+ GB
Paul, before I installed Windows I deleted all partitions and I formatted the remaining partition to blow everything away. I didn't have anything left when I ran disk cleanup.[:(] Free disk upon a fresh install was something like 57GB. Windows took up 16+GB. There's not much I could do when my Logos installation, which was 34.5GB but over 38GB on disk, tried to index.
OK ... You gave it your best . Sorry it didn't work for you.
Thanks, Logos runs fine on the microSD when it isn't indexing. The key is to time the updates.
Guess i'm blessed to have a smaller library, Just a shame they don't offer it with 128 GB. The venue 11 does... but it is not pocketable. I have one with an i5 ( 4300y) processor. Honestly , I can see little performance difference in the 2 machines
I reintstalled Windows on my Dell Venue 8 Pro and installed Logos to the main drive. Everything ran better from the internal eMMC drive than from microSD, but alas, I only had something like 1GB left on the internal eMMC. I turns out I had miscalculated the amount of space my Logos setup took on disk. So, I had to revert to my previous setup. Macrium Reflect made it very easy to create a restore disk and then to restore my tablet from the backup image I had created. Running Logos from microSD is my way forward.
I was out of touch as I wasn't feeling terribly well. Sorry that you went through all that trouble only to find that running Logos from eMMC wouldn't work for you. But it's great that you are satisfied with its performance from the microSD card. I'm glad that Macrium Reflect was a help for you.
Having such a portable tablet that can run the desktop version of Logos is great. Too bad that Dell has apparently stopped making/selling the DV8 Pro. It's no longer on their site. I'll take good care of mine!
Dell has apparently stopped making/selling the DV8 Pro. It's no longer on their site. I'll take good care of mine!
Hi, Bill, I was out of touch as I wasn't feeling terribly well. Sorry that you went through all that trouble only to find that running Logos from eMMC wouldn't work for you. But it's great that you are satisfied with its performance from the microSD card. I'm glad that Macrium Reflect was a help for you. Having such a portable tablet that can run the desktop version of Logos is great. Too bad that Dell has apparently stopped making/selling the DV8 Pro. It's no longer on their site. I'll take good care of mine!
An update on my DVP8. Keep Smiling for Jesus helped me with setting up Logos on my eMMC while moving my Resources folder to my microSD card and making a symbolic link pointing to that folder. So, all of the Logos application and database files run from eMMC (about 8-9 GB) and the system is a bit faster than running Logos completely from the microSD.
Hi, Bill, I was out of touch as I wasn't feeling terribly well. Sorry that you went through all that trouble only to find that running Logos from eMMC wouldn't work for you. But it's great that you are satisfied with its performance from the microSD card. I'm glad that Macrium Reflect was a help for you. Having such a portable tablet that can run the desktop version of Logos is great. Too bad that Dell has apparently stopped making/selling the DV8 Pro. It's no longer on their site. I'll take good care of mine! An update on my DVP8. Keep Smiling for Jesus helped me with setting up Logos on my eMMC while moving my Resources folder to my microSD card and making a symbolic link pointing to that folder. So, all of the Logos application and database files run from eMMC (about 8-9 GB) and the system is a bit faster than running Logos completely from the microSD.
Thanks for the update. I'd be interested in learning how to set up that symbolic link at some point. That might work better for me as well.
One thing I have done in the meantime is upgrade my Windows 10 to the new Creators Edition. Once the upgrade was done, I ran Disk Cleanup to remove the old installation of Windows. Once that process was over, I ended up with 3 GB more of free space on eMMC than I had with the "old" Windows 10. On a 64GB eMMC drive, 3 GB is significant! I didn't see a change in performance overall, but Edge runs better for me now than it did before. Logos/Verbum is about the same.
Mark,
I, too, got an extra 3 GB when I updated to the Creator's Update, but it wasn't enough of a gain to get all of my Logos installation on the eMMC.
Basically, what I did was install Logos using Method 2 (see the wiki). Before I copied over my existing Data folder to the new installation, I took the Resources folder out and put that on my microSD card as \Resources.
Then, I downloaded a program called Junction, which creates the symbolic link to the Resources folder on the microSD card, and ran the appropriate command. Here is the thread with the details:
http://community.logos.com/forums/p/141883/899743.aspx#899743
When the time comes, let me know if you need any further assistance in setting this up
Mark, I, too, got an extra 3 GB when I updated to the Creator's Update, but it wasn't enough of a gain to get all of my Logos installation on the eMMC. Basically, what I did was install Logos using Method 2 (see the wiki). Before I copied over my existing Data folder to the new installation, I took the Resources folder out and put that on my microSD card as \Resources. Then, I downloaded a program called Junction, which creates the symbolic link to the Resources folder on the microSD card, and ran the appropriate command. Here is the thread with the details: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/141883/899743.aspx#899743 When the time comes, let me know if you need any further assistance in setting this up
Thanks for your reply and the link! I'll look into Junction and that symbolic link when I have a little more time for tinkering.
Peace in the Lord, Mark
Another opportunity to have our voices heard by Logos leaders - http://community.logos.com/forums/t/148421.aspx
