Space on the Kindle After Installing All Our Apps
Though there's not a lot of user-accessible space on the Kindle Fire, it's a real pain to fill it up over USB.
| USB File Transfer 2.8 GB H.264 encoded MP4 Movie | Avg. Transfer Rate | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Kindle Fire (OS Level File Transfer) | 2.76 MB/s | 17:14.615 |
| Apple iPad 2 (iTunes) | 19.19 MB/s | 02:29.090 |
| Motorola Xoom (OS Level File Transfer) | 13.18 MB/s | 03:36.990 |
The process is excruciatingly slow, with a top sequential speed somewhere around 2.7 MB/s. If you're moving small files, expect initial speeds around 1.2 MB/s. Meanwhile, other tablets that support USB 2.0 frequently hit average speeds above 10 MB/s.
Samsung's eMMC NAND In Kindle Fire
Hardware isn't the problem. Amazon employs a Samsung 8 GB KLM8G2FEJA eMMC NAND package. You find the same product in competing tablets, like Acer's 8 GB A100. Motorola employs a 32 GB eMMC NAND chip from Toshiba with similar specs. And yet, transfers are much faster on the Xoom.
The zippy transfer rate on the iPad 2 in the table above shouldn't come as a surprise. Apple is the only major tablet manufacturer to use vanilla MLC NAND, which is found in the zippy SSDs we all know and love. But that also means the A5 contains extra logic to add block management and ECC.
Since Tegra 2 and OMAP lack the same circuitry as Apple's A5, nearly all Android-based tablets use a simpler storage implementation called eMMC, which embeds block management and ECC onto the NAND itself. The difference is highlighted in the slide above.
Since everything is managed at the NAND level, the operating system doesn't have to bother issuing commands like secure erase or TRIM. The MMC controller in the storage device handles all of that. However, this also means that eMMC NAND is blind to much of what the operating system is doing. The result is a significant amount of performance overhead.
| Amazon Kindle Fire | Apple iPad 2 | Motorola Xoom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAND Chip | Samsung KLM8G2FEJA | Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 | Toshiba THGBM2G8D8FBAIB |
| NAND Bus | eMMC v4.41 | Toggle 1.0 | eMMC v4.4 |
| NAND Bus Speed | 104 MB/s | 133 MB/s | 104 MB/s |
Of course, the difference between eMMC and regular NAND isn't limited to block management. The bus interface is also different. Whereas Toggle Mode 1.0 is limited to 133 MB/s, for instance, eMMC tops out at 104 MB/s. There's a new revision of eMMC that bumps speeds up to 200 MB/s, but it's currently too new and too expensive for tablet manufactures to implement.
Xoom: Uses Media Transfer Protocol
It's not clear if there's a way to address the Kindle Fire's low transfer speeds through firmware. Other Android tablet vendors implement Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol, whereas Amazon chooses the more generic USB Mass Storage Class (MSC) driver. That's good news for Mac users, since you don't need a special program to transfer files.
Kindle Fire: Appears As Generic USB Device In Mac OS X
It's possible that the problem is with Amazon's USB MSC implementation. The only way to transfer files is to put the Fire in Mass Storage mode preventing you from using the tablet at the same time. However, it also suggests that Mass Storage mode is a hosted layer above the operating system.
RIM got around this issue with its Blackberry line by implementing a pass-through mode for transfers. It's likely that Amazon will have to do something similar in order to speed up USB performance. Currently, transferring files to your Kindle Fire over your home network using Astro (along with its SMB module) is likely faster than using USB.
- Meet Amazon's Kindle Fire
- Quick Navigation Tour
- Books And Documents: Not Quite An e-Book Reader...
- Video And Music: Amazon Prime Members Rejoice
- Amazon Appstore Is Not Android Market
- The Shopping Experience: All About Amazon
- Amazon Silk: Assisted Web Browsing (Sort Of)
- Web Browsing: The Same Old Android Restrictions
- TI's OMAP 4430: CPU And GPU Performance
- An Experiment: Gaming Performance, Tegra 2-Porting
- Storage Performance: Slightly Faster Than USB 1.0?!
- Display Performance: IPS Confirmed
- Display Performance Examined: Very Bright, So-So Gamut
- Benchmark Results: Battery Life And Recharge Time
- Benchmark Results: Real-World Performance
- Benchmark Results: Wireless Performance
- Awesome For Amazon Addicts
- Appendix A: Background Information On Our Benchmarks
- Appendix B: Notes For Kindle Fire Owners

Ummm.... what?
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
Ummm.... what?
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
Just give him the 6990, the poor fellow just wants to play BF3.
Ever heard of bots? There're tons of those on Tom's nowadays.
A GPU of a 560 Ti level maxes it out @ 1080p, no need for a 6990.
Back to topic...
ROFL, and who needs a tablet without all that? That's right, Amazon fanboys. That company is an utter POS that is not unlike Apple, designing underpowered useless products and delivering them as "innovative". The only "innovative" thing here is a complete dependency on the company's online services... oops, nevermind, Apple did it first
And do not say "ya, but you can root it!!!". That's nice, people can jailbreak their iPads. You cannot include rooting and jailbreaking when you talk about something being open
The Fire doesn't have either of those things. Not going to work. You should check out the specs of the Fire first.
Oh yeah? You bought a Fire?
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
This article is a big fail.. they should have included it to compare.
Just sayin...
You can say the same thing with the Ipad and the Itunes store. Except for the fact that Amazon isn't making money with just selling the Kindle Fire alone.
Still though I like both the Ipad and Kindle Fire.
Also, I want to elaborate on the GPU. The OMAP 4430's SGX540 runs at 300MHz, not 200MHz, so those figures are a little misleading.
It seems like a good product from Amazon, but for my expected use, it isn't sufficient. I mainly use my iPod touch to read comics in JPEG format, so not being able to install many apps + having limited space really hurts.
Glad you liked it! Most of the time I cringe when the table discussion turns to tablets. A lot of tech reviewers aren't even really technies. They come from a Communication background, which is why the Fire is always pitted in a iPad 2 fight. Plus, the investors want the Apple fight cause they only see things in terms of units sold.
The engineers and consumers want a comparison based on features and usability. And the executives and PR people want a comparison based on demographics.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. For me, this tablet is very attractive, but then again, I like amazon. If you're not part of that crowd, it's a harder purchase to justify in the long run.
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com