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So I asked this question on this site and got this answer. Now that I'm rooted, I'm ready to take this route. I've tried looking for ways but almost all the results that came up were unrelated. So yeah, can anyone give me a lending hand with regards to using my Internal Memory as additional RAM for my phone?

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Sorry for not commenting. This question is rather unclear to me and seems to mix up basic things: To begin with, "ROM" is basically a false name for the system partition and means read-only-memory (it's most of the time mounted read-only, hence "ROM"), this sits most probably on some kind of NAND flash. RAM (random-access-memory) is 'working' memory that is really fast but volatile in comparison to NAND flash. Both types are needed (fast vs. persistent) and cannot be interchanged. At least not completely (you could add a swap partition on custom roms. Are you asking this?) – ce4 Jul 13 '12 at 10:45
Hi guys, thanks for the responses. I'm not looking for app2sd. I've already finished that part, now that my ROM is no longer being fully used, I was wondering if it can be instead, used as part of my phone's RAM. If my understanding is correct, in terms of Android, the "ROM" is the internal memory of the phone, whereas the "RAM" is where running applications are loaded so that they can open faster next time they are needed. And yes, I think I'm asking about swap partition. I just don't know what it's called. @ce4 – Propeller Jul 13 '12 at 13:23
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At first: Don't use the internal memory as swap! Flash storage (NAND) has only about 10.000 write cycles. Better use your sdcard for it. See this guide on XDA for the pro's and con's and howto do it. If you just want to play around and wonder if you could do something useful with the free space on your /data partition: Don't do it. Leave it the way it is. BTW: what model do you have, how much RAM has it? Here's a basic picture illustrating a regular architecture (flash=ROM) – ce4 Jul 13 '12 at 13:31
I have SE ST17i. It has 512mb RAM. Also, can you make that an answer so that I can accept it? :) – Propeller Jul 13 '12 at 19:16
@ce4 Your info is very good. You could elaborate an answer thus answering this question :) – Zuul Aug 3 '12 at 23:34
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2 Answers

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You don't need to use 3rd party things like a swap partition or zRamSwap. 512MB RAM was/is still standard and will be sufficent for almost all scenarios most probably for some time (at least for Android 4.0 and 4.1, see this CyanogenMod forum post).

(You stated in the comments that your Xperia Active has 512MB RAM)

Longer version:
To begin with, "ROM" is basically a false name for the system partition and means read-only-memory (it's most of the time mounted read-only, hence "ROM"), this sits most probably on some kind of NAND flash. RAM (random-access-memory) is 'working' memory that is really fast but volatile in comparison to NAND flash. Both types are needed (fast vs. persistent) and cannot be interchanged. At least not completely (you could add a swap partition on custom roms.)

At first: Don't use the internal memory as swap! Flash storage (NAND) has only about 10.000 write cycles. Better use your sdcard for it. See this guide on XDA for the pro's and con's and howto do it. If you just want to play around and wonder if you could do something useful with the free space on your /data partition: Don't do it. Leave it the way it is.

Here's a basic picture illustrating a regular architecture.

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The vice versa is also possible, tmpfs creates a file system partition on the RAM, of course you'll lose the data on it if the device is turned off though. – Lie Ryan Aug 4 '12 at 14:31
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To expand on ce4's answer, using your internal or sd card as swap position likely won't give you performance benefit in device with large enough RAM. Android Application Life Cycle acts as a smarter swapping mechanism than swap partition. – Lie Ryan Aug 4 '12 at 14:35
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Go to this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1659231 and follow instructions carefully. If you don´t know what you´re doing, don´t do it!

You´re welcome :-))

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Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! Please avoid answers that only contain a link because your answer becomes useless if the link is broken. It would be best if you include the essential parts in your answer and provide the link for reference. – THelper Nov 14 '12 at 14:56
Thanks but this very same link has already been provided by @ce4 above along with a few other pointers. – Propeller Nov 15 '12 at 4:02

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