Since android is on the storage card, does that mean that apps that are not developed to be stored on the SD-card is being stored in the SD-card anyways? I.e. will the operating system think that the root of the external memory is the internal memory? Cuz that would be great, having such a low internal memory in the HD2 to begin with..
Luggruff said:
Since android is on the storage card, does that mean that apps that are not developed to be stored on the SD-card is being stored in the SD-card anyways? I.e. will the operating system think that the root of the external memory is the internal memory? Cuz that would be great, having such a low internal memory in the HD2 to begin with..
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That is what the data.img file that is created when you 1st boot is for, it's also stored on the SDCard. After the NAND loader is released, you'll be able to have some that data so that it can be stored on the phone's internal memory, except the kernel last I heard. Right now the only difference between Nand and SD is that nand is a little bit faster, but you can speed up SD card by getting a higher class card, (instead of a class 2, then get a Class 6) the speed that the device boots is noticeably faster.
the data.img file is treated as "internal memory" for program storage. This file is physically located at the SD card but seen as another storage location. Since there are different flavours of this data.img available (512MB,1GB,2GB) you can easily store hundreds of apps without worrying about phone memory limitations or apps who fail to app2sd (in fact, none of the apps will move to sd on my phone, /care) So indeed, the HD2's internal mem is no problem here.
xhanay said:
That is what the data.img file that is created when you 1st boot is for, it's also stored on the SDCard. After the NAND loader is released, you'll be able to have some that data so that it can be stored on the phone's internal memory, except the kernel last I heard. Right now the only difference between Nand and SD is that nand is a little bit faster, but you can speed up SD card by getting a higher class card, (instead of a class 2, then get a Class 6) the speed that the device boots is noticeably faster.
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Got the kingston 16GB Class 10 card, no problems
MrDroopy said:
the data.img file is treated as "internal memory" for program storage. This file is physically located at the SD card but seen as another storage location. Since there are different flavours of this data.img available (512MB,1GB,2GB) you can easily store hundreds of apps without worrying about phone memory limitations or apps who fail to app2sd (in fact, none of the apps will move to sd on my phone, /care) So indeed, the HD2's internal mem is no problem here.
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Thanks, that's awesome.
Though, somehow I see a constant drop inte my 'real' internal memory. I've got a en rom wich i only touch att launch android..
Related
Clear your doubts guys!!!
Ok, so here's the deal, in a very longwinded way that should hopefully explain everything and answer ALL questions.
You have an SD card in your phone and, a bit like normal PC Hard Drives, you can "partition" them (split them into two or more sections of different filesystems). Normally, your SD card is just one big FAT32 partition, which is fine for storing your pics, messages, emails, etc.
Now, other then your Phone's SD card, your phone will have its own internal flash memory (or "NAND") storage. Tradditionally with Android, you could only install applications to this NAND storage, you cannot install them onto your SD card. So if you have an empty 32GB SD card, but only 5Mb of internal phone storage, you still wont be able to install many apps, if any at all.
This was done to protect the apps from things like piracy - it's not easy to access the location where apps are installed on your phone's internal storage (normally impossible without root), so you can't for example buy an app, copy it, refund it, then install it again.
Still, this is no good for those of us who like to install lots and lots of apps, legitimately, as we run out of internal storage very quickly.
So Google came up with a way to install apps to the SD card. A folder is created called something like .android_secure and this stores (I believe) encrypted versions of applications, but there's a few catches:
1) Apps aren't automatically stored here, you have to manually "move" them
2) Not all apps are capable of being moved, in fact most apps aren't, the developer needs to update their app and allow it. Some apps aren't and wont be updated and some developers may not want to allow it for whatever reason.
3) Not all app data is moved, most of it is but some data is left on your phone so many people still run out of internal storage quickly.
4) You can force ALL apps to be moved to this area by default, but it breaks incompatible ones - such as Widgets, which are unable to load due to the SD card not being "prepared".
So that's Froyo's version. Before Froyo existed, some very clever people came up with a thing called "Apps2SD". Remember I said that your SD card normally is one big FAT32 partition? Well, Apps2SD works by having your SD card patitioned into TWO filesystems. A normal FAT32 partition for your usual stuff and a secondary "EXT" partition. EXT is just a filesystem, like FAT32 or NTFS, but it's the filesystem used by Android internally. The SD card is normally FAT32 because it's a "universal" filesystem, that just about any machine will be able to read, whereas EXT filesystems are generally Linux only, but I digress.
EXT has several different versions. The most common one you'll see is ext3. The main difference between ext2 and ext3 is "journaling", which is just a fancy way of saying that should an operation (such as copying, writing or reading) be interrupted unexpectedly (say, by you turning your phone off), then no data should be lost or corrupted. You know how when you turn your phone on, it says "preparing SD card"? It takes a few minutes, but what it's actually doing is checking that the FAT32 partition hasn't been damaged, because FAT does NOT have journaling. If you used a computer back in the Windows 98 days, you may remember that lovely blue "Scandisk" screen that had to run every time you didn't shut your computer down correctly - that's the same thing. But then Windows 2000/XP came along with NTFS, which also has journaling, meaning you had less chance of loosing data. But I digress once more.
So you have your SD card partitioned into EXT and FAT32. Generally it doesn't matter if it's ext3 or ext4, but you don't get any real advantage with ext4 over ext3 in this instance. Apps2SD then runs a special script on your phone which "symbolically links" the folder from your phone's internal storage where your apps are normally stored, to the ext partition on your SD card. A symbolic link is a bit like a shortcut for folders, except it's transparent to the OS: In other words, Android doesn't know that when it's installing it's apps to the internal phone storage, it's actually being stored on the SD card. This effectively boosts your internal phone memory from the previous 5mb that you had in my example above, up to whatever size you made the ext partition on your SD card (often 512Mb or 1Gb, but it depends on how many apps you install).
Plus, because it's "journaled", it doesn't need to be "prepared", meaning it's ready to go as soon as the phone starts - so your widgets and apps work immediately (unlike "forced" Froyo Apps2SD, where widgets disappear).
The catch with Apps2SD is that whatever space the ext partition takes up is taken away from the SD card. So if you have a 4Gb card (with something like 3.5Gb of actual storage) and you make a 512Mb ext partition, your SD card will "shrink" to 3Gb. The space isn't actually lost, it's just being used by the ext partition. If you reformat your card, you'll get it back.
Finally, there's a difference between "Apps2SD" and "Apps2SD+". Remember I said that your apps are stored on a special folder inside your Phone's NAND storage? Well, that was a bit of a lie. It's actually stored in TWO places. There's a second area which is called the Davlik Cache. You don't really need to worry about what this is for (Hint: IT's to do with the Java runetime your phone uses to run apps), all you need to know is that apps use it to store data, which also eats up internal phone memory. Apps2SD+ moves davlik cache to the ext partition on your SD card as well, freeing up even more space. Some people believe that this may come at the cost of performance, as the internal NAND memory should be faster than your SD card (Which is why you also get people arguing over which "class" SD card is better for Apps2SD - the logic being that a faster SD card means less impact from this move), but the truth of the matter is that your applications will be running from your Phone's RAM anyway, so performance isn't really impacted at all. Since most apps are only a few hundred Kb's in size, or a couple of MB at the most, it's a non-issue.
Finally, any recent version of Apps2SD/Apps2SD+ should work with an SD card that is or isn't formatted with an ext partition. It'll check for this partition when your phone first boots and if it's not there, just use internal phone storage.
Having an ext partition WITHOUT Apps2SD+ shouldn't cause any issues, either, so you can format your SD card whenever you're ready.
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning".
IF U LIKE HIT THANKS​
Good idea, mate
I don't understand storage on Android and how it works. I would be grateful if someone could explain it.
Normally I thought that Phone memory refers to the storage space on the phone (like ROM) that was fixed and not removable. SD card is the microsd card that I physically insert into a slot on the phone. However, it seems that Android has 3 types of storage: Phone, Internal SD and External SD. Is this correct? I would appreciate if someone could clarify. Also, when I do move Apps to SD card on my CyanogenMod ROM, it seems to only move them from phone memory to internal SD, not external SD. As a general rule, is is better in terms of speed to keep the apps on internal or external SD? I don't want to keep in Phone memory since it is quite small, only about 1.8 GB. I should point out that I am using a Class 10 MicroSD, so it should be quite fast, or so I've been told.
What you refer to as Internal SD is probably not on the SD at all but read/write memory in the device itself. Basically built in storage that's an addition to the read only memory where the important stuff is.
As an example, the Omnia i900 had ROM + 8GB Storage in the Phone, with whatever you wanted to add as External SD. Plug the Omnia into a PC and you had two lot's of storage that you could drag and drop files to.
Basically you have 3 things:
ROM (Read-Only-Memory): This is where Android itself resides. All the OS stuff is here.
Phone Storage: You may consider this as the phones HDD. This is where all the apps/SMS/MMS/... are stored. (This is usually not meant to be accessed by the user to place files there, thats what the SD-Card is for)
SD-Storage: Your SD-Card where you can put everything you want. Music/Pictures/Files...
m0jo said:
Basically you have 3 things:
SD-Storage: Your SD-Card where you can put everything you want. Music/Pictures/Files...
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Is it possible to run apps off the SD-Card? When I use an app like App2SD, does it actually copy to the SD Card or just to the Phone storage? This is what confuses me, because I selected 'move to SD' on my phone (I'm using Cyanogen 7.1.0). But its still in the Phone Storage. I know this because when I put the SD card into my laptop, it does not show any of the software files.
When you move apps to the SD not all data is moved to the SD. The phone needs some files on the internal storage to run, since it needs to know that the apps are installed on the phone. When it needs to run it'll find the executable files in the internal storage, and run the data files from the SD card. Much like on a computer when you've installed an application and install it on an external HDD.
Apps you move to the SD will be moved to /Android/data/ and /data i believe since i have quite a bit of appdata in these folders.
Hopefully this isn't a stupid question, but is the internal SD in ICS a partition or a directory on the system that pretends to be an SD card?
If it's a partition then I don't really see the benefit over an external SD - except where there is no SD slot. Obviously if it's a directory then it would grow as required...
Hope the question makes sense!
Ok, Obviously the question either doesn't make sense, or nobody knows. Or, it's just such a stupid question that no-one can be bothered to answer it... Hoping it's not the first one - not sure how to word it better to be honest.
It's a partition.
Thanks for the reply. I must admit, then, that it seems a little odd on phones like the S3 - where there is an SD slot - to have an internal SD as well. How is this any advantage at all?
phunni said:
Thanks for the reply. I must admit, then, that it seems a little odd on phones like the S3 - where there is an SD slot - to have an internal SD as well. How is this any advantage at all?
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In my opinion? Non whatsoever. I find it a disadvantage the apps saves data to the "external" storage, and it end up in the phones internal memory, non removable, lost if the phone breaks down, fixed size, etc. I'd rather see they put this storage to use as internal storage (/data) instead. The storage getExternalFilesDir() returns ought to be ... external. Period.
The internal SD is more of a legacy setting where older and cheap phones have very little storage so large program files had to be saved on an SD card. Now that many phones have adequate internal storage the /sdcard directory is just internal memory that is mounted as a virtual SD card. If the device has an actual SD card slot and adequate internal storage then the real SD card is mounted as /sd-ext. This allows you to swap SD cards easily since no program files are written to it. It is kind of confusing though.
Hi guys I am new to android and I got myself a Micromax A110 running on android ics with 2 gb of internal SD card memory...
As you guys can figure, the internal memory just isn't enough for installing heavy games and storing and downloading large videos and music, so I added a 32 gb external micro SD card.. the card shows in my file manager and its contents are accessible, most apps like ttpod, ttorrent, vlc, chrome etc don't detect my external card. They only access the contents of my internal SD card, download to it.. I can't set the default directory to the external card...
When I installed nfs most wanted to my phone, it asked me to free up data in my SD card or insert another one as there was no space left due to obvious reasons of my internal SD card being filled with other apps.. I uninstalled and reinstalled it after setting the default storage location to the external storage... I found that the game installed in the internal storage this time and on startup, it gave the same message..
Is it a common problem or a limitation to the OS? Is there a work around for this? If so how? Does my phone needs to be rooted for the purpose? Please help as the problem is getting annoying.. my external card is lying almost empty...
Thanks in advance,
Extremely sorry for the long post...
Sent from my Micromax A110 using Tapatalk 2
It's because Google made the stupid decision, starting with Honeycomb (which is why the Motorola Xoom, the first Honeycomb device needed an update to enable use of it's MicroSD card slot) to merge the /data/ and /sdcard/ partitions. What that means is that the SD card becomes a virtual space (a folder, in fact) located in the same place where all your apps are stored. Why is it stupid? If you have a phone that actually has a MicroSD card slot, like yours or the Galaxy S III, the MicroSD card becomes a different "folder" (something like /sdext/, which stands for either extension or external). Only apps that specifically are programmed to look for that mount point/folder will be able to use it. Most music/video/picture players/viewers can, because it makes sense to automatically program to do that. But with large games, like you said, NFS Most Wanted (which I also have), it sucks because the game is like 2GB.
My Galaxy S3 has 16GB internal and a 32GB card. I'm forced to use the internal storage only for large games because they don't see the memory card. It sucks. The good thing about merging /data/ and /sdcard/ is that it simplifies things, like on the iPhone where your space is your space, no matter how you use it. It used to be that you had like 1GB or 2GB for apps (the APK files only, not the files that games download for example) (which the HTC One X does, but still only uses internal storage because there's no card slot), and the rest went to your MicroSD card slot. Now it's all to internal storage because your internal storage IS your MicroSD card slot at system level.
Product F(RED) said:
It's because Google made the stupid decision, starting with Honeycomb (which is why the Motorola Xoom, the first Honeycomb device needed an update to enable use of it's MicroSD card slot) to merge the /data/ and /sdcard/ partitions. What that means is that the SD card becomes a virtual space (a folder, in fact) located in the same place where all your apps are stored. Why is it stupid? If you have a phone that actually has a MicroSD card slot, like yours or the Galaxy S III, the MicroSD card becomes a different "folder" (something like /sdext/, which stands for either extension or external). Only apps that specifically are programmed to look for that mount point/folder will be able to use it. Most music/video/picture players/viewers can, because it makes sense to automatically program to do that. But with large games, like you said, NFS Most Wanted (which I also have), it sucks because the game is like 2GB.
My Galaxy S3 has 16GB internal and a 32GB card. I'm forced to use the internal storage only for large games because they don't see the memory card. It sucks. The good thing about merging /data/ and /sdcard/ is that it simplifies things, like on the iPhone where your space is your space, no matter how you use it. It used to be that you had like 1GB or 2GB for apps (the APK files only, not the files that games download for example) (which the HTC One X does, but still only uses internal storage because there's no card slot), and the rest went to your MicroSD card slot. Now it's all to internal storage because your internal storage IS your MicroSD card slot at system level.
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Hey man! Thanks for the reply....
Can you tell me how to work out a solution for this?
Is directory bind or fstab file hack the only solution?
Is it possible to overcome this without root?
And some apps do detect my Micro SD card... It is in the directory mnt/sdcard2
Please post questions one time only and in the proper Q&A section.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2019921
Hi all!
I have recently brought an 16GB External SD card for my SGSII, to store my Titanium Backups. I found the external_sd folder in the internal sd card, and thought that it was the External SD card, so i placed all my backups there. But just recently it seems like i have run out of space on the phone, so i can't update some of my apps. I started deleting a lot of photos and videos from my phone and cleared 2.5GB, but i still can't update some of my apps. I began looking through my folders, and noticed that i also have an External SD card partition on my phone. The same one i see when the phone is connected to the pc. In it i can see a Clockwork Recovery folder containing my ROM backups. So i began wondering if the external_sd folder is actually located on the phone and not in the External SD card. Can anyone confirm this?
Also, when i open the Storage (i think that's what it's called) section in the settings on CM10, and noticed that i have 2 Internal Storage sections, one of them has only App data, and the other has photos, apps, music etc. and a SD Card section, with 6.64GB storage left. Does anyone know why is there is 2 Internal Storage sections?
Thank you in advance!
/gammarik
As far as I know the "external_sd" is your removable external SD card. For some inexplicable reason it mounts as a sub-directory from the internal SD card, but it is definitely your removable external SD card.
I have a feeling that Jellybean brings a change and the external SD card mounts in a different way to ICS. I had only a brief experience of this when I played with the leaked ROM but I have reverted to ICS because of battery drain problems.
Your internal memory is partitioned with about 500MB for the system ROM, and 2GB reserved for app installations. Once this fills to around 85-90% you'll begin hitting problems with insufficient storage space errors. If you move apps to SD then this will make use of the data partition of your internal memory (about 12GB available to user on a 16GB device).
I'm running JB (Rootbox 3.2). I set the target path as /extSdCard/Titanium Backup in Preferences for it to work.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Mr Anderson said:
As far as I know the "external_sd" is your removable external SD card. For some inexplicable reason it mounts as a sub-directory from the internal SD card, but it is definitely your removable external SD card.
I have a feeling that Jellybean brings a change and the external SD card mounts in a different way to ICS. I had only a brief experience of this when I played with the leaked ROM but I have reverted to ICS because of battery drain problems.
Your internal memory is partitioned with about 500MB for the system ROM, and 2GB reserved for app installations. Once this fills to around 85-90% you'll begin hitting problems with insufficient storage space errors. If you move apps to SD then this will make use of the data partition of your internal memory (about 12GB available to user on a 16GB device).
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So i should move my apps from the App reserved partition to the main storage partition? Or the external SD card? And how do i do that? Sorry for noob questions, i am not too much into how Android works
I don't think you can move apps to external SD card.
Go to settings -> applications and you'll see your apps listed with information about their size. Select one, and you should see a button "Move to SD card". If this is greyed out then the app doesn't support operation from the SD card, but for many you can press the button and it will move the app for you.
The interface in settings isn't the best - I use ZDBox which is a free utility tool available from the Play Store with several useful functions, including an improved "App to SD" UI which makes it easier to see what is going on.
Be careful with widget apps and others that interact with OS functionality as these often don't play happy if moved to SD card.
in your internal memory there is a folder call externel_sd ok leave it coz you still in your internal memory and go search your external sd card memory it named extSdCard or emmc
Also, when i open the Storage (i think that's what it's called) section in the settings on CM10, and noticed that i have 2 Internal Storage sections, one of them has only App data, and the other has photos, apps, music etc. and a SD Card section, with 6.64GB storage left. Does anyone know why is there is 2 Internal Storage sections?
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1st internal is /data, 2nd internal is /storage/sdcard0 (your internal 11GB memory).