[Q] Change Partition layout (remove internal SD) - Motorola Photon 4G

Is it possible (perhaps using a ROM) to massively change the partition layout? I want to remove the internal "SD Card' partition and allocate that space to the main partition the device uses, /data or /system i think. I'm not too familiar with the layout of android partitions but I'm familiar with how they work. I'd like to make my (real) SD card mount at /sdcard, a lot of programs store downloads and data to /sdcard by default, and I dont like having it go to the internal memory. I'm not sure why they laid it out this way, instead of just increasing the main partition sizes. I didn't think this should be in the General section, since its a little beyond that scope, but I couldnt find anything relating to this.
Bane listed this info in another thread:
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.9 GB, 15914762240 bytes
~500MB for /system
~3GB for /data
~650MB for /cache
~1.3GB for /osh (webtop)
~350MB for /preinstall
~9GB for /sdcard (internal storage)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I want to take that 9 GB and give it to /system and /data, maybe bump /osh up a bit too since i want to do some tinkering with that. Does anyone have any ideas on how to go about this? I was going to rm /sdcard and ln -s to /sdcard-ext to make it point to my real card, but wasnt sure if that would break things.....

There was a mod called "Firerat's Partition Mod" for the HTC Hero that was able to edit partitions... we could take a look at it later.

I was going to work on this this weekend, but mainly to remove the webtop partition and reallocate that to /sd because ill never use webtop. Im sure IF I get that working it could be toyed with other ways.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

mrinehart93 said:
There was a mod called "Firerat's Partition Mod" for the HTC Hero that was able to edit partitions... we could take a look at it later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is that where i remember you from ... i still have my hero. What ever happened to aosp his rom had killer battery.
Edit n/m looked at his profile he went to the sensation..... but yeah firerats mod worked wonders on the hero and desire
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Kcarpenter said:
I was going to work on this this weekend, but mainly to remove the webtop partition and reallocate that to /sd because ill never use webtop. Im sure IF I get that working it could be toyed with other ways.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please work on this! I'll never use webtop either so getting all that space will be awesome!

Ill start work on this after the vol/gator game ...a man has to have priorities, especially when ribs, wings and burgers are part of those priorities.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Kcarpenter said:
Ill start work on this after the vol/gator game ...a man has to have priorities, especially when ribs, wings and burgers are part of those priorities.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol
Being able to user define the partition remap would make an Ubuntu port a bit nicer too for those looking at expanding the MoPho's functionality.

Would love that 1.3GB webtop to be put to Data
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Kcarpenter said:
Ill start work on this after the vol/gator game ...a man has to have priorities, especially when ribs, wings and burgers are part of those priorities.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd be pleased to buy you a gift certificate at your fav wings joint if you can make this work! Would love to be able to use my 32GB card the way it's supposed to be used!

I can tell you I wont have anything tonight and likely not tomorrow . Im studying firerats stuff now and it all seems pretty straight forward. Really more worried about a brick than anything. Lol.
Im going to actually try some stuff tomorrow after I get home from church and praying to not brick .
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Kcarpenter said:
I can tell you I wont have anything tonight and likely not tomorrow . Im studying firerats stuff now and it all seems pretty straight forward. Really more worried about a brick than anything. Lol.
Im going to actually try some stuff tomorrow after I get home from church and praying to not brick .
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make sure you're unlocked and also be sure to study a "df -h" command. That way you'll be able to see what partitions are what and how much space can be taken.

mrinehart93 said:
Make sure you're unlocked and also be sure to study a "df -h" command. That way you'll be able to see what partitions are what and how much space can be taken.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup. Yup. Im getting a little more brave. Im wondering if our current stock image checks to see if webtop is available or checks that partition before it boots and fails to boot if its not there. Im willing to bet it does.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Anyone look into this yet? Does anyone have any hints about what functions/utilities work on the partitions?

cdthomas9 said:
Anyone look into this yet? Does anyone have any hints about what functions/utilities work on the partitions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its possible to get it working, but my machine is not capable of building with out some effort(only 32 bit) - But the only thing that seems to be difficult is editing the boot.img (which I don't know how to do, but am willing to figure out) to get it to read the new partition layouts.

I've got 64bit win7, and access to a vmware server which i can install a spare copy of x64 linux and give you shell access if it would help..... let me know what i can do to further it along (not a programmer myself but a hard core dabbler

I dont suppose any of the partiton tools (fdisk, etc) can be run through adb?

any news or updates on this project???

yeah we should really continue this project I want squeeze as much memory out of the internal sdcard as possible, I'm guessing we couldn't just take out the partitions all together and let it be read all as one eh? cause then any extra space could be used (though maybe that's not so safe when you get full)
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

Yeah, definitely would like to see this happen.
Don't really use webtop myself either.

MultiDev said:
Yeah, definitely would like to see this happen.
Don't really use webtop myself either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
<3 Storage...

Related

[Q] (Q) Help switching back sdcart-ext with sdcard

I did the partitions swap right when this phone came out, which tricked my phone into thinking my external sdcard was in fact internal memory.
I would like to switch this back. Does someone know of a simple way to do this? I believe it requires a void file or something - I'm not sure. I am sure that I didn't make a backup of the original file when I overwrite the new one. Dumb.
Someone help this guy out please. I get all sorts of confused when my phone says it can move and apps to the sdcard. I have no idea where it goes. Now I'm getting a "sd card low on volume space" alert constantly. Pulled up Apps2sd and it wont even let me move anything anymore.
I would love to avoid an SBF.
Thanks.
With the dx2 it makes it default (sdcard-ext) which is to my knowlegde is impossible, everyone who has a droidx2 is on sdcard-ext
ericerk said:
With the dx2 it makes it default (sdcard-ext) which to my knowlegde is impossible, everyone who has a droidx2 is on sdcard-ext
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There was a script or something to switch it around. Void.sb file or something. I was drinking Jose with my ex one night and got ballsy and did it. Sdcard now shows my 15 gb OG Droid card and sdcard-ext shows the meager 4 gb allotted to this phones internal memory. To the best of my knowledge, the 8 gb built in is split in two, our phone shows half of that as your sdcard, and the other half is tucked away for media and apps.
I just want to switch it back. Recovery still reads internal as what its supposed to be (4 gb built in) so I just had 4 backups saved to that - jammed it full. I fixed that just now, no more low card space issues.
Make sense? Sorry for any typos, I'm landscape in my browser and its 4 in the morn...
mistawolfe said:
There was a script or something to switch it around. Void.sb file or something. I was drinking Jose with my ex one night and got ballsy and did it. Sdcard now shows my 15 gb OG Droid card and sdcard-ext shows the meager 4 gb allotted to this phones internal memory. To the best of my knowledge, the 8 gb built in is split in two, our phone shows half of that as your sdcard, and the other half is tucked away for media and apps.
I just want to switch it back. Recovery still reads internal as what its supposed to be (4 gb built in) so I just had 4 backups saved to that - jammed it full. I fixed that just now, no more low card space issues.
Make sense? Sorry for any typos, I'm landscape in my browser and its 4 in the morn...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah its 4am in cali too xDD umm i'm not to sure, i don't really screw around with scripts, the 4gigs are internal, but when you shove the sd card in the x2 it makes ext the main partition, the only thing i can think of is reformat in ur og droid or just move everything off of the sd ext and move it to plain root (non ext)(on ur comp) but for the x2 the ext is root, moto screwed the pooch there ( i hope this makes sense) also the 2.3.4 or what ever comes may fix this
Nope, that wont don't it. By default the external sdcard shows as sdcard-ext, I changed some files to make it read as internal. I need to change the files to switch it back.
Did you rename the vold.fstab or overwrite it?
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
mr_vader said:
Did you rename the vold.fstb or overwrite it?
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Overwrote it
If you overwritten it you should be able to get the vold.fstab file from a DX2 system dump and replace it. That is what I did to get it back.
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
mr_vader said:
If you overwritten it you should be able to get the vold.fstab file from a DX2 system dump and replace it. That is what I did to get it back.
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the system dump. Can you point me in the right direction? Like I said earlier, I wasn't in the right state of mind when I switched it. Lol. Once I find it (wherever it is) where do I push it to. Typical permission change required then?
Thanks.
EDIT: I am downloading the full dump (lol) now. Still need help on finding the vold file and what permissions are needed.
Can anyone help?
Thanks.
/etc
Rw-r--r--
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
mr_vader said:
/etc
Rw-r--r--
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you kind sir, however I have to SBF now. I'm guessing that will fix it as well?
mistawolfe said:
EDIT: I am downloading the full dump (lol) now. Still need help on finding the vold file and what permissions are needed.
Can anyone help?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After Downloading The System Dump The Original vold.fstab Is Under /system/etc
No Permissions Needed.
Hope This Helps, Best Of Luck.
MikeJ92YJ said:
After Downloading The System Dump The Original vold.fstab Is Under /system/etc
No Permissions Needed.
Hope This Helps, Best Of Luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mikey old friend...
I'm SBFing right now, I'm guessing that will put vold.fstab back where it needs to be?
mistawolfe said:
Mikey old friend...
I'm SBFing right now, I'm guessing that will put vold.fstab back where it needs to be?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes That Will Return Everything Back To Stock.
MikeJ92YJ said:
Yes That Will Return Everything Back To Stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, but you'd still be on sdcard-ext...
ericerk said:
yeah, but you'd still be on sdcard-ext...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He Wants To Go Back To Stock, He Overwrote The vold.fstab 's File And Wants To Switch It Back.
ericerk said:
yeah, but you'd still be on sdcard-ext...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All due respect ericerk, but I think this is beyond your head. You didn't get it from the get go. Lol.
After SBFing it's back to normal...
mistawolfe said:
All due respect ericerk, but I think this is beyond your head. You didn't get it from the get go. Lol.
After SBFing it's back to normal...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So We're Good On This Thread?
mistawolfe said:
All due respect ericerk, but I think this is beyond your head. You didn't get it from the get go. Lol.
After SBFing it's back to normal...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Snap ok, cool i was lost then, cheers and good luck i guess lol

When will we see App2SD built into roms?

Coming from an EVO4G, I've been pretty used to App2SD script being built into the roms and being able to load all my apps on sd for more space. When would we be seeing this on Evo3D? I realized that the custom recovery after S-off, I don't see an Partition SD type setting.
Member with 474 posts and been here for 3 1/2 years and still doesn't know where to post a question.
IMO the EVO 3d already has more than enough built-in space for apps
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
housry23 said:
Member with 474 posts and been here for 3 1/2 years and still doesn't know where to post a question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahahahaha love it!
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
.....
I have an app for that!
Why?
The internal memory along with stock Apps2sd should be good enough.
I couldn't imagine needing it.
Just move apps to your sd card that aren't there by default in the settings
twe90kid said:
Coming from an EVO4G, I've been pretty used to App2SD script being built into the roms and being able to load all my apps on sd for more space. When would we be seeing this on Evo3D? I realized that the custom recovery after S-off, I don't see an Partition SD type setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty used to posting in wrong areas too, over 400 posts and over 3 years, Really?
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
Give it some time...We just got s-off like a day and a half ago lol
Sent from my 3vo via Tapatalk
We have had factory apps2sd since froyo dbag.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
twe90kid said:
Coming from an EVO4G, I've been pretty used to App2SD script being built into the roms and being able to load all my apps on sd for more space. When would we be seeing this on Evo3D? I realized that the custom recovery after S-off, I don't see an Partition SD type setting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea so i didnt read any posts.. eve OP... but use link2SD free app in market... it will install the corresponding ext 2/3/4 drivers and it can auto move everything for you as you install... its great.
housry23 said:
Member with 474 posts and been here for 3 1/2 years and still doesn't know where to post a question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this ^^^^^
adelaney said:
We have had factory apps2sd since froyo dbag.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not the same thing, the built in one I have found does not work as well as the dt app2sd or the cm app2ext mods.
With a gig of storage and stock A2SD, you'll be fine. I never understood the hate for stock A2SD.
A2sd has one real benifit IMO. You don't have to reload everything after installing a new ROM.its all just there.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
luckyzac said:
Give it some time...We just got s-off like a day and a half ago lol
Sent from my 3vo via Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
I'm really surprised at the amount of ROMS that we've gotten in such a short time. I can just imagine what it will be like 2-3 months from now.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
dangerruss said:
A2sd has one real benifit IMO. You don't have to reload everything after installing a new ROM.its all just there.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats not how it works... the data is saved to ext2/3/4 partition... not the entire install. if you wipe, you will still have to restore.
So here's what I do. I install TiBu, and install link2SD. I go to settings in TiBu, and make sure installs all to internal. Open up l2sd, and select ext4 (its what i use). Go into l2sd settings, and make it auto link everything. Reboot. Restore all apps with data with TiBu, and at the same time link2SD restores all...
However, I'm running into a problem with ROMs where I can't see the apps after reboot.
UPDATE:
However, I'm running into a problem with ROMs where I can't see the apps after reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess fastboot wasn't fully disabled... A battery pull solved.
housry23 said:
Member with 474 posts and been here for 3 1/2 years and still doesn't know where to post a question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but ya stupid ass took the tyme to look at there profile, lame ass stfu

Stock firmware sdcard-ext question

So the moto devices put the external SD card under mnt/sdcard-ext as everyone here knows. I'm wondering if there is any method to:
1. Have apps like rhapsody use the external card for downloading music
2. Remap using external for things like Gameloft games data
I am rooted and I've been looking at solutions - alsso know that non stock will allow for changing mount points completely, but not quite there yet.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Vold.fstab
cubexg said:
So the moto devices put the external SD card under mnt/sdcard-ext as everyone here knows. I'm wondering if there is any method to:
1. Have apps like rhapsody use the external card for downloading music
2. Remap using external for things like Gameloft games data
I am rooted and I've been looking at solutions - alsso know that non stock will allow for changing mount points completely, but not quite there yet.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
cool. Did some Googling and see what it is. Can you point me in the right direction for the photon? If its someplace here I'll search around for it (just say so and I'll drop it). Its late and this after dealing with my two year old and 12 week old today - a bit out of it.
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Switch the vold.fstab around.
Make sure your permissions are set right
cubexg said:
cool. Did some Googling and see what it is. Can you point me in the right direction for the photon? If its someplace here I'll search around for it (just say so and I'll drop it). Its late and this after dealing with my two year old and 12 week old today - a bit out of it.
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
OK. I see what to do to swap. Rather then swapping it, is there a "better" mount point for the external so that programs like rhapsody would use it properly? I assume using a bind command from shell would be enough to get the Gameloft games moved.... right? Or do most people simply swap internal with external?
Thanks.
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
I'm curious too, been wondering this for a while but never thought to ask on here.
Is there a step by step guide for doing this or is it going to be too complicated for someone not familiar with coding.? I would love to accomplish this.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
vold.fstab is located in the system/etc folder. You must be rooted to see it. You can change where the mount point is for the external SD card. How to do it is pretty straightforward based on reading the file and Googling. My question is specific to how 'mother's devices deal with the external card and how software like amazon mp3, rhapsody, etc store data to the external SD and how remapping the external SD on the photon would best allow those apps to use the microSD successfully.
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Guess joker wasn't much help huh lol? Someone should write a guide on how to do this instead of whatever the hell joker wrote and said nothing else. Thanks!
Super busy give me a few hours and ill post something
kennypow3rs said:
Guess joker wasn't much help huh lol? Someone should write a guide on how to do this instead of whatever the hell joker wrote and said nothing else. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
Well that would be something the app developers would have to do. The vold.fstab trick is to trick everything in to thinking their switched. Not really a permanent solution. Try contacting the app devs and give as much info as possible including mount points
cubexg said:
vold.fstab is located in the system/etc folder. You must be rooted to see it. You can change where the mount point is for the external SD card. How to do it is pretty straightforward based on reading the file and Googling. My question is specific to how 'mother's devices deal with the external card and how software like amazon mp3, rhapsody, etc store data to the external SD and how remapping the external SD on the photon would best allow those apps to use the microSD successfully.
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
jokersax11 said:
Super busy give me a few hours and ill post something
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sweet, can't wait cause I really want this. Thanks for taking the time to do this for us.
jokersax11 said:
Well that would be something the app developers would have to do. The vold.fstab trick is to trick everything in to thinking their switched. Not really a permanent solution. Try contacting the app devs and give as much info as possible including mount points
Sent from my MB855 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there one mount point that is used more often then others?
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
cubexg said:
Is there one mount point that is used more often then others?
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently Im real tired and I managed to read this kinda aloud... My wife just looked at me and said yes, there is definitely one mount point here that is used more often.
schollianmj said:
Apparently Im real tired and I managed to read this kinda aloud... My wife just looked at me and said yes, there is definitely one mount point here that is used more often.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol question is was she actually talking about sdcards lol jk
To get slightly back on topic , I was wondering if someone could spell out exactly how to do aa 'junction' (this would be the windows term for it) where you have an invisible link for the OS to follow from one place to the next. So instead of modifing the root files,instead running an app that manages it or a script at boot that would allow it. Again - on stock firmware if that matters.
Mnt/sdcard/gameloft redirected to mnt/sdcard-ext/gameloft
Make sense?
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk

Any reason I shouldn't root/overclock?

1. I'm a newb.
2. I've tried to research a good amount on my own.
I know that much customization will require root as a starting point. I'm not sure I want to run a custom rom or not yet as there doesn't seem to be much of a benefit at this current time. The overclocking interests me a bit.. because, why not? I guess that's my question. With using Dag's root and overclock, are there any stability issues at all? Other issues I might run in to? I just want to be positive of what I'm doing before I mess anything up. Should I run a backup of some sort or are roots relatively harmless?
Thanks in advance.
If you do a backup before you do anything its dam near impossible to brick your phone.
Make sure you understand what your doing before you do it not just do it because someone said it works.
Rooting releases your phone as it should be.
Just learn and enjoy
Sent from the only smartphone designed by Chuck Norris
kevinjgray88 said:
If you do a backup before you do anything its dam near impossible to brick your phone.
Make sure you understand what your doing before you do it not just do it because someone said it works.
Rooting releases your phone as it should be.
Just learn and enjoy
Sent from the only smartphone designed by Chuck Norris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not only that, ODIN makes it damn near impossible to brick your phone
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Odin is used in dags method, correct? what's the best way to backup?
Sent from my Samsung Nizzote
edit: everything i'm seeing seems to imply the backup programs can only be installed after root. is there a separate backup i can do before root, or should i needn't worry about backup before rooting?
Overclocking kills battery life. Theres the risk of failing the rooting process too(doubt that will happen...). Flashing also increases flash counter and voiding warranty(go learn how to reset it)
flashing a lot damages internal memory also(you will prolly notice it after 1.5 yrs)
So are we recommending against doing this just for the sake of overclocking? or..
Sorry like you guys said I don't want to do it just to do it, want to be sure I'm doing this for a reason. If nothing else I can remove bloatware after root, right?
Underground_XI said:
flashing a lot damages internal memory also(you will prolly notice it after 1.5 yrs)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is a lot for you?
I ran OC and honestly I can live with out it. Not worth the battery killing any faster. This thing is fast out of box, rooting and removing bloats will make it faster. Using a superscript takes away any other lag issue that I had with keyboard, touch screen responsiveness etc. My advice, don't OC.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Underground_XI said:
flashing a lot damages internal memory also(you will prolly notice it after 1.5 yrs)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who keeps their phone that long? LOL
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
bbgt2 said:
Who keeps their phone that long? LOL
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. I would get sick of a phone if i had it that long.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
shaolinx said:
...Flashing also increases flash counter and voiding warranty(go learn how to reset it)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. No one to our knowledge has ever actually been denied a warranty claim because of the counter.
Underground_XI said:
flashing a lot damages internal memory also(you will prolly notice it after 1.5 yrs)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely nope. This is just silly.
OP: It's great fun and the best way to unlock the potential of your device. Just make sure you do your research first!
Ok I guess I'll just root and remove bloat and see where that gets me
Sent from my Samsung Nizzote
bbgt2 said:
Who keeps their phone that long? LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL Seriously!! Those of us who tweak the phones this much will want something new well before 18 months! I had my Atrix almost exactly a year before I went to the Note.
Rooted. It's amazing how much easier that was than the equivalent process with Wp7 (getting a student dev account free was a pain in the ass). So I'm pretty sure I have Dag's kernel (pda.tar) uploaded. I want to try out holo's (don't see why not). I thought I could've just substituted his for Dag's initially, but couldn't figure out how. There was only one pda.tar file available and I saved both kernels in the same folder. It's really just the boot.img file that you're flashing, isn't it? I might not know what I'm talking about so rather than continuing if someone could just let me know how to update with holo's.
awerry said:
LOL Seriously!! Those of us who tweak the phones this much will want something new well before 18 months! I had my Atrix almost exactly a year before I went to the Note.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the atrix for like 6 moths and went to the note, and prolly gonna get the galaxy s3 when it comes out
Plexicle said:
Definitely nope. This is just silly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
enlighten yourself http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1189544
Yes you can remove bloat
Sent from the only smartphone designed by Chuck Norris
Underground_XI said:
enlighten yourself http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1189544
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. Flashing does degrade non-volatile memory over time. Eeproms can't handle being written to over and over and over. Things like USB drives get around this by writting files non-contiguously to random blocks/sectors (and by using other methods), and keeping a table of blocks that have gone bad. So you can write a 1 mb file over and over and it isn't writing it to the first meg on the drive, it is going in pieces all over the place, randomly each time. If it writes a block and that doesn't pass a checksum test, it will write the block again to another area and mark the block as bad so it never writes to it again.
Of course this isn't great for performance on a USB drive, but that is why this IS a problem on something like the OS partition of a phone. There you can't write randomly, you need contiguous files for performance, so each time you flash a new rom you are writing to the same memory space every time. Eventually you wear it out and there is no "bad block" table to help.
---------- Post added at 08:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 AM ----------
T__ said:
I agree. I would get sick of a phone if i had it that long.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, I kept my last phone 4 1/2 years because nothing came close in specs until the Note. It was the first phone with a 5" screen, video out, removable keyboard, 8 gb hard drive (back when a 2 gb SD card was "big").
techntrek said:
LOL, I kept my last phone 4 1/2 years because nothing came close in specs until the Note. It was the first phone with a 5" screen, video out, removable keyboard, 8 gb hard drive (back when a 2 gb SD card was "big").
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Are you referring to the HTC Athena? I loved that device... kept mine a few years, too. That phone was way ahead of its time.
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Pros and cons of swapping storage?

I'm just wondering, if you swap to use external memory do you have to format it to work with your phone?
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Was wondering the same thing. What about write speeds?
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I did the swap with a ultra 64gb. It works fine. Read the threads about it and FOLLOW the directions.
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specific link
nicko42004200 said:
I did the swap with a ultra 64gb. It works fine. Read the threads about it and FOLLOW the directions.
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curious if theres a specific link you might have for the swap
ramlion said:
curious if theres a specific link you might have for the swap
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Ditto. Can't say I've read much about it
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Haven't found a good way to swap them, reduced to using the wonderful app Directory Bind to do this, but now I have a hard time remembering what folders have been moved the real SDcard.
With my Motorola phones it was as simple as editing the fold.fstab file, not so much with this phone.
http://galaxynote2root.com/galaxy-n...sd-card-with-rooted-galaxy-note-2-app2sd-mod/
did this on CleanROM and it works.
I didn't like it, so prior to doing it I did a nandroid backup.
I don't like the fact the script has to run every time the phone boots, yes, i know it does this automatically.
Also, i'm a bit confused how backups will work when you use this app, too. I know the system files are still stored on the phone's physical hdd... but i'm wondering what happens when I restore in titanium backup and have two different locations where APKs should be?
There are some other issues in beans thread, i've heard. I'm not sure if ROM related or not, though.
The one thing with Directory Bind is that it has to continue to run too, but its very easy on the RAM and battery, not a big deal.
I have tried that script, but it would never remount my sdcard, so both /mtn/sdcard/ and /mnt/extsdcard/ would show up as the internal memory, thats when I found the Directory Bind.
Directory Bind works wonders, I have /sdcard/Android/ pointing to /mnt/extSdCard/Android/ without issues, along with some others. Its just the programs that don't store their data there that you tend to have issues with.
igknight said:
The one thing with Directory Bind is that it has to continue to run too, but its very easy on the RAM and battery, not a big deal.
I have tried that script, but it would never remount my sdcard, so both /mtn/sdcard/ and /mnt/extsdcard/ would show up as the internal memory, thats when I found the Directory Bind.
Directory Bind works wonders, I have /sdcard/Android/ pointing to /mnt/extSdCard/Android/ without issues, along with some others. Its just the programs that don't store their data there that you tend to have issues with.
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Except that when we get 4.2 directory bind doesn't work.
Oh ****, thats gunna suck.
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