Hi All.
I'm trying to learn about modding but the concepts elude me.
Can someone smart please explain the disk structure of a Galaxy S2 for me, cause I think it will help
GSM Arena says it has 16gb of flash and 1gb of ram.
I want to learn how the filesystem is partitioned in Android so I can understand it better (maybe some linux experience would help me)
So of the 16gb, I think 1.5gb is partitioned off for Apps, is that right? and the remainder is data?
Does my OS reside in the 1.5gb and all the stock Android Apps?
Where does the recovery ROM thing sit? (Clockworkmod) I want to visualise the disk structure so it makes sense to me.
Related
Hello anybody who can help me and other people understanding what we see in applications which show memory info.
I want to understand why "meminfo" shows total RAM 335Mb and Internal phone storage: 420Mb (it is on my phone).
Official info from http://developer.sonyericsson.com/wportal/devworld/phones/phone-overview/xperia-mini-pro?cc=gb&lc=en says it should be the next:
- Internal phone storage: up to 320 MB
- RAM: 512MB !!!
One of my thoughts is that the part of memory is used by video-card
Please explain me why it happens
Some is dedicated to the graphic and some more is reserved from the system. The total is 512, don't worry.
Sent from my SK17i using XDA App
Think of the Android Operating System as a Virtual Machine on your phone. It needs some RAM in order to work.
dumraden said:
Think of the Android Operating System as a Virtual Machine on your phone. It needs some RAM in order to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you modify the values besides a VM usage ram ?
No. What you need in order to have more "system memory" which actually is part of the RAM itself is swap. Swap creates a partition on your sd card which then is used by the system to store temporary data. The thing is that its a double edged knife. NAND is 100 times faster than your typical SD card, so loading apps and/or part of the system on your swap partition might end up in a slower overall phone. But we wont have such a problem with our devices, because the system itself doesnt take all that much storage itself.
The only device so far that i know, which had a problem with storage was the Desire Z i own, when you wanted to flash a custom sense 3.0 rom. Then it needed different partitioning in order for the Sense 3.0 to fit into the device.(the device isnt a sense 3.0 device by default).
If you have many apps that you cant seem to fit in the 320mb of free memory, i recommend you install an app2sd application.
I have 25Gb of available space but less than 2Gb for apps? I'd like to use all internal storage for apps and the external card for media. Any idea how I set that up?
I have a Galaxy S2 Epic (SPH-D710) stock ROM, rooted with the zermax kernel and fited with a Sandisk 16Gb class 4 micro sd card.
Problem discovered while installing Navfree. Got the error message "not enough space". So I can't install and move.
Settings>Applications>Maganage applications>All shows
112Mb used of 1.9Gb available.
Settings>Storage>USB storage shows
Total space is 11.5Gb and Available space 11.5Gb
Settings>Storage>SD card shows
Total space 14.83Gb (aka 16Gb!) and Available space 14.81Gb.
syco123 said:
Settings>Storage>SD card shows
Total space 14.83Gb (aka 16Gb!) and Available space 14.81Gb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's perfectly normal dude.. The system uses a chunk of the built-in 16GB for the ROM's use (/system, /data, /cache plus a few other partitions), and the rest is assigned to /sdcard, hence the 11.5GB (I know, that's kind of like false advertisement but what you wanna do ? Sue Samsung ?)
And for the external SD, that's also normal. I'm surprised you didn't notice this detail on the capacity of your harddrive before : end-users tend to think in "base2" (whereas 1KB=1024 bytes, 1MB=1024KB, 1GB=1024MB, and so on), while media manufacturers count in "base10" (i.e. 1KB=1000bytes, 1MB=1000KB, etc). It's a cheap way to reach the symbolic "GB", "TB", "PB" (etc) landmarks more quickly (at least, quicker than the competition).
Do the maths, you'll see that over 16GB that makes a huge chunk of "magically" disappeared storage, but it never was there to begin with.. Also false advertising there, kind of.. But we're all in the same boat here. :S
Snakeforhire said:
That's perfectly normal dude..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, I understand that, that why I put "(aka 16Gb") as I'm referring to a 16Gb card but listing 14.83Gb available. It was to not cause confusion, guess I failed there!
The problem I'm having is, I need around 4Gb (apparently) to install Navfree. I only have 2Gb available to apps even though I have 25Gb of storage.
People must be installing Navfree, so I must be doing something wrong.
16GB is 16000000000btye/1024/ 1024/1024 = 14. 9GB.
So it is 16Gb and not 16GB.
No such 4gb large program for android. The program is maybe 10-20mb. And the 4gb is the DATA. You can store the 4gb in your SD card.
Accidentally sent from my Google Nexus S using XDA Premium
I just tried again and it installed with a file size of 15.53Mb. Weird, Oh well, thanks anyway.
yeah i was gonna say : you might find some bloatware on the android market here and there, but by and large it is still pretty much immune to this phenomenon..
A 4GB program is something you might encounter under Windows, but Linux ?
Sorry that my first post is reviving an old-ish thread, but the initial question asked hasn't been answered (and a search of the forum didn't help me)..
Is it possible to resize the partitions of the internal storage on my s2, and if so, how?
And whilst on the subject of the internal storage, can someone please clarify if flashing a custom ROM will affect files on the "USB storage" partition, or only the files stored on the "internal" storage partition?
Sorry if these seem like noobish questions, but I am new to this customising malarkey, and want to make sure I don't lose any data unnecessarily, like I did countless times with my iPhone...
nope, flashing a rom (either stock or custom) *should* not alter usb or internal sdcard storage. If it does, that's a surefire sign that the guy who cooked the said rom has no friggin clue whatsoever about what he's messing with and to steer clear from this particular rom...
It must be possible to alter the partitioning scheme to resize the internal storage. At least that's the theory, we're dealing with a flavor of linux here, and everything is doable with linux -and enough effort and dedication.
However, as this partition lies on the same emmc chip as the system, data, cache and kernel/recovery/bootloader partitions, I highly recommend *NOT* to mess with it in any way -not unless you have another smartphone lying around that you could use as backup while your borked SGS2 is shipped back to the samsung service centre, and you're prepared to spend some $$ over the repairs (since rooting is absolutely necessary for this kind of manipulation, your warranty would theoretically be null&void in the process)...
Hello,
I already posted this in device specific forum but there i got no answer and i think it's a problem common to many devices.
So what's the problem: I really like my G2 but i have one annoying issue:
When using one of those great custom roms i end up with pretty much free space on internal storage (system partition).
Since i'm having the 16GB-version i have ~10GB of usable space and currently ~3-5GB wasted space.
When using OSM-Maps 10GB is not much so i hope there is a way to utilize the free space on internal storage.
I have some ideas but i'm no dev and i hardly know about linux and even less about android.
So thats what i thought of:
Idea 1: Change partition size.
Well i think not a good idea but on my old HTC HD2 i could choose how the storage is partitioned. Don't know if this is possible on G2 and if changes there are not to risky.
Idea 2: Create a virtual SD-Card.
I know that this is possible somehow because i can do that with androidx86 on my tablet. So why dont write an app or zip-File-Patch that creates a custom-size virtual sd-card on internal storage/system partition. Problem is that i can't do that. Help of a dev would be needed.
Idea 3: Redirect folders.
On Linux and Windows it's possible to create "virtual folders" that are just links to the real folder that is stored somewhere else. Pretty handy on windows to move music-library to sd-card with full functions for example.
I think i've seen such things on android too when browsing my device. So why don't move for example the DCIM-Folder and others to internal storage this way?
But again a dev would be needed.
Idea 4: Copy some stuff with root and file explorer.
Thats maybe the simpliest way but i don't know how and where i can copy things. For example i've around 4GB of music on my device and if i can still access it i would have no problem to move it to internal storage somewhere. Maybe to ringtones folder or something like this.
But i'm not sure where i should put it to be on internal storage and access being still possible.
It would be great to further discuss this ideas with you and find some kind of solution
Hello.
My Father has a Galaxy S II , and he is always complaining that his phone is low on space.
The phone is 16GB and has another 16GB MicroSD card.
Most of his on-board integrated 16GB is free, and his MicroSD card is almost completely empty, the problem is that this phone has a very small Android OS 2GB partition, and every time he installs an app it always leaves something on the OS partition (even after manually moving every possible app to SD using the built in Move To SD, and placing all photos and videos on MicroSD). So even with very few Apps installed his phone is always begging for space since essentially he can only make use of 2GB of his 32GB of storage.
So I have considered maybe the best way to fix this his issue, is to install a Custom ROM on his phone, which only contains 1 Single Partition for the integrated 16GB of storage space, and another partition for the 16GB of MicroSD storage.
Thus eliminating the limited 2GB OS partition. (basically make it like every new Android phone since the galaxy S2)
I have never used a custom Android ROM so this is new to me ( i am more familiar with PC's).
So my primary question before I start looking for info and procedures on rooting and custom roms for this phone is as follows:
IS it possible to even install a new android OS on this phone which will have only one primary partition, or is this phone forever destined to only work as it is now with a small 2GB OS partition? In other words is there a hardware limitation which prevents this phone from addressing more than 2GB for its OS partition?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
mr_interested said:
IS it possible to even install a new android OS on this phone which will have only one primary partition, or is this phone forever destined to only work as it is now with a small 2GB OS partition? In other words is there a hardware limitation which prevents this phone from addressing more than 2GB for its OS partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can repartition the phone using a modified PIT file. You will be able to increase the Data partition to avoid the "out of space" when installing or updating apps. The tradeoff is to have a smaller internal SD partition.
I have done it to my S 2.
There is a thread with clear instructions on how to do it. You will have to learn to use Odin, but that will be very useful as long as you have Samsung phones.
Here is the link: [MOD][GUIDE]Partition your internal memory for better App management (Pit Files)
svbarbosa said:
You can repartition the phone using a modified PIT file. You will be able to increase the Data partition to avoid the "out of space" when installing or updating apps. The tradeoff is to have a smaller internal SD partition.
I have done it to my S 2.
There is a thread with clear instructions on how to do it. You will have to learn to use Odin, but that will be very useful as long as you have Samsung phones.
Here is the link: [MOD][GUIDE]Partition your internal memory for better App management (Pit Files)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info.
Would it not be easier to just format the phone and start from scratch by installing a new custom Android OS ?
Will starting from scratch with a new OS allow me to set my partitions (just like on a PC) ?
Thanks again.
mr_interested said:
Thanks for the info.
Would it not be easier to just format the phone and start from scratch by installing a new custom Android OS ?
Will starting from scratch with a new OS allow me to set my partitions (just like on a PC) ?
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. You must use the Odin / Pit file to modify partition sizes.
And yes, that assumes you will flash a new rom.
svbarbosa said:
No. You must use the Odin / Pit file to modify partition sizes.
And yes, that assumes you will flash a new rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget to mention that re-partitioning your phone will delete all data so do a backup!!!!!
gsstudios said:
Don't forget to mention that re-partitioning your phone will delete all data so do a backup!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said.
I did not mention it because it is the first step in the instructions.
But it is never too much to repeat. Backup! Backup! Backup!
Hello, I'm new to tinkling with android devices. Bear with my assumptions or better, correct me.
I recently bought a phone from a not well known brand... so finding specific help is hard and I'm not concerned about their 'said' warranty.
Phone is advertised as 32GB and 3GB but the storage behaves as 16GB. The manufacturer's file manager shows 32 GB.
But digging, my computer shows 12.## GB out of 32 I've installed solid explorer and it shows 12.## GB space.
With solid explorer and DiskUsage, I believe there can actually be 16 GB unused space.. I explain..
The root folder shows a /data folder that has two parts, 16.2 used and 15.8 free.
Image: saykenya.(com)/Screen32.png
My calculations show that cache, dev, storage,system all add up to 16Gb which makes sense. Where is the other 16 (15.8) GB?
So I thought the phone actually has 32 GB but part of it is not mounted and you can help me mount it for use.
... I've seen there's a ROM for it at needrom website but but how sure? I have it in my laptop.
...I've wanted to create a nandroid backup but but cwm recovery has not supported it
...I've been googling about resizing partitions but but I don't have a recovery route
... I will definitely attempt some adb commands but isn't it better if I'm more informed?
Phone is called Hotwav s8