Hi this is my first Samsung Android, and I'm kinda confused about the storage layout. Iam on 2.3.4 stock, unrooted. It has regular internal sd memory, external memory(sd card), and device memory. I have the apps2sd app, but when I move the app it just goes to the regular internal memory, how do I get it to save to my actual sd memory card? Also what is the device memory and what gets saved there, or used for?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
There's 2 'memory cards' The phone has 16gb of internal storage and you can install your own Micro SD memory card in as well. Pending your rom or kernel/recovery the designation... *at least as far as the phone cares* of which card is which can change.
Also some Rom will have an option in the settings and will ask you where you'd like to install yours apps. *system/internal, sd card, or let the system decide.*
Experiment and you'll get it with time.
Connect it to your computer - it should mount internal and external as two different drive letters. When you're looking at files while *on* you phone (in stock, at least), you should see an "external_sd" under /mnt/sdcard - that's the removable memory card.
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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.
Hello.
I just bought a MicroSD, and saw on ESExplorer that the phone mounts the externalSD inside the sdcard folder /sdcard/external_sd
That way, it thinks I only have 11.5Gb available and everything I put inside my external_sd actually fills the internal memory.
I should have 11.5+8=19.5 but I don't.
Any way to fix this?
Thanks a lot!
I can't believe no one has a Galaxy S2 with an external Sd card!
SirDVV said:
I can't believe no one has a Galaxy S2 with an external Sd card!
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Settings menu/storage and did you format it there first? Or do you use Kies and what is it using for sending stuff to your memory (Internal or External First?)
In settings/storage do you see both cards? In mine I can see SD card 29.81gb & USB storage 11.5gb.
Yes it shows the external card folder in the internal file explorer. It doesn't mean files are saved on the internal card. It was also like that on the S1 as well.
When you connect to PC in USB mode the PC will show both cards separately.
Sent from my GT-I9100
external_sd is just the mount point. You will only have ~12gb available on your internal memory because the phone uses some memory for the OS. I only have 7.4gb usable on my 8gb external sd. The available memory is always smaller than advertised
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
I took a new 32GB mSD, copied directories of music, ringtones, TiBu files, etc. to the root directory of the mSD in preparation for the Note (using a computer, directly to SD). I do this with all of my new Android devices.
I rooted the Note before I did anything with it, and popped in the mSD and started the phone.
The first thing I noticed was that TiBu did not find any files in the default backup directory. After some looking, I found that all those directories I copied to the root (again, using a computer), are now under a directory called external_sd.
I shut down the phone, took out the mSD, popped it into the computer, and all I see are the directories I copied, right off of root.
Using Root Explorer--I see that /sdcard is /dev/block/vold/179:28 and external_sd is mounted at /dev/block/vold/179:33.
Why is this? I have had about fifteen Android phones and none behaved like this.
Thanks.
When you hook your note up to the computer do both sd cars mount separately ?
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I have only used Samsung Android devices, but out of all of them that I have had, each one has behaved this way. They mount the external sd card inside a folder inside the internal sd card.
The Note (and other galaxy phones) use the internal storage as the "SDcard". The actual SD card will show up like you said under external_sd. Most if not all apps work off the SDcard. You can however direct TB to use the external_sd.
I have a separate problem all together were my music files do not show up on either storage.
This is because the Samsung Galaxy line (and the Infuse) have a 2 gb system partition as well as in internal 16gb SD card which is labeled SD and an external SD card slot which will accept up to a 32gb MicroSD card. The external SD card is referenced as external_SD on your phone. It's just the mount point that Samsung chose for the external SD card.
Hope this helps. If so, hit thanks, over there -------------------------------->
--Mike
MobileData said:
This is because the Samsung Galaxy line (and the Infuse) have a 2 gb system partition as well as in internal 16gb SD card which is labeled SD and an external SD card slot which will accept up to a 32gb MicroSD card. The external SD card is referenced as external_SD on your phone. It's just the mount point that Samsung chose for the external SD card.
Hope this helps. If so, hit thanks, over there -------------------------------->
--Mike
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I have the Sandisk 64gb MicroSD in mine and its been perfect. Several others on the note forums have the 64gb as well. 32gb isn't the maximum size.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Thanks for all the replies and explaination. I have an Epic 4G, which is a Galaxy S, but it does not have the internal SD. I will have to check my Galaxy Nexus to see how it is.
Follow up questions:
1) I used SanDisk Memory tool and saw that the Internal Memory is shown as being "x.x (bytes) of 10.8 GB Free". I thought the Internal is 16GB?
2) Is there a way to force the phone to use the external SD as the SDCARD? I have a class 10 card, I'm not concerned about performance, and I rather have a memory card that I can remove. It makes it easier to transfer large video, picture, backup, or music files.
Thanks.
I have an infuse and anything I put on the external microsd is seen by the phone- apps installer sees the apk's, e-readers can find my books, etc.
On the note, I have the same set up on my external sd card. But the apps installer does not see the apk's, the books are not seen. The only way I can install the apk's is thru the file explorer- the stock one. I am completely stock. When you go to the storage, you see the ext. sd card has content by the amt of space left.
What the Note did find were my ringtones- sms and reg. ringtones- and were selectable by the Note sound settings and contacts.
So the external micro sd cards are being seen differently by the Infuse and the Note.
deleted...
If you go in preference of ti, u can tell it to search whole device it will find it on micro sd.
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Well I am lately facing an issue with the stock SD card which was provided together with my neo V. For some reason the free space of the card doesn't correspond to the free space it should really have.
All my data on the SD card is 308.49MB but in Storage there are available only 25.84MB left. How is that even possible?
I have unmounted and remounted the SD card and I have also removed it and put it back in, but nothing changed. Due to this problem I am facing serious problems with the updates of my apps and with the installation of new apps (phone indicates there is not enough space in memory or SD card)
If someone can help it will be greatly appreciated.
I am using official ICS 4.0.4 android version.
Thanks in advance
I believe what you mean is internal memory,right?
normally new apps will install in internal memory.
maybe you can try some apps which can move apps to SD card.Or maybe you can try custom ROM here in Xda...
No, I am talking about the SD card. Not about the internal memory. The internal memory calculates the space properly.
The SD card on the other hand has a problem with that. Even though it is 2GB and and the data in it is 308.49MB it still shows no space available under the storage. Same applies when I use other apps that show the capacity of the SD card.
Take out the sd, connect it to your PC, back up your data and then format it again, then copy your data back to the sd
Sent from my MT15i using XDA
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.
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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).