Ok so far Ive found the mod to swap the internal and external sd,
The ideal mod for me is to merge all the 16gb internal into one partition and mount my sd card as a normal sd instead of external sd.
If anyone knows of the mod to do it the way ideal for me please link me. If you are a dev and like this idea would you take the challenge to make this happen? I will gladly beta test as long as a fastboot is available.
You want volume management on a phone?
Just get a big honking SD card. I have a SanDisk 64GB sdxc.
The 128GB cards will probably be available by October.
That said, you can probably get LVM working under Android, but you'll only be able to work with it from the phone itself (no browsing from a PC or putting stuff on the microSD directly w/o totally breaking the logical volume).
You can also format the SD space as ext3, then set up /etc/fstab to mount the external SD on a folder on the internal SD eg, /mnt/sdcard/Music Library. You won't be able to read/write that space from Microsoft (no, e2fsd won't do it), but any other OS can browse it like any other disk drive. Also, the drives will still appear separate from outside the phone.
the ext3 sounds nice but I like my idea better, my idea is pretty much the way samsung/htc/lg formats their storage, one is phone storage, other is sd, not the phone, sd (other internal) and extended sd(actual sd card)
and sorry for some confusion for anyone I meant Extended sd not external, kinda a noob in here coming from a sammy prepaid android.
Iirc in ICS the internal memory is counted as one part. So the 4gb and 8gb will be 12gb or whatever. Android 2.3 and below use the partitioned method.
Sent from my XT910 using xda premium
Edit; therefore wait till ICS comes out
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I seem to have trouble grasping the concept of Internal and external SD memory.
I purchased a 16GB microSD card with the hopes that I can move most of my apps to that card but when I use app2sd I always get the "Failed to move application, not enough memory" error.
When I check the free space it shows more than 13GB on both the internal memory and also on the microSD card.
Since my gtablet has 16GB of "internal" storage already, what's microSD card good for?
Shouldn't I be able to move apps to either internal or external SD storage or am I just not understanding how this all works?
Can someone explain to me in Layman's terms what I need to do?
Thanks !!
PS: I just now accidentally reformatted my internal SD card so I will have to start from scratch anyways ;-)
Frogbone said:
I seem to have trouble grasping the concept of Internal and external SD memory.
I purchased a 16GB microSD card with the hopes that I can move most of my apps to that card but when I use app2sd I always get the "Failed to move application, not enough memory" error.
When I check the free space it shows more than 13GB on both the internal memory and also on the microSD card.
Since my gtablet has 16GB of "internal" storage already, what's microSD card good for?
Shouldn't I be able to move apps to either internal or external SD storage or am I just not understanding how this all works?
Can someone explain to me in Layman's terms what I need to do?
Thanks !!
PS: I just now accidentally reformatted my internal SD card so I will have to start from scratch anyways ;-)
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From what I understand, app2sd functionality is built into Froyo & beyond. No need for a separate app.
In laymans terms, your 16GB internal sd is split in 2, 2GB for apps & 14 gb for data.I have 88 apps installed & it is only using 492MB of the 2GB. Apps install to the 2GB area, but the (and the system) use the 14 GB data area for storage. You can also use this space for dat/files storage as well.
The external microsd slot is generally used by you for data storage. You can use it for what ever you like. I use mine to store copies of different roms/nvflash, movies/video/pictures & music transferred from the PC.
Just wondering if I should pick up a card beforehand or does the Evo 4G LTE come with one?
My phone did not come with an SD card. You'll have to buy one separately.
no sd card but that new 64gb card I put in sure is nice.
Short answer: NO. You will need to get yourself one. You can get a 64 GB microSD card that will fit perfectly and work.
Long answer: You don't really need one. Yes, it comes with 16GB of storage, which is partitioned into: about 2 GB for the system, about 2 GB for apps storage, and the rest (about 10 GB) is put into the "/sdcard" partition. It's not really an sdcard, but a fake sdcard. It looks like an SD card to Android. This is where you would put the regular stuff that you would put on a normal SD card. IF you put in your own microSD card, then it will be accessible via both paths "/sdcard2" or "/sdcard/ext_sd", as they both point to the same location. I have both my camera (and video) and music storage pointing to my "external" memory (all 64 GB). IF you do not put in your own memory card, then you can still access the internal storage over USB, but you will have to do so via MTP. Google that. Most modern PCs should have support in the OS.
So, in summary... relax. You don't need to get your own memory card right away. See first if you really need it.
no. no and no.
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
Thank you for looking onto this post!
Is Apps2sd/Link2sd still working with MM? I tried to use Apps2sd to create mount scripts since it's not working for Link2sd. It worked and I can link app datas and files into the Sd card. However, since I partitioned the SD card with one Fat 32 for storage and one ext2/ext4 (tried both), only the ext partitions work and the primary partition Fat32 can't be read by the phone. Leaving me with only a 2nd partition for linking and a corrupt primary partition/sd card as MM reads it. Is there a way around here since my phone is nearly full on internal. TY in advance!
-Galaxy S5 G900F International 16gb
-MM 6.0.1
What you would want to do is reformat your SD card so it's all one partition and enable Adoptive Storage.
This app should help with that: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superthomaslab.rootessentials&hl=en
Keep in mind, Adoptive Storage will encrypt your card so it will only usable by that phone unless you reformat it again, but it's a way cleaner and better set up option that the hacked way Link2SD works. No offense to the app as it is very useful in many situations, but Adoptive Storage is a feature made by Google and is built into Android 6+ but for some phones has to be enabled via ADB commands or an app (that just automates the process for you). AS makes it so your phone sees your SD card as the internal storage and works just like it. You should have a fast SD card for this to work best. Like SDXC type. Don't use a regular class 4 SD card.
es0tericcha0s said:
What you would want to do is reformat your SD card so it's all one partition and enable Adoptive Storage.
This app should help with that: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superthomaslab.rootessentials&hl=en
Keep in mind, Adoptive Storage will encrypt your card so it will only usable by that phone unless you reformat it again, but it's a way cleaner and better set up option that the hacked way Link2SD works. No offense to the app as it is very useful in many situations, but Adoptive Storage is a feature made by Google and is built into Android 6+ but for some phones has to be enabled via ADB commands or an app (that just automates the process for you). AS makes it so your phone sees your SD card as the internal storage and works just like it. You should have a fast SD card for this to work best. Like SDXC type. Don't use a regular class 4 SD card.
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Hello! Thanks for the reply and I guess I have no choice. I did adoptive storage and the app you gave worked well! But my adopted storage and SD card has the same name and confuses me at times. Is there a way to rename it? Also, how can I move apps from my internal to adopted? And is there a way to automatically install apps on adopted? Thank you!
My understanding is that once you have the adoptive storage set correctly then the phone should register that as part of the regular phone's storage.