I read that by default the xperia S uses the FAT filesystem, so there is a 4gb file size limitation.
I'm wondering if there's a way to format it to use ext4 file system? Either through flashing another image or ROM?
Thought of it too, it might just work. Will give it a try when building AOKP, having compressed btrfs on sdcard would be quite badass.
ok, thanks. I was just a bit curious as to why sony went with FAT when ext4 is a much better file system. I know that on my HTC Vision I was able to get the its storage as ext4 by flashing custom roms, so it would be great if it's possible.
isn't btrfs still unstable?
chaose said:
ok, thanks. I was just a bit curious as to why sony went with FAT when ext4 is a much better file system. I know that on my HTC Vision I was able to get the its storage as ext4 by flashing custom roms, so it would be great if it's possible.
isn't btrfs still unstable?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is kinda unstable, but the storage format is frozen so nothing to worry about.
Related
Can someone tell me the difference between these to partition formats on my SD card?
I have EXT3 at the moment - using Amon_Ra recovery 1.3.2. I have the option to change it to EXT4, but want to find out a bit more before I do.
Why do it - what beifits?
Any dangers in doing it?
Can you change back to EXT3 if you want?
cheers all.
J-Zeus said:
Can someone tell me the difference between these to partition formats on my SD card?
I have EXT3 at the moment - using Amon_Ra recovery 1.3.2. I have the option to change it to EXT4, but want to find out a bit more before I do.
Why do it - what beifits
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4
Cheers, but hoping for a real world explanation that doesn't leave me more confused then when I first started reading
J-Zeus said:
Cheers, but hoping for a real world explanation that doesn't leave me more confused then when I first started reading
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ditto ...i wanted to ask this same question ..hoping someone can help us
ext4 is is the improved and newest linux file system version and might be a little faster in case of accessing programs than the previous versions.
Greetz
J-Zeus said:
Cheers, but hoping for a real world explanation that doesn't leave me more confused then when I first started reading
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if it only were that simple...
EXT4 v. EXT3
An ext4 partition can be mounted as an ext3 partition. Ext4 has significant performance improvements over ext3, though.
If your kernel supports it, use ext4. Currently, I am working on adding support for ext partitions to my device. Getting sick of lost and corrupt files using vfat (not to mention the poor performance of vfat).
Both ext3 and ext4 are journaled filesystems, and are virtually impervious to file corruption due to not cleanly umounting.
I should point that ext3 and ext4 (specially the last), have better performance but also wear out the SD card faster, because more read/write operations are made...
Not that an SD Card is expensive nowadays, but I advise to backup frequently.
What do you base this assertion on?
I have never heard any claims before that ext4 wears out drives faster. Not even traditional drives.
I suspect that ext4 is faster because it is more efficient, not because it issues more I/o per second.
Do you have a source that you can cite?
Sent from my Zio using XDA App
Ext4, and ext3 wear out drives quicker because they are journaling, constantly writing an index file on the SD card. SD cards only have limited write cycles, so constantly writing to it wears it out quicker.
To the OP. As far as I can tell, there isn't a vast scope of improvements in ext4 over ext3. I never bothered upgrading my desktop system. Basically it just means it can handle processing a single 16Tb file (or whatever the limit is), but as our Heroes aren't ever going to have that kind of file on them, there is no real advantage to changing to ext4.
s23bog said:
What do you base this assertion on?
I have never heard any claims before that ext4 wears out drives faster. Not even traditional drives.
I suspect that ext4 is faster because it is more efficient, not because it issues more I/o per second.
Do you have a source that you can cite?
Sent from my Zio using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read it on a thread, when I was searching for ways to get A2SD script to work on VR13. I eventually quit and flashed another rom.
Is it possible to repartition my SD card to use EXT4 instead of FAT32, with the Fascinate? I'm currently running an EB01 kernel and a custom EB01 build. I'm just not sure how to do this part, as I've never done it before. I've seen it done for other devices, but I don't think it has come up here yet. This isn't really a debate on if I should or should not make it EXT4, just on how to do it.
That's what a voodoo kernel does.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
JoeDat said:
That's what a voodoo kernel does.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running the EB01 voodoo kernel, and yes it obviously has support for EXT4 since that is the FS it uses.
My question though is how can I mount my SD card to be recognized when I format it to EXT4 too?
Ah crap. I should have read your post more than once. Mundane detail. Just call me Michael Bolton.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
If you don't have anything on your SDcard you mind deleting (or could just back it up), you could always try repartitioning it, and then seeing if Android is able to mount it.
If it doesn't automatically work, it shouldn't be too hard to modify the system to work (either by switching it from using 'vfat' to 'auto' or 'ext4')... it's just a matter of finding out where to change it.
There's no reason why it wouldn't, I guess... worst case you use command line mount tool to mount it manually every boot
That's what I thought too, that it would work inherently, but I partitioned/formatted the entire thing to EXT3 and it was not able to be recognized. I think either A) there is no built-in module for EXT3 support, or B) I'm just not doing it right.
Could be that I used a Windows tools to do the job to get EXT3, and I'm having trouble finding one to do EXT4, and I can't find any tools/scripts to convert EXT3 to EXT4 for Android.
If you format the sdcard to anything other than FAT32, Windows will not be able to read it when you try to mount it on your PC. I'm not sure if there are any utilities available that allows Windows to directly mount EXT filesystems or not, but I would be very afraid of data loss with a configuration like that.
What is the reason you want to convert it? Is it the file size limit of FAT32, or something else?
Posted from my EB01 SuperClean Fascinate with Voodoo
ivorycruncher said:
If you format the sdcard to anything other than FAT32, Windows will not be able to read it when you try to mount it on your PC. I'm not sure if there are any utilities available that allows Windows to directly mount EXT filesystems or not, but I would be very afraid of data loss with a configuration like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's been an ext2 (possibly 3/4, but all are backwards compatible long as you don't use extents on 4) driver for Windows for a number of years. There's also a number of tools that can allow you to open ext2/3/4 file systems and modify them, without actually having to mount them.
ADB would also still work, so would an app that provides access to the sdcard via webdav/ftp/sftp/etc.
What is the reason you want to convert it? Is it the file size limit of FAT32, or something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speed should improve by quite a bit, as well as greatly increased reliability (although the windows. Ext2/3/4 also support far larger files than fat32, of course, so if you like your raw-DVD rips or 1080p ultra-high-quality bollywood movies, there would be an obvious benefit by removing that restriction. I don't believe the ext family of file systems support it (but I could be wrong about ext4), but tail packing would greatly improve efficiency if you have a massive number of small files (reiserfs has it, btrfs might also- not sure).
Personally, it doesn't seem like there's enough of a benefit to really do it, especially if you're not using Linux... other than the desire to do it for the sake of doing it... which, considering where we are, that's pretty much enough of a reason to do anything.
Until I can find a good way to automount the FS every boot I wil probably stay with FAT32. I played around with different methods last night quite a bit and it turned into much more of a hassle than I liked. I really regret not having it however, because of the loss of speed.
Hello Everyone !
Last week i was trying different ways to mount our phone storage ( internal as well as card ). What im about to share is the result of some experiments done at that time.
This is not a guide exactly, as many of us know the steps done here, but still, i take no responsibility of any type of problem you face.Please ask for help if you need.
for more information : Read this.
When i checked my internal storage, it was 72% fragmented !!!
so i thought may be there are others who haven't formatted internal/external storage for a year or above, thus leading to heavy fragmentation.
here it is :
method 1: (also applicable for card storage)
take backup of all data and format. That should solve it !
method 2:
i recommend using 360 security app(with root access) first.
let the app scan your phone, it will find app cache, trash and user data in your phone. but first uninstall unused apps and delete some data that you don't need. you can always copy it back if you need it.
clean all, including empty folders (it will increase simplicity of your storage).
How to Mount Internal Storage as USB DRIVE :
1. Reboot into CWM
2. Connect phone to a windows PC (prefer win 7)
3. Go to "USB mass storage"
4. Select mount sd card.
5. You should see your internal mounted as removable mass storage drive.
6. Enjoy unrestricted access to your internal drive.
--------------------------------------
All right guys, i dont know much about the ssd, but if it is not necessary (even at > 50% of frag-level ), please tell me.
Thank you !
And here I am, thinking that we are using the EXT file system. :|
at least Samsung uses ext4, i think Sony does that too ...
DigitalDreamer said:
And here I am, thinking that we are using the EXT file system. :|
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
deshx said:
at least Samsung uses ext4, i think Sony does that too ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung uses their own filesystem in the newer devices.
And I think Sony uses ext4. But the thing is why would we need defragmentation if it's ext4. The files aren't accessed as in windows. Of course that windows will find disk errors and that there is a need if defrag. But the way Linux works, do we really need that?
file access is not the issue. i think the way ext4 manages writes makes all the difference.
ext3/ext4 avoid fragmentation of data and the way they store data, they can easily manage new read/writes without decreasing performance.
but even ext4 gets some issues, i found after some googling that when free space is less than ~15%, ext4 does not get enough room to swap things around. that fragments the drive heavily, thus the issues.
in that case, defragmenting might do some good.
DigitalDreamer said:
Samsung uses their own filesystem in the newer devices.
And I think Sony uses ext4. But the thing is why would we need defragmentation if it's ext4. The files aren't accessed as in windows. Of course that windows will find disk errors and that there is a need if defrag. But the way Linux works, do we really need that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
deshx said:
file access is not the issue. i think the way ext4 manages writes makes all the difference.
ext3/ext4 avoid fragmentation of data and the way they store data, they can easily manage new read/writes without decreasing performance.
but even ext4 gets some issues, i found after some googling that when free space is less than ~15%, ext4 does not get enough room to swap things around. that fragments the drive heavily, thus the issues.
in that case, defragmenting might do some good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yeah, on low space. Well on my U from 4GB I usually have around 2.5GB free so I guess I'm safe for now.
Btw the fragmentation usually shows losing performance when accessing libs and stuff. But that doesn't apply to us.
i had only 500mb free some time ago, so i did defrag the internal at that time(72% fragmentation), but now i have 3 gb free ! :highfive: .so its same for me ...no need !
DigitalDreamer said:
Oh yeah, on low space. Well on my U from 4GB I usually have around 2.5GB free so I guess I'm safe for now.
Btw the fragmentation usually shows losing performance when accessing libs and stuff. But that doesn't apply to us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Internal storage (/sdcard) uses FAT32 file system, the data partition uses ext4 file system.
I know that defragmenting a flash drive is useful only to cause more wear and tear.
Are you all insane? You can't defragment flash drives!
That slows it down and eventually will ruin it.
Sent from Hacker's U on CM11 Weekly
If sdcard uses fat32, then it should be defragmented....otherwise its fine...
One doubt though, internal is named sdcard too....
You mean external storage, right?
HandyMenny said:
Internal storage (/sdcard) uses FAT32 file system, the data partition uses ext4 file system.
I know that defragmenting a flash drive is useful only to cause more wear and tear.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my ST27i
hackerpower said:
Are you all insane? You can't defragment flash drives!
That slows it down and eventually will ruin it.
Sent from Hacker's U on CM11 Weekly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so we shouldn't need to defragment internal or card.... Right?
Well I wasn't aware of this...
Sent from my ST27i
deshx said:
If sdcard uses fat32, then it should be defragmented....otherwise its fine...
One doubt though, internal is named sdcard too....
You mean external storage, right?
Sent from my ST27i
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Internal storage use FAT32 filesystem, external storage use FAT/FAT32/exFAT.
Both are flash drives and shouldn't be defragmented.
Hi there. So my problem is quite...extraordinary.
All I want is to use my 128 GB Micro SD card without errors. However, no matter what file system or configuration I used on it, it just won't work. First it won't allow me to write on it. Then it does but won't allow me to delete from it. Then I need to rescan the contents on it for apps to be able to see media. The card is in perfect condition and without flaws I assure you.
The file systems I tried so far are ext3, ext4, FAT32, NTFS, F2FS and VFAT. Tried multiple custom ROMs including Lineage, Pixel Experience and currently dotOS. It seems that file system support depends on the OS' kernel. I've given up on ext4 and F2FS thanks to the problems I mentioned before. So now I want to format my card as EXFAT. It has much better performance and compatibility than FAT32, NTFS or VFAT. Not to mention these three have significant performance change/spikes while writing and deleting. Only problem that not all kernels support EXFAT and so far neither custom ROM that I used had support built in its kernel. My latest developments is that I found a kernel out of 10 that does support EXFAT. It runs by the name Xenial. I just don't really like custom kernels so I want to avoid using them in the future if that's possible.
Any advice? Please.
Had this problem with Pie roms as well, but settled on Bootleggers, wasn't an issue with that. Have been playing around with the Q roms now, and am seeing it again with all but Havoc so far. Device is US998, and card is formatted ext4. With most of the roms, it says "card not supported" and gives me the option to format it. In addition to not feeling like shuffling around 64 gb of data, I'm not sure what format it will format it to (this is for media storage, not internal). Definitely don't want exFat, as I've had a bunch of problems in the past with the partition table getting corrupted and needing a windows box to fix (can't be done in linux). Was hoping there was a kernel fix for this. I've tried a couple without success...
Bump... Anyone?
nola mike said:
Bump... Anyone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't really have anything to add other than, I bother to shuffle the data if it's a rom I want to use. It seems many of the aosp based roms format it to 'fuse' of some kind. Don't think there's any other option but to use what's built into the rom.
cheers
There isn't enough info provided in the OP, so I have to ask: Is the rom designed to support ext4? Not all roms are... Android doesn't natively support it, from what I'm reading. You have to do something to add support for it (and/or you may still need to manually mount it via root). I also read that CM added this support to their releases...
Some info on how to mount manually, and other related questions: https://android.stackexchange.com/q...-system-for-microsd-cards-in-stock-or-non-lin
Either use ROMs that support Ext4 like Lineage OS and a few others or change your sd card to a different format
Also changing the kernel also affects ext4 compatibility