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
Related
New Atrix, unmodded. Tested on default storage setting set in either internal storage, or sd card.
16g sd card.
Card contains music, books and pictures.
File manager of the phone can see it and folders on it just fine, music player can see music files on it just fine.
Market bought music player( Power Amp) does not see SD card, it can only see internal storage as SD card.
Cool Reader- same- it thinks internal memory is SD card.
Neither can browse to the SD card.
Both apps worked with droid x and nexus s phones succesfuly before.
Apps that have ability to browse internal memory (tiny player and fbreader)- can go to /sdcard-ext/ and find files there.
Is there any way to make sure that apps, that are built to use SD card for their media would be able to see and use SD card, instead of "virtual" SD on the Internal Storage?
Thank You
onna said:
New Atrix, unmodded. Tested on default storage setting set in either internal storage, or sd card.
16g sd card.
Card contains music, books and pictures.
File manager of the phone can see it and folders on it just fine, music player can see music files on it just fine.
Market bought music player( Power Amp) does not see SD card, it can only see internal storage as SD card.
Cool Reader- same- it thinks internal memory is SD card.
Neither can browse to the SD card.
Both apps worked with droid x and nexus s phones succesfuly before.
Apps that have ability to browse internal memory (tiny player and fbreader)- can go to /sdcard-ext/ and find files there.
Is there any way to make sure that apps, that are built to use SD card for their media would be able to see and use SD card, instead of "virtual" SD on the Internal Storage?
Thank You
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Hi,
I had the same issue with a app called Slideshow Bob. I came from a Samsung Captivate and the file system was such that the external card was seen as a subdirectory of the internal card. I never had a problem with this arrangement in apps. However, the Atrix sees the external card as completely separate and some apps simply could not "see" the external card. My solution? I used a different slideshow app. Not exactly the ideal solution, but I had spent enough time trying to work around it. I don't know how other android devices have the external card arrangement, but this may be a bigger issue than we'd like until app developers change their apps or Motorola decides to change it's storage arrangement. Hope this helps.
Thank you for your answer,
using different apps is a work around.
I used different one- moved my content to the internal storage.
Both work.
What I realy would like to see is - those apps work as intended, the way they do work in most android phones from Droid to Nexus S.
onna said:
Is there any way to make sure that apps, that are built to use SD card for their media would be able to see and use SD card, instead of "virtual" SD on the Internal Storage?
Thank You
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contact the developer
Has anyone tried to replace the Music folder on internal storage with a symbolic link to the Music folder on external? Not sure if Android supports symbolics or not...
Should have known it would'nt be this easy. Tried it on existing SD and found that symbolic links are not supported on FATx. Reformatted my SD to EXT3/2 and booted back up. I get a SD format not recognized error.
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 all,
I'm new here and have a couple of questions about my first smartphone the Galaxy SII (Rooted)
I have recently been getting a few messages informing me that the SD Card is full, which seems to hold about 12 GB.
I have a 32 GB External Sd Card which I try to keep most of my vids / music, and apps that I consider don't really need to e on the actual phone like games, etc.
Other apps like browsers, Password safes, etc I keep on the phone itself.
The Phone seems to have 3 storage areas that it seems to refer to
USB Storage (Actually part of phone memory= Correct ?
SD Card (Actually part of phone memory = Correct?
External SD Card (Removable sd card = Correct ?
Can somebody please explain to me what the idea behind this setup is and how do I go about freeing up the SD Card when most of the directories in there seem to be Data related with the odd folder left over from uninstalled apps.
Hope that makes sense.
Apologies for any bad / incorrect terminology.
Regards
Loachy
If you go to Settings->storage ;
SD Card would refer to any external microSD card you might have put in.
USB Storage would refer to the Internal storage (can be used for storing media/data files)
there is another storage of about 2GB or so... which is used for apps installations..
this partitions can only be accessed via few apps like root explorer and others...
In order to free up your App storing internal storage ( which is 2GB odd)... you would need to put in an external microSD card...
then use any App (i use titanium Backup Pro) to move some of the apps to SD card...(which is infact the external microSD card)
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 ?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
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.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk
I just bought an LG L9 phone which for its price of $150 was pretty attractive for a dual core.
However, I noticed that when I downloaded apps that download extra data, they were not storing the data on my micro sd, but rather the internal storage, which only has 1.5gb available.
For some reason internal storage is named /SDCARD and the external storage is named SDCARD/ETERNAL_SD
I have no option to move any apps to the sd card from the app settings menu. I put my old microsd card in this phone and tried to restore settings saved from other apps, but it wouldnt recognize I had an settings saved since it apparently doesnt know about the new microsd card directory.
When I download a game that downloads extra files like Asphault for example, it doesnt store the extra data on the micro sd, it just puts it all on the internal storage. I cannot use my offline gps program because it says I dont have enough space to download the map files which normally would be downloaded right to the microsd
I called LG about this, and they claim its normal and all ICS phones have this file name structure.
Is this true? Starting with ICS, are all phones making micro sd cards practically useless aside fro m storing pictures and videos?