As quickly as possible, could someone explain to me why this phone has so many different storage locations? What's the difference? What's the difference between phone storage, and internal storage? I hate having to look for some pics that my phone decided to save where-ever on the phone sometimes.
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The only place pictures will be saved are on either your internal SD card or the external SD card, depending on where you've selected in the camera app.
/sdcard/ext_sd is the same as /sdcard2. They are just two separate references to the same folder (the root of your external SD card).
I think this confusion is probably one of the reasons they stopped making devices with an SD card slot. That, and the way they partitioned the nand on this device was poor.
Okay, thanks Captain. Two more questions: what is the difference between phone storage and internal storage?
And, what is sdcard0? sdcard?
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I honestly don't remember which is which, but one of them is your /data partition, where app data is stored. The other is your internal SD, which is mounted at /storage/sdcard0, and symlinked to /sdcard.
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Ok so I have downloaded a few files onto my phone. However, when I go to access them from my laptop via mass storage they do not appear. I was wondering if this is because the phone is automatically saving stuff to the internal storage or if it is because I have multiple SD partitions from multiple other Android phones.
If it is because the files are being saved to internal storage how can I change that to have them automatically saved to my SD? If it is an issue with multiple SD partitions should I just wipe my card and repartition specifically for this phone?
Thank you in advance!
Well if you notice most of the legacy and current apps when they try to store something to anywhere else other than the internal memory it would always look for the /sdcard/ location which in our case is the internal memory.
Our micro sdcard is now mounted in /sdcard/ext_sd/ which makes it a chore for us to keep tabs on what we want stored there because we have to move it manually.
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When I browse my files using ES File explorer I see 2 folders. One is labeled SDCard and one is labeled SDCard2. Is the first one my internal memory? If so, is there any way to automate the transfer of files from the first folder to the second one so that I can see them via mass storage? If not then I may have to write a script to do such a thing. Because that is annoying as hell.
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Just got my E4GLTE and of course the first thing I did was root it, unlock it, and make a nandroid backup. I just moved from a Motorola Photon 4G and on that device the internal memory (pseudo sdcard) is mounted on /mnt/emmc and the external card is on /mnt/sdcard. Assuming you run out of app space in base memory, you can always move most of your app to the SD Card. Since the E4GLTE mounts the external SD Card on /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd, it appears that actual external storage can only be used for media or data where the app (or the system using the Storage tool) has a function to map to a different directory.
Have I described the situation properly? Does anybody else see the limitations this might pose or suggest workarounds?
..rob
bitbearmi said:
Just got my E4GLTE and of course the first thing I did was root it, unlock it, and make a nandroid backup. I just moved from a Motorola Photon 4G and on that device the internal memory (pseudo sdcard) is mounted on /mnt/emmc and the external card is on /mnt/sdcard. Assuming you run out of app space in base memory, you can always move most of your app to the SD Card. Since the E4GLTE mounts the external SD Card on /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd, it appears that actual external storage can only be used for media or data where the app (or the system using the Storage tool) has a function to map to a different directory.
Have I described the situation properly? Does anybody else see the limitations this might pose or suggest workarounds?
..rob
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Yes I see this as a problem as well. I have looked into the vold.fstab file (where the system looks to see how it should mount partitions) but changing them just makes neither partition mount. I have a feeling that it might be something in the kernel but I will keep digging around.
Also if someone does figure it out how do you prefer them to be mounted? Internal as /emmc and external as /sdcard? Internal as /sdcard/int_sd and external as /sdcard? Maybe something else?
I guess it would depend how the apps and the kernel handle it, which of course, would vary with a custom ROM. Early builds of CM9 for the MoPho alternated back and forth, but there is also an option to swap what is internal and external as well. When it wasn't mounting at all, you could edit the vold.fstab, which would be my first inclination, so thanks for saving me that step!
I think, from most implementations I've seen, when a device has internal and external storage its been mounted as /mnt/emmc and /mnt/sdcard. Its like that on most of the custom ROMs I've used (on Nook, OG EVO, Hero, MoPho).
..rob
Im really lost on the whole external sd thing. I just want to be able to have my apps on there but android has made it seemingly impossible to do so anymore. Is there a write up or something on how this can be done with todays ICS?
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I went into root explorer.
I went into /mnt/
And I noticed there's two options....
/Extsdcard and /sdcard
Seems like all my downloads, music, and everything is getting saved to /sdcard
What does this mean?
P.s. I have a 64gb micro sdcard card.
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your extsdcard is your external one in your phone you can remove. i would recomend saving most your files like your music and such to that. sdcard is your internal memory of your phone. you have less space there and should save it for more important things. hope that helped
It means everything is being saved to your Internal Storage. I haven't quite figured out how to default everything to the ExtSdcard yet. I know the camera can. The phone will read everything from the ExtSdcard fine though, such as music and other files.
The ext sd card can be used for the camera/video, CWM backups, music files you copy from your computer, and you can move most any files there that you download.
The internal sd card will be used for all of your apps, there's no way to 'move to sd card', you just have the full 16/32gb internal sd for all of it. Since you will always be forced to use the internal sd card for all app needs, I just try to keep everything on my ext sd card I can (my cwm backups are 1.7gb!). Not that it really matters for me though, I downloaded every app I ever use and a few games and only hit 1.2gb used on my internal sd card.
You can also go to th advanced tab within the stock browser and select memory card for default storage. I am guessing that is ext SD as the other option is "Phone".
Thanks for the information!
This was quite confusing at first. Time to start moving files
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permanent fix for this?
My issue is that everything defaults to the /sdcard (internal partition - i'm calling it that for ease of terminology) and some apps just don't give you another option of where to save the media to (or don't let you browse over to the right thing). as it stands, the phone seems to be mounting that internal /sdcard partition as if it were external media, ie in android's default location for external media. thus, apps are looking ofr the REAL SD card and think they've found it but they haven't.
the reason this is a problem for me is 1. i have to change this in every app that allows me to, and 2. CWM sends backups to the internal one automatically and i can't change it and have to manually move the backup images to my external.
the reason i'm going into all of this is i'd like to find a way to entirely get rid of the /sdcard folder representing the internal memory and have the external card take its place. I'd like the rest of my 29ish GB of internal storage to be part of the system partition - where apps go, etc. it's not that i want to use that space, it's that i want to "move to SD" to the right SD. i just don't want the apps and system to treat ANY internal space as if it were external or mounted or anything of the sort.
my last phone, Atrix 2, had like 2-4gb internal. I'm just suggesting stretching that amount all the way to 32gbs and using the SD card as an SD card.
the question, basically, is whether there is any way to make this happen? i came across a thread (google "sd card mount point modification" as i can't post external links yet) elsewhere that discusses doing this with a VTAB and was wondering if this is something that is addressing my (our?) issue, whether it's a recommended solution, and whether it would work on the S3. i'm fine following technical instructions but I have very limited knowledge of the way addressing etc. works on Android and this filesystem. any help (or a redirect to a thread where this is more appropriate to ask) would be greatly appreciated.
Does this issue persist with custom roms? Is it an Ics bug that won't let you install apps to extsdcard or a Samsung intentional crap? I know one other android phones I had I could save apps to sd card no issues.
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sabre31 said:
Does this issue persist with custom roms? Is it an Ics bug that won't let you install apps to extsdcard or a Samsung intentional crap? I know one other android phones I had I could save apps to sd card no issues.
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haven't tried any, waiting for something where key things like camera, LTE, etc all work. It's not that I can't install to extSD, it's that the default is "sdcard" (ie the internal space allocated). it's really a function of the way the system/phone allocates that extra internal space - rather than calling it "internal storage/system storage", they are calling it the "primary sd card" and the actual sd card is being called "2nd sd card". it's this treatment of the spaces by the system that i'm unhappy about, i guess.
that's a good point though, and i am hoping that a custom ROM will do this differently. will update when i find one i like
EDIT: gonna do the Task & Ktoonsez AKOP Rom this weekend, should know how the spaces are treated. again, will update.
This is probably a dumb question, but I am confused a little about the SD card situation. I have a Verizon S3. I see the phone comes with 16gb of storage that is in the folder SD Card, and that when I put my own SD card into the phone that I can find it under the mnt folder in the root directory. My question, is the SD memory that came with the phone built in, like a virtual SD card, or is that a card that is removeable? If it is not removeable, how do I setup my phone to make my personal SD card the one is being shown when I go to /SD Card/? I have a class 10 and prefer to have easy removable access to my default SD card, and having it under mnt/extsdcard is a bit annoying.
The sdcard is internal storage. All your apps etc will be saved there. If go to /mnt/extsdxard that's your memory card. Apps can no longer be downloaded to your extsd. Your camera has an option to make pics taken save to your sdcard. You'll find the pics in /extsdxard/dcim/camera
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PulseMonkey said:
The sdcard is internal storage. All your apps etc will be saved there. If go to /mnt/extsdxard that's your memory card. Apps can no longer be downloaded to your extsd. Your camera has an option to make pics taken save to your sdcard. You'll find the pics in /extsdxard/dcim/camera
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Ok so then I guess my best solution is for anything I want to know I can access with my personal SD card is to just redirect things to it. I don't put installed apps on SD but figured a lot of things are better on a removeable card incase my phone breaks or bricks and I want access to those files. I can just configure apps that allow me to choose where to save things to save them on my external card if I think I want that. Thanks for the info.
Tried the such nut it didn't provide the info I am looking for.
Currently when I look to see how much space I have on my SD cards (the internal and external one), the Flyer constantly tells me that my internal SD card is out of space and it says this because the ext_sd folder is being counted as part of the the space on the internal card when it is in fact the external SD. Is there anyway I can fix this? Something tells me that if I just deleted the ext_sd folder that appear on the internal card it will delete the contents of my external card.
Can anyone assist with this? Much appreciated.
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