Hello,
I already posted this in device specific forum but there i got no answer and i think it's a problem common to many devices.
So what's the problem: I really like my G2 but i have one annoying issue:
When using one of those great custom roms i end up with pretty much free space on internal storage (system partition).
Since i'm having the 16GB-version i have ~10GB of usable space and currently ~3-5GB wasted space.
When using OSM-Maps 10GB is not much so i hope there is a way to utilize the free space on internal storage.
I have some ideas but i'm no dev and i hardly know about linux and even less about android.
So thats what i thought of:
Idea 1: Change partition size.
Well i think not a good idea but on my old HTC HD2 i could choose how the storage is partitioned. Don't know if this is possible on G2 and if changes there are not to risky.
Idea 2: Create a virtual SD-Card.
I know that this is possible somehow because i can do that with androidx86 on my tablet. So why dont write an app or zip-File-Patch that creates a custom-size virtual sd-card on internal storage/system partition. Problem is that i can't do that. Help of a dev would be needed.
Idea 3: Redirect folders.
On Linux and Windows it's possible to create "virtual folders" that are just links to the real folder that is stored somewhere else. Pretty handy on windows to move music-library to sd-card with full functions for example.
I think i've seen such things on android too when browsing my device. So why don't move for example the DCIM-Folder and others to internal storage this way?
But again a dev would be needed.
Idea 4: Copy some stuff with root and file explorer.
Thats maybe the simpliest way but i don't know how and where i can copy things. For example i've around 4GB of music on my device and if i can still access it i would have no problem to move it to internal storage somewhere. Maybe to ringtones folder or something like this.
But i'm not sure where i should put it to be on internal storage and access being still possible.
It would be great to further discuss this ideas with you and find some kind of solution
Related
Thanks for reading. I have searched and read a bunch of threads but didn't see an answer.
I have two related problems with a new generic android device (a TV box, which is android not Google). I can get by with only fixing one of the two problems.
My data partition is too small but what’s worse; it seems to be formatted in such a way that programs installed on it take too much space... when I move programs to external SD they go from 5-6 mb to 300-400k. So… too little space + the space gets filled too fast.
If it is less work; I could get by if I could fix just problem two (filled too fast). On a PC it would be something about partition type and cluster size. Is there a way to just format the data partition that might be easier than redoing the entire internal storage? If so; can it be with apks that can be downloaded out of the market? I'm also ok with a Linux command line.
If not; can anyone recommend a thread (I looked, really) on how to redo the entire internal storage when using a generic device and out of market software? Everything I’m seeing is tied to a particular device and/or needs a market based app that I can’t see with my unit.
It’s a nice device otherwise… A9, great picture, et cetera…
Thanks again.
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
Here's another one:
When I go into Settings > Storage, my Jetstream shows I've got 10.77GB Available space under Internal Storage (out of 11.81GB). Under Tablet Storage, I've got 4.97GB Available (out of 16.12GB). As for the Internal Storage part, it has been like this, more or less, since I first bought the Jetstream 7 months ago.
My question is why do I get to use only 16GB out of the 32GB the Jetstream ships with? How do I get to use the Internal Storage for extra space? I had both the Tablet Storage (SD) and the External SD maxed out at one point, and needed to use that free 10GB. I ended up deleting a lot of stuff so that I could go on using it.
Anyone know how to access the unreachable 10GB under Internal Storage?
love the color coding...
its a bug. that's the state of things for now. maybe someday someone could take of it..
Notontherugman said:
Here's another one:
When I go into Settings > Storage, my Jetstream shows I've got 10.77GB Available space under Internal Storage (out of 11.81GB). Under Tablet Storage, I've got 4.97GB Available (out of 16.12GB). As for the Internal Storage part, it has been like this, more or less, since I first bought the Jetstream 7 months ago.
My question is why do I get to use only 16GB out of the 32GB the Jetstream ships with? How do I get to use the Internal Storage for extra space? I had both the Tablet Storage (SD) and the External SD maxed out at one point, and needed to use that free 10GB. I ended up deleting a lot of stuff so that I could go on using it.
Anyone know how to access the unreachable 10GB under Internal Storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used an app called partition table. As per that, the ~11GB of storage is assigned to the partition /data
So am trying to copy some stuff from my tablet storage (/sdcard) to the /data folder (under a new folder) using Root Explorer.
Shall report back with the details.
Edit: So I tried it - works. Can store the data in a folder within the /data partition. The available free space also changes. However, using apps like MX video player or ezpdf or anything else for that matter, I can not see the data I stored there - I need to go to root explorer and open the files from there. So I guess if you willing to live with this work around for now, may be worth it as we get ~10GB more additional storage. However, you will need to be extremely careful as to not delete anything besides your own data from the /data partition as it can cause quite some havoc if some essential files are deleted. And another important fact is that while wiping for installing a new rom/taking a nandroid-all that you place in the /data folder will also be wiped/backed up. So simpler solution till we get a dev to repartition the /data folder and allocate the additional free space (or part of it) to the /sdcard folder, it will be more sensible to just use a sdcard.
i've mentioned it to show_p1984.
he played with the device this week, and should probably start developing soon.
i'm guessing that if there's a work around - he could create a permanent solution.
guru_shastri said:
i've mentioned it to show_p1984.
he played with the device this week, and should probably start developing soon.
i'm guessing that if there's a work around - he could create a permanent solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically the partition table needs reformatting - I know it is done and can be done. Have seen it done for the Samsung Galaxy S, ZTE Balde and also for Samsung Galaxy Ace. I do not however know how to do it - I think while making the rom, changes will have to be integrated because formatting the partitions is part of the process of rom flashing.
Also, there may a temporary easier workaround. There are apps like link2sd which basically make the android system think that a partition on your sd card is the system's /data partition. So we need the reverse. We will need a script which will create a folder in the /sdcard partition which will be linked to the /data partition of the system (or a folder in there). So if we add in some data/files into that particular folder, then it will automatically be referring to the /data partition. It will be like making a folder (say "STUFF") which has its location as "/data/STUFF" and having a shortcut to that folder in the partition /sdcard. We can try to create shortcuts and stuff but it will not be functional because it will be a shortcut. By linking it, we would be able to fool the 3rd party apps into thinking the data is on the sdcard while in reality it is stored on the /data partition, This is basiclally hypothetical logic based on what I found and my experience with link2sd. How far it is true/practical and going to work, I have no idea - so we will have to leave it up the devs.
---------- Post added at 02:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------
Notontherugman said:
Here's another one:
When I go into Settings > Storage, my Jetstream shows I've got 10.77GB Available space under Internal Storage (out of 11.81GB). Under Tablet Storage, I've got 4.97GB Available (out of 16.12GB). As for the Internal Storage part, it has been like this, more or less, since I first bought the Jetstream 7 months ago.
My question is why do I get to use only 16GB out of the 32GB the Jetstream ships with? How do I get to use the Internal Storage for extra space? I had both the Tablet Storage (SD) and the External SD maxed out at one point, and needed to use that free 10GB. I ended up deleting a lot of stuff so that I could go on using it.
Anyone know how to access the unreachable 10GB under Internal Storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And I think it will be more sensible to allowed to use a maximum of around 6-7 GB of the 12GB partition so that we will still have ample storage space of apps and stuff.
For all its cons, I still love this tablet.... :S
(and have yet to find a tablet with a better lens/camera)
Notontherugman said:
For all its cons, I still love this tablet.... :S
(and have yet to find a tablet with a better lens/camera)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed.
Hi, I'm a total noob to Android phones, I admit it. I just got my first smartphone, and it's an old one - an HTC Aria. Thanks to a lot of info here in XDA-developers, I got it rooted with clockwork mod and am using the Cyanogen ROM with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).
Well, it's such an old phone, I see that it only has ~185 mb internal storage. I added an 8GB SD card. Even though I move my apps to external storage, I can see that the data didn't get moved and is still quickly eating up all the phone's internal storage. I'm trying to use Madmack's "FolderMount" but am having trouble figuring it out. I think it might be an understanding of Android file/folder structure (I have very little). I'm considering buying the "pro" version (if it works for me), just so I can move the whole data folder at once and free up my internal memory again.
Here's my efforts at testing to see if it works. I'm trying to move the data from the "Plague, Inc." game to the external card (the app is already on the external card). So, when I choose source, it automatically starts me in the /mnt/sdcard/ but doesn't allow me to go "up" to any further root folders of that. So I found in the "Android" folder the "data" folder. I tried to FolderMount that but it gave me the error about the non-Pro version. So I tried the "com.miniclip.plagueinc" folder (knowing that it's currently using 15MB of data) and then using an app called SDCardManager (which I understand is supposed to make it easier for me to access my SD Card, like Windows Explorer or something), I made a folder with this path "/mnt/sdcard/foldermount" I think it should be the right path because it's also where my "android.tether" folder is that I know I created myself.
Anyway, when I pair those two folders in FolderMount, it copies stuff over, and the pin looks green, but it shows my internal memory hasn't changed, still almost entirely full. So what do I do to clear it up? I think my problem is in my understanding of the Android's file structure. I think on "source", I should be able to access some folder before "/mnt/sdcard", but I can't get there. Please give this noob help from anyone who can! Thanks!
Can anyone help me with this? Particularly the developer, madmack? I really need to find a way to move the app data to the external memory so I can clear up space. Even if someone could help me understand the file structure better, that'd be helpful. Thanks!
So I put Carbon on my wife's tablet after not touching it for over a year. Amazing that I can come here and get exactly what I need. What a great community!
I do have a question. I have a 16gb model and a 16gb card. I can see and use the card, no problem.
Using astro or other file manager, the directories seem weird. That's not a problem. The problem is, I can only use 1gb of internal storage - is there a way to get at the balance of that? Or is it lost forever?
Sounds like your NT has the BN's old 1GB allocation for the user-media partition instead of the new 8GB.
To get a 8GB allocation, you can restore the NT to stock ROM and take it to a B&N store to have the repartition done; or you can (Google) search for a repart.img SD-based tool which also does the repartition (and in the process restore the NT to stock ROM). Either way, you can use CWM recovery to back up your current Carbon ROM before the operation and then restore it afterward.
Ah, I completely forgot about this little point. Thank you for the reminder and the options!
One more question from me about this, does it make sense in CM to have two internal storages anyway? Couldn't I just reformat it to have only one partition?
I know how to use parted, so this isn't why I am asking. I just wanted to ask here about potential other side effects.
I already reformatted that my internal memory is about 4GB and my sdcard0 storage is 10GB, but now I installed a huge app in internal memory which can't be moved to SD for some reason, and I want to at least reformat it the other way around or the default 12GB sdcard0 + 1GB internal
All apps are installed in the first internal memory anyway I have figured, so I don't know why this first sdcard0 does make sense at all? I first thought that would be used for apps, but currently there are 10 unused Gigabytes....
I am using a real sdcard in the device ( which is per default mounted as sdcard1 ), maybe that is the reason nothing is put on the internal sdcard0 ??
Any comments on this?
I'd also like to know if this can be done. I've read the posts that explain how to resize partition 10 (media) and 11 (user data), but I would like to know if it is possible to combine partition 10 and 11 into a single partition so that all available space that isn't used by the system can be used for apps and other data. Is this not possible because of different file systems or is there a way to do it?
I've also noticed that even though the Nook Tablet 16 GB physically has 1 GB RAM only 672 MB is recognized and the other 332 MB or so seems to be used as some type of virtual SD Card (this can be seen in Settings -> Apps -> On SD Card). Is there a way to make the entire 1 GB recognized and utilized? I have not been able to find any information on this anywhere.
I am running CM 10.1 on Nook Tablet 16 GB.
bluesock said:
One more question from me about this, does it make sense in CM to have two internal storages anyway? Couldn't I just reformat it to have only one partition?
I know how to use parted, so this isn't why I am asking. I just wanted to ask here about potential other side effects.
...
Any comments on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Combining the two partitions without tweaking the ROM will likely result in errors when the system at boot time attempts to mount the partition you eliminate, and when some apps reference the file-system that supposedly resides on that eliminated partition. To avoid these errors, the eliminated partition would have be removed from boot-time auto-mount list, and its file-system root would have to be mapped (e.g., symbolically linked) to the mount point of the remaining partition.
skelnik said:
I
I've also noticed that even though the Nook Tablet 16 GB physically has 1 GB RAM only 672 MB is recognized and the other 332 MB or so seems to be used as some type of virtual SD Card (this can be seen in Settings -> Apps -> On SD Card). Is there a way to make the entire 1 GB recognized and utilized? I have not been able to find any information on this anywhere.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 'missing' RAM is what the OS needs to keep the device going. 672 MB RAM free sounds very reasonable. What you see in the list as apps on sd card is the virtual sd card in storage, not RAM.
Sent from my BNTV600 using Tapatalk 4
The "missing" RAM is actually shared memory for the GPU (the SGX540). Video cards need RAM to load textures and whatnot.
You might have noticed that desktops without a dedicated GPU have much lower system RAM than advertised. Ex: my laptop with 3GB of system RAM actually shows something like 2970MB RAM (instead of 3096MB). The 100 odd MB of RAM is shared by the GPU (Intel GMA). If I had a dedicated GPU in my laptop, something like the GTX M GPUs with its own RAM, I would see and be able to use the full 3096MB of system RAM. It's the same thing with mobile devices, they share system RAM with the GPU.
That makes sense about the shared resources for the system and graphics. Thank you for the explanation!
Okay, if that is all, probably changing /system/etc/vold.fstab after repartitioning/removing the emmc-sdcard-partition and symlinking the other of the partitions should do it already? Or how does the storage settings things finds the storage memories? Or is there even something a bit more deeply buried, e.g. inside the kernels initrd or something like that? Does someone know those details?
@skelnik as written in the other thread something more here ...
It probably isn't completely beginner friendly to do all this just by this information here, but I might attempt to do this too, and then will share the information as step-wise as possible. But might take some weeks until I have a bit time left...
And be aware! There probably will be some downsides when not using a physical/external sdcard at all: You will not have the internal storage accessible as a usb storage device anymore (not sure about mtp or ptp mode, but these don't access everything anyway) - so if you screw up something it might become harder to recover. You should then probably have at least some 2gb sdcard you can use, just in case. But my opinion is that you should just pay those $5 for a physical sdcard (should even give you 4 or 8GB already...) and then there won't be these problems.
Use Ineternal Storage as sdcard on Nook Tablet
bluesock said:
@skelnik And be aware! There probably will be some downsides when not using a physical/external sdcard at all: You will not have the internal storage accessible as a usb storage device anymore (not sure about mtp or ptp mode, but these don't access everything anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually you will still have access from the PC (Windows OS at least) to this partition after using the internal storage as an sdcard. You need to go into the USB Connection Settings under Storage and change it to "USB Mass Storage" mode. Also USB Debugging needs to be unchecked in order for you to get prompted to enable USB Connection to PC. After that you will be able to transfer data to and from your PC to the internal partition being used like an sdcard on your Nook Tablet. That partition is set to 10GB for me so that is a huge benefit and allows me to swap out multiple external sdcards any time without disabling any apps.
skelnik said:
Actually you will still have access from the PC (Windows OS at least) to this partition after using the internal storage as an sdcard. You need to go into the USB Connection Settings under Storage and change it to "USB Mass Storage" mode. Also USB Debugging needs to be unchecked in order for you to get prompted to enable USB Connection to PC. After that you will be able to transfer data to and from your PC to the internal partition being used like an sdcard on your Nook Tablet. That partition is set to 10GB for me so that is a huge benefit and allows me to swap out multiple external sdcards any time without disabling any apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure you mean the same thing as me? I am talking about removing one of the partitions and just making one large partition where both /data and a link from /sdcard into that will be. As far as I understood, Android does not do a virtualization of a path but really makes one of it's partitions accessible as usb storage? Or can you also format in ext4 and still read it in Windows?
If that works I am probably not right, otherwise read on:
All your configuration data and everything is on /data and would be removed from being accessible by the system as long as it is connected as usb storage (also all installed apps, ...), and besides that you would need to use the FAT filesystem for Windows compatibility, which is also probably not the best idea, security-wise (any app being able to read sdcard would for example be able to read your wifi configuration, maybe google account login data, etc. etc.).
I'm running Liquid Smoth 3.1, and noticed the internal memory (for apps and such) is separated from the internal SD. Can we increase the internal memory allocation? I don't recall if this was common or not before I installed the ROM.
Still no solution found...
pm2gonzales said:
I'm running Liquid Smoth 3.1, and noticed the internal memory (for apps and such) is separated from the internal SD. Can we increase the internal memory allocation? I don't recall if this was common or not before I installed the ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how old Samsung used as a separated partition(2GB/Remaining space) structure.
I could confirm that newer models only have one partition.
I had researched days of searches and still did NOT find confirmed easy solutions like flashing ZIP files.
(My research -> Link)
I REALLY DO wish someone could guide me a solution to repartition as one total 16GB(Like newer Galaxy)
or expending 2GB system partition to any bigger size.
I still did NOT find the solution and still looking.
The only last method I did not try - Working with ADB command which I need to consider to brick my phone.
But this is my primary phone that I use.
Even worse, KitKat ROM(I am using beanStalk ver 4.4.4001) does not allow to use App2SD function.
I have to manage all of my apps+data+decent space within 2 GB limitation even if I have 11GB available
space as an Internal Storage (NOT External SD).
Hope it helps and let you know you are in same boat with me.
Once again, I wish there is an easy solution who could help us!
Any Update??
HI, has anyone found a solution? ty
[email protected] said:
This is how old Samsung used as a separated partition(2GB/Remaining space) structure.
I could confirm that newer models only have one partition.
I had researched days of searches and still did NOT find confirmed easy solutions like flashing ZIP files.
(My research -> Link)
I REALLY DO wish someone could guide me a solution to repartition as one total 16GB(Like newer Galaxy)
or expending 2GB system partition to any bigger size.
I still did NOT find the solution and still looking.
The only last method I did not try - Working with ADB command which I need to consider to brick my phone.
But this is my primary phone that I use.
Even worse, KitKat ROM(I am using beanStalk ver 4.4.4001) does not allow to use App2SD function.
I have to manage all of my apps+data+decent space within 2 GB limitation even if I have 11GB available
space as an Internal Storage (NOT External SD).
Hope it helps and let you know you are in same boat with me.
Once again, I wish there is an easy solution who could help us!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse