Read somewhere that the Moto E actually supports 64GB (and even 128GB) MicroSD cards BUT only when they're formatted to FAT32, 'cause the device also prompts the user to do it when inserted. As we know in order to use Link2SD we need to format the card with EXT partitions and stuff like that, that should render the card uncompatible, or am I wrong?
Yeah, 64GB sdcard is working smoothly.
But I think you mixed something up. For Link2SD you have to create a 2nd partition on the SDCard. And this 2nd partition needs to be EXT formatted, while the main partition stays FAT32.
I recommend to not more thank 1,4 GB for the 2nd partition as Link2SD only moves apk and dex-files which isn't really that much.
Now I got it.
Is there any other way, with any other app, that can actually move the entire app from the internal memory to the SD Card, or at least move a significantly part of it in order to save some internal space? I thought Link2SD was able to do it, but you said it's not so useful since it only moves dex and apk files...
Related
Ok, so I brought a new 16Gb Class 4 microSd card and I am going to partition it. I was wondering how much should I allocate to each partition type?
1. How does 14gb fat32, rest ext2 sound?
2. Should I leave any space for swap?
3. Also, out of Darktremor a2sd and Data to sd with dalvik-cache to ram, which one should I use?
4. In case if I upgrade my rom, do I have to re-enable them and copy the stuff again? Hows their compatibility with regard to upgrading?
5. Performance/drawbacks?
Thank You.
Also, does it make a difference which one is partitioned first?
Here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1093317
It's mentioned that EXT2 is to be partitioned first but,
Here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=SD_card_partitioning
Fat32 is partitioned first.
make Fat32 first if you want sd card to be recognized by Windows... if ext2 will be first, you cant access second partition on the SD card...
What about Swap?
Guys I made the partitions as said but the phone says damaged sd card. But if I format by phone, it runs ok. Any idea?
Clear your doubts guys!!!
Ok, so here's the deal, in a very longwinded way that should hopefully explain everything and answer ALL questions.
You have an SD card in your phone and, a bit like normal PC Hard Drives, you can "partition" them (split them into two or more sections of different filesystems). Normally, your SD card is just one big FAT32 partition, which is fine for storing your pics, messages, emails, etc.
Now, other then your Phone's SD card, your phone will have its own internal flash memory (or "NAND") storage. Tradditionally with Android, you could only install applications to this NAND storage, you cannot install them onto your SD card. So if you have an empty 32GB SD card, but only 5Mb of internal phone storage, you still wont be able to install many apps, if any at all.
This was done to protect the apps from things like piracy - it's not easy to access the location where apps are installed on your phone's internal storage (normally impossible without root), so you can't for example buy an app, copy it, refund it, then install it again.
Still, this is no good for those of us who like to install lots and lots of apps, legitimately, as we run out of internal storage very quickly.
So Google came up with a way to install apps to the SD card. A folder is created called something like .android_secure and this stores (I believe) encrypted versions of applications, but there's a few catches:
1) Apps aren't automatically stored here, you have to manually "move" them
2) Not all apps are capable of being moved, in fact most apps aren't, the developer needs to update their app and allow it. Some apps aren't and wont be updated and some developers may not want to allow it for whatever reason.
3) Not all app data is moved, most of it is but some data is left on your phone so many people still run out of internal storage quickly.
4) You can force ALL apps to be moved to this area by default, but it breaks incompatible ones - such as Widgets, which are unable to load due to the SD card not being "prepared".
So that's Froyo's version. Before Froyo existed, some very clever people came up with a thing called "Apps2SD". Remember I said that your SD card normally is one big FAT32 partition? Well, Apps2SD works by having your SD card patitioned into TWO filesystems. A normal FAT32 partition for your usual stuff and a secondary "EXT" partition. EXT is just a filesystem, like FAT32 or NTFS, but it's the filesystem used by Android internally. The SD card is normally FAT32 because it's a "universal" filesystem, that just about any machine will be able to read, whereas EXT filesystems are generally Linux only, but I digress.
EXT has several different versions. The most common one you'll see is ext3. The main difference between ext2 and ext3 is "journaling", which is just a fancy way of saying that should an operation (such as copying, writing or reading) be interrupted unexpectedly (say, by you turning your phone off), then no data should be lost or corrupted. You know how when you turn your phone on, it says "preparing SD card"? It takes a few minutes, but what it's actually doing is checking that the FAT32 partition hasn't been damaged, because FAT does NOT have journaling. If you used a computer back in the Windows 98 days, you may remember that lovely blue "Scandisk" screen that had to run every time you didn't shut your computer down correctly - that's the same thing. But then Windows 2000/XP came along with NTFS, which also has journaling, meaning you had less chance of loosing data. But I digress once more.
So you have your SD card partitioned into EXT and FAT32. Generally it doesn't matter if it's ext3 or ext4, but you don't get any real advantage with ext4 over ext3 in this instance. Apps2SD then runs a special script on your phone which "symbolically links" the folder from your phone's internal storage where your apps are normally stored, to the ext partition on your SD card. A symbolic link is a bit like a shortcut for folders, except it's transparent to the OS: In other words, Android doesn't know that when it's installing it's apps to the internal phone storage, it's actually being stored on the SD card. This effectively boosts your internal phone memory from the previous 5mb that you had in my example above, up to whatever size you made the ext partition on your SD card (often 512Mb or 1Gb, but it depends on how many apps you install).
Plus, because it's "journaled", it doesn't need to be "prepared", meaning it's ready to go as soon as the phone starts - so your widgets and apps work immediately (unlike "forced" Froyo Apps2SD, where widgets disappear).
The catch with Apps2SD is that whatever space the ext partition takes up is taken away from the SD card. So if you have a 4Gb card (with something like 3.5Gb of actual storage) and you make a 512Mb ext partition, your SD card will "shrink" to 3Gb. The space isn't actually lost, it's just being used by the ext partition. If you reformat your card, you'll get it back.
Finally, there's a difference between "Apps2SD" and "Apps2SD+". Remember I said that your apps are stored on a special folder inside your Phone's NAND storage? Well, that was a bit of a lie. It's actually stored in TWO places. There's a second area which is called the Davlik Cache. You don't really need to worry about what this is for (Hint: IT's to do with the Java runetime your phone uses to run apps), all you need to know is that apps use it to store data, which also eats up internal phone memory. Apps2SD+ moves davlik cache to the ext partition on your SD card as well, freeing up even more space. Some people believe that this may come at the cost of performance, as the internal NAND memory should be faster than your SD card (Which is why you also get people arguing over which "class" SD card is better for Apps2SD - the logic being that a faster SD card means less impact from this move), but the truth of the matter is that your applications will be running from your Phone's RAM anyway, so performance isn't really impacted at all. Since most apps are only a few hundred Kb's in size, or a couple of MB at the most, it's a non-issue.
Finally, any recent version of Apps2SD/Apps2SD+ should work with an SD card that is or isn't formatted with an ext partition. It'll check for this partition when your phone first boots and if it's not there, just use internal phone storage.
Having an ext partition WITHOUT Apps2SD+ shouldn't cause any issues, either, so you can format your SD card whenever you're ready.
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning".
IF U LIKE HIT THANKS​
Good idea, mate
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
hi guys,
I partitioned sd card ext with 1GB with FAT32 using mini partion tool
when boot ON the Phone & using with LINK2SD Main sd card & ext sd card showing the same size of 1GB ....
is the problem with ROM ??
I tried with another sd card but the issue is same
i'm using stock rom & 16 GB Sandisk C10 sd card
Pls help me......
Link2SD
The XPERIA X10i running GB 2.3 is a bit problematic with partitions.
The OS only mounts the first partition it finds and that's normally the second partition. Doh!!
The following patch may be of some help to you
SE2.3.3-link2sd-patch.zip
It is assumed you have formatted both partitions as primary.
Everybody should use Link2SD if they have an XPERIA X10, just because most quality class6/class10 cards have better read/write speed than internal flash and with a 1-2GB sdext2 partition more space too.
Considerations
I'd format the second partition as ext3 and 2GB if Link2SD is to be used, especially if a gamer.
I would only use a class6/class10 'quality' 32GB microSD card or greater.
Copy the contents of the /data/sdext2 partition to a NAS/external server
(1) I'd format the partition to be used with Link2SD as ext3 ( I've found on my builds I can't use ext4, but would, if I could ), just because it'll give better performance. In a gaming environment 1GB can be used up pretty quickly if libraries and data are linked too.
(2) The cost of quality class6/class10 microSD cards has really dropped in price now that extreme and extreme pro cards (50MB+ write) are all the rage. It's just a pain having to rebuild a working Link2SD environment onto a larger card at a later date, when a lesser card, no longer meets needs.
But given I'm using a 64GB card, I would say that.
(3) If you copy the contents of the second partition to a linux system /folder it makes a great recovery, as you only have to restore the Link2SD second partition and you get all your apps back, data and all. I copy my /data/sdext2 partition onto my NAS every now and then and it has saved my bacon a few times when microSD/SD cards have gone belly up.
I have been using Link2SD to move apps to the external microSD card. But not many apps and I still hit the internal memory limit. Then I discovered that Link2SD can effectively increase the internal memory if I created a second partition on my microSD card and let the Link2SD use that partition as a virtual extension of internal memory. So I created two partitions on my microSD card.
The problem is that my phone (rooted, 4.4.2 stock ROM) refuses to recognize this arrangement and complains that the SD card is damaged. When I let the phone's default app format the first partition, it removes the second one and formats the whole card as partition.
Anyone has a solution or suggestion for me? Thanks,
szaim said:
I have been using Link2SD to move apps to the external microSD card. But not many apps and I still hit the internal memory limit. Then I discovered that Link2SD can effectively increase the internal memory if I created a second partition on my microSD card and let the Link2SD use that partition as a virtual extension of internal memory. So I created two partitions on my microSD card.
The problem is that my phone (rooted, 4.4.2 stock ROM) refuses to recognize this arrangement and complains that the SD card is damaged. When I let the phone's default app format the first partition, it removes the second one and formats the whole card as partition.
Anyone has a solution or suggestion for me? Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download sdcard fix from play store run it. If you're trying to move big files use foldemount
RealityFails said:
Download sdcard fix from play store run it. If you're trying to move big files use foldemount
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please explain with a bit more detail? I have checked the Play Store, there are several apps called "sdcard fix" or similar, but they all say they solve the microSD write problem with KitKat. My problem is that when I create the 2nd partition on my SD card, the phone does not even recognize the first partition. Link2SD recognizes the 2nd partition, but it does not recognize the first partition either.
I have checked foldermount, and it seems to do the same thing as Link2SD but it looks like a lot of manual work, identifying folders and creating symbolic links on the SD card.
szaim said:
Could you please explain with a bit more detail? I have checked the Play Store, there are several apps called "sdcard fix" or similar, but they all say they solve the microSD write problem with KitKat. My problem is that when I create the 2nd partition on my SD card, the phone does not even recognize the first partition. Link2SD recognizes the 2nd partition, but it does not recognize the first partition either.
I have checked foldermount, and it seems to do the same thing as Link2SD but it looks like a lot of manual work, identifying folders and creating symbolic links on the SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No folder Mount does it automatically it moves file to SD card and tricks the system. Its fairly simple.
Use app analyzer and click yes to everything. Seems to me you're putting too much thought into this.
1st partition must be fat32 and 2nd partition ext2, both partitions set as primary.
But as sugested, download a sdcardfix from playstore (makes external writeable again), download foldermount paid version, a lot easier.