SD Card? More MEMORY???? - MDA, XDA, 1010 General

As a new user/owner of the Siemens SX56, I have quickly discovered the limitations of the units memory/storage capabilities.
While I may not be using the correct rhetoric (please correct me where necessary) I am hoping someone might be able to help me.
If I buy a 256MB SD Card, can I use it to as a place to install and run programs, or am I limited to using it for data storage only? Can it be recognized as MAIN MEMORY instead of simply a "storage card"?
Otherwise, what are my options to increase memory/storage?
Also, COSTCO has the 256MB SD Card available for $104 CDN (plus 7%GST and 8%PST), is that a good deal or should I look elsewhere?
Many thanks!

Guinness said:
If I buy a 256MB SD Card, can I use it to as a place to install and run programs, or am I limited to using it for data storage only? Can it be recognized as MAIN MEMORY instead of simply a "storage card"?
Otherwise, what are my options to increase memory/storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you can install and run programs from the SD card!
No the SD card will only be recognized as a Storage card!
Your other option is to send your unit in for a memory upgrade.
Visit:
http://www.pocketpctechs.com/PPCPup.asp
HTH

Thanks for you reply Qman, it is really appreciated! Can you offer me some more detail though?
Qman said:
Yes you can install and run programs from the SD card!
No the SD card will only be recognized as a Storage card!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do I need to do anything differently when installing new pocket pc applications so that they are installed on the SD card?
Does the SX56 automatically add the new available memory to its configuration and then manage space for file storage and/or memory usage? Can I choose one or the other for storage of data files and/or applications?
Is there any difference between "Main" memory and "Storage Card" memory??? I initially thought there was a difference that needed to be considered, but now I'm not so sure. I kinda likened Main Memory to the RAM on a PC and the Storage Card to a mini "hard drive" ...which lead me to think that the Storage Card was used ONLY for the storage of data files. I guess I was wrong in my thinking?

[
Also, COSTCO has the 256MB SD Card available for $104 CDN (plus 7%GST and 8%PST), is that a good deal or should I look elsewhere?
Many thanks![/quote]
the price you mentioned, in my opinion, is not a good deal. i was in hong kong and i was able to buy a 512 mb sd card for $114. you may need to search around sites for a more lucrative package.
cheers
robson

Guinness said:
Thanks for you reply Qman, it is really appreciated! Can you offer me some more detail though?
Qman said:
Yes you can install and run programs from the SD card!
No the SD card will only be recognized as a Storage card!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do I need to do anything differently when installing new pocket pc applications so that they are installed on the SD card?
Does the SX56 automatically add the new available memory to its configuration and then manage space for file storage and/or memory usage? Can I choose one or the other for storage of data files and/or applications?
Is there any difference between "Main" memory and "Storage Card" memory??? I initially thought there was a difference that needed to be considered, but now I'm not so sure. I kinda likened Main Memory to the RAM on a PC and the Storage Card to a mini "hard drive" ...which lead me to think that the Storage Card was used ONLY for the storage of data files. I guess I was wrong in my thinking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it is not true, that the SD-Card can be used to run programs. You can use the SD Card for your data and install programs to the sd Card. When you're running a program the internal memory of your pda will be used.
So you can install much more and bigger programs at your device, but the memory for running programms won't be changed. You see, SD Card is a little bit like a Hard Disc in your pc. You can install more programs and save more data, but you're still limited in the maximum amount of running programs.
You can install programs to your SD-Card via Active Sync. Normally youßre asked, if you want to install the software in the main memory. If you select no, you can choose between main memory and SD-Card.
HTH
Stefan

also the sd flash is a lot slower then internal ram
much like a harddisk is slower then ram in a computer
so if you could merge the sdram with the internal ram and access it as one pool it would be troublesome because the interal ram had to slow down to match the sdram or
you would need some asyncron access plan which would be pretty complex since you could be reading some data which were 1/2 on the slow sdram and 1/2 on the much faster internal ram

ok, and on reverse ...
have you come across any software that can not be installed on SD card and can not be run from SD card ??
regards,
monika

Yes there are some programs that won't run from the SD card. I can't remember which ones I've run across though. I almost always try to install on th esd card first. If the app won't run then I put it in main memory. Good luck - Jim

thanks for your response - good idea ....
try to install software on SD card first
regards,
monika

SD Card Deals
Guys,
Check this site out www.e-xcessories.com , They have really got great Memory Cards Deals, specially SD Cards.
I got my 1GB Sandisk today, very happy. Loaded loads of Mp3 and having fun.

Related

Any programs that format Mini SD Cards?

I bought A Sandisk 1GB Mini SD Card off of ebay for $10
-just the the card no card reader, or adaptor of any sort.
I insert it into my wizard, and it fits it with the spring loaded mechnism fine, but when I go to memory managment, im not sure if it knows it's there or not
Memory management will say that, that "external storage": "Not Installed"?
But when I go to take pictures, I go to the utilities/options menu, then general tab, and it doesnt even acknowledge that theres their a card in the slot, only seeing system memory.
So my question is, are their any programs that can/will format my card, or implement something to make it work?
I have Total Commander(not installed), and thinking about downloading this program called "SKTools". Would these programs work.
Cause not only is this a brand new card, but i have pictures and programs that I want to get installed on this device.
-Ive already amazed myself by using the Lockiwiz, to unlock my phone(having only 2-days worth of exp with a smartphone device)
-taken a few pictures, which i have to downloading off my wizard through activesync
-An some other freeware programs that want to install themselves on the system memory
Please help, all/ and any post greatly appreciated
Thanks!
EDIT: I downloaded SKTools onto my device, and its a cool program( I think its a alternate version of total commander but you pay for it?), but it doesnt recognize my Mini SD card either!!
-I also found this program called "WM5Storage", in the description it say that it's specialty is dealing with "external storage", downloading/ and uploading without the need of activesync?
Last edited by projectdarkside(1) : Today at 09:06 AM. Reason: Found new program
I had the same problem.
The only thing that worked on my sd-card was to clean it with an sd-card reader that was pluges in too my computer.
PS. I hope you understand, my english is not so good.
http://pocket-mechanic.en.softonic.com/pocket
got some tricks up it's sleve
jus using card reader to format it to fat 32 format then is ok.
your only option is, which has already be said,is to format the card with a card reader. WM5Storage when activated allows your phone to become a usb storage device that can be plugged into any pc without the need for active sync to be installed. you can then see the contents of the sd card, but as your wizard cant even see the sd card that wont work either,nor will any other program you install.
Either the card is incompatable or it needs to be formatted
The best option to format any SD or MiniSD is into Digital Camera.

Please explain to a newbie the memory/storage

I understand on a PC memory is for active stuff and storage is for keeping things you need but can pull into memory for actual use.
If I go to task manager on this phone, it says total memory 803MB, used 588 - free 215MB.
Then it shows all applications 26MB
How do I see how much of my storage is in use? Is that 26MB of whatever sized storage card came with this phone?
ROM vs. RAM?
Thanks
That's showing your RAM, to see how much storage space your phone has left go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Storage use
Thanks - it says 8GB 5.5GB available. Internal storage .93GB.
Ever since these tablets and phones came out "memory" seems to be the generic term for just about everything in the device - RAM, ROM, NAND, EMMC, SD...
This is actually not different from a pc so why is the term memory used so freely? Traditionally RAM was/is considered memory. In the phone NAND is the ROM or flash memory. emmc is the internal storage. Sd is the external storage. But they're all called memory, even in spec sheets. Technically I suppose they are all memory, but why not address them with differing terms?
At one time they'd list it as 512 RAM/512ROM or flash rom. And storage would be called storage or sd card. It would save a lot of confusion and arguments that I've seen where two people are correct in what they've said, just incorrect in answering the question asked.
boe said:
Thanks - it says 8GB 5.5GB available. Internal storage .93GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup the SD card has the green hornet in it, and the internal memory is like a 1GB free when you get the phone
If you don't have an Evo3d well you don't have an Evo3d

[Q] Internal SD, External SD and app2SD questions

I seem to have trouble grasping the concept of Internal and external SD memory.
I purchased a 16GB microSD card with the hopes that I can move most of my apps to that card but when I use app2sd I always get the "Failed to move application, not enough memory" error.
When I check the free space it shows more than 13GB on both the internal memory and also on the microSD card.
Since my gtablet has 16GB of "internal" storage already, what's microSD card good for?
Shouldn't I be able to move apps to either internal or external SD storage or am I just not understanding how this all works?
Can someone explain to me in Layman's terms what I need to do?
Thanks !!
PS: I just now accidentally reformatted my internal SD card so I will have to start from scratch anyways ;-)
Frogbone said:
I seem to have trouble grasping the concept of Internal and external SD memory.
I purchased a 16GB microSD card with the hopes that I can move most of my apps to that card but when I use app2sd I always get the "Failed to move application, not enough memory" error.
When I check the free space it shows more than 13GB on both the internal memory and also on the microSD card.
Since my gtablet has 16GB of "internal" storage already, what's microSD card good for?
Shouldn't I be able to move apps to either internal or external SD storage or am I just not understanding how this all works?
Can someone explain to me in Layman's terms what I need to do?
Thanks !!
PS: I just now accidentally reformatted my internal SD card so I will have to start from scratch anyways ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I understand, app2sd functionality is built into Froyo & beyond. No need for a separate app.
In laymans terms, your 16GB internal sd is split in 2, 2GB for apps & 14 gb for data.I have 88 apps installed & it is only using 492MB of the 2GB. Apps install to the 2GB area, but the (and the system) use the 14 GB data area for storage. You can also use this space for dat/files storage as well.
The external microsd slot is generally used by you for data storage. You can use it for what ever you like. I use mine to store copies of different roms/nvflash, movies/video/pictures & music transferred from the PC.

Understanding Android Storage

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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Why don't Android ICS apps detect my external SD card?

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

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