Extsdcard vs sd card. How is it saving? - Galaxy S III Q&A, (US Carriers)

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.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

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
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

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.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

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.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Related

Intermal Memory Mounted as /sdcard

I was confused for the first few days when I would tell an app to backup its settings on the sdcard and then later they couldn't be found. I just realized that HTC has the internal memory mounted as /sdcard and the MicroSD card mounted as /sdcard/ext_sd/
This is a great idea IMO and I always wished it was this way on my Incredible. I always hated how on my Droid and my Incredible that all my settings files were crapping up my sdcard instead of the internal memory (which I rarely ever used for storing stuff), it made it a pain to find things when you were placing the MicroSD card in other devices since you had to hunt through all the settings folders.
The more I use this phone the more I like it.
brando56894 said:
I was confused for the first few days when I would tell an app to backup its settings on the sdcard and then later they couldn't be found. I just realized that HTC has the internal memory mounted as /sdcard and the MicroSD card mounted as /sdcard/ext_sd/
This is a great idea IMO and I always wished it was this way on my Incredible. I always hated how on my Droid and my Incredible that all my settings files were crapping up my sdcard instead of the internal memory (which I rarely ever used for storing stuff), it made it a pain to find things when you were placing the MicroSD card in other devices since you had to hunt through all the settings folders.
The more I use this phone the more I like it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Direct link is sdcard2
This messed with me for a lil while. I was trying to restore backups of my launchers and other stuff.
Had to mount it on my comp and move needed files to the internal sd and left other junk on ex sd.
now im rocking 7gb internal and ~20gb external. wtf am I going to do with all this space?
I'm not a fan of it by any means. I think they should have made internal SD2 and let the actual SD card be sdcard. Titanium saves everything to the internal memory now because of its name, which is stupid. And I don't see anywhere to change the directory Ti saves to, just the folder name. So anytime I do a backup, I have to copy the folder from internal memory to the SD card. I'm not sure what else is performing the same actions, hopefully not everything else.
This also really complicated folks like me with Exchange accounts that require encryption of your card. Since the internal memory is now listed as a sd card it encrypts the internal drive too stopping others programs from writing to it
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
rboddy said:
I'm not a fan of it by any means. I think they should have made internal SD2 and let the actual SD card be sdcard. Titanium saves everything to the internal memory now because of its name, which is stupid. And I don't see anywhere to change the directory Ti saves to, just the folder name. So anytime I do a backup, I have to copy the folder from internal memory to the SD card. I'm not sure what else is performing the same actions, hopefully not everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so how do I save to my sd card not the internal mem
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
rambo8987 said:
Ok so how do I save to my sd card not the internal mem
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only think I have been able to figure is everything is saved to the internal sd and you have to manually move it to the extra sd.
Imagine all the people that arent tech savy. They are going to fill up the internal and think they have no more room.
rboddy said:
I'm not a fan of it by any means. I think they should have made internal SD2 and let the actual SD card be sdcard. Titanium saves everything to the internal memory now because of its name, which is stupid. And I don't see anywhere to change the directory Ti saves to, just the folder name. So anytime I do a backup, I have to copy the folder from internal memory to the SD card. I'm not sure what else is performing the same actions, hopefully not everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1st, make sure that whatever from Titanium that is on /sdcard is moved over to /sdcard2 then in Titanium:
Press Menu button, scroll down to Backup Folder Location and press that. Press "DETECT!" and then press "WHOLE DEVICE" It should locate the spot on /sdcard2. After choosing that, press "Use the current folder" and you should no longer have to manually move stuff from internal to external.
What I have yet to try on this phone is to move my apps and pictures to the internal "sdcard" then use a program like "MyBackup Pro" to run scheduled App, Photo, and Data backups to the External card (I don't believe Titanium will backup your photos which is why I say use that). That would mean that not only would my apps, pics and data be stored in its own partition internally, but I would have a true redundant backup location in case my phone craps the bed.
I'm running 3.7.5 and don't see any option for Detect, all I can do is change the name.
rboddy said:
I'm not a fan of it by any means. I think they should have made internal SD2 and let the actual SD card be sdcard. Titanium saves everything to the internal memory now because of its name, which is stupid. And I don't see anywhere to change the directory Ti saves to, just the folder name. So anytime I do a backup, I have to copy the folder from internal memory to the SD card. I'm not sure what else is performing the same actions, hopefully not everything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can change the Titanium backup directory (you'll have to do it during temporary root). I did and pointed it back to where my backup files were on the SD card that had been in my Incredible. It's possible it's only available with the paid Titanium version (but that is an app I didn't mind paying for).

Internal SD vs External SD

It's a noobish question, but I'm still a bit confused as to the internal vs external sd card usage. I know that in some ROMs (currently using SHOstock) the internal 12GB sd is under /mnt/sdcard and the external is under /mnt/sdcard/external_sd, but I never can get anything to use the external card. Why do we have the ability to stick one in our phones if none of our apps can be moved there? The only thing I've been able to use it for is Vignette or things like that where the app configuration allows you to browse to what folder you'd like to use for storage.
What I'm getting at, is that I'd like to move the apps themselves to the external SD, because I have the ability to put a 32GB card in, as opposed to the 12GB internal. Is this possible?
Another related question - TiBu sees my external card's free space, but whenever I use the App2SD function to move it to the "external" card, it moves it to the internal card. Anyone know how to fix this? I'm guessing that it has to do with no ext4 partition on the external SD, but I could be wrong. If that's the case, we're out of luck unless we're running Linux boxes, correct? If that's the case, then I return to my original question - what is the point of having an external SD card if the only thing you can put on it is pictures and/or manually move stuff over using a file explorer app?
The point is to store large media files like movies.
TiBu will also save to external SD.
Note that some apps use the newer Android standard for internal/sdcard mountpoints (/emmc for internal, /sdcard for external), which Samsung does NOT follow. (CyanogenMod, however, does follow this standard.)
Entropy512 said:
TiBu will also save to external SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a negative. TiBu save files are stored in internal.
Main bonus for having external sdcard for me, is the abilitiy to store pictures and videos. Anything that is no on external sdcard will be lost if the phone gets broken.
They save to internal as default but you can change it to the external SD in the settings options.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
MotoMudder77 said:
Thats a negative. TiBu save files are stored in internal.
Main bonus for having external sdcard for me, is the abilitiy to store pictures and videos. Anything that is no on external sdcard will be lost if the phone gets broken.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you noticed he said "will" which means it has the capability. It's in TiBu settings.. You can move them to your external sdcard with TiBu as well...
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MotoMudder77 said:
Thats a negative. TiBu save files are stored in internal.
Main bonus for having external sdcard for me, is the abilitiy to store pictures and videos. Anything that is no on external sdcard will be lost if the phone gets broken.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not true - you can have TiBu save backups to external storage in the settings menu - you just browse to where you want it to save it.
In either case, so really, just to move movies and other large media over to it? Nothing (aside from the few cases) automatically? Like I can't move apps over to it? It has to be the internal? To me that mostly defeats the purpose of having external storage.
DJLittleMike said:
That's not true - you can have TiBu save backups to external storage in the settings menu - you just browse to where you want it to save it.
In either case, so really, just to move movies and other large media over to it? Nothing (aside from the few cases) automatically? Like I can't move apps over to it? It has to be the internal? To me that mostly defeats the purpose of having external storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where do you store your. Nandroid backups? I use the external card for that as well, along with TiBu backups, photos and videos. I sure as hell would not want all of that stuff on the internal storage?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
... I'll try to answer the OP question. However, I haven't been around android long enough for this to be an authoritive answer. It's more along the lines of a guess...
The reason for the whacky naming is historical. Back in the early days of android, devices only had a small amount of user storage. It was generally mounted as "/data" and was probably 1-2 GB in size. This area was limited to storing application specific data (and downloaded applications.) Same examples might be your contacts list, your high score in angry birds, etc.
Many of those phones had a SDCard slot, however. Actually, many of the phones not only had the slot, but came with a card as well. The idea was that you could put music files, photo's, etc on this extra sdcard. A user could easily upgrade the card to whatever size was supported by android. In development terms, this became known as the external sdcard (or external memory) because it was user accessible and not required for the device to function. Traditionally, it was mounted as "/sdcard"
As time went on, more and more phones came with this extra storage. At some point, it was no longer user accessible or removable. However, it was still used the same way and for the same purpose (afterall, why would you need more than 1-2 GB for just app storage?) It's still mounted as /sdcard. When you move applications from "internal storage" to "external storage" you are really moving the bulk of the app data from /data to /sdcard.
Of course, competition goes on, and everyone wants to have the biggest and greatest phone. So, why not do something done before and go BACK to adding a user accessible memory card slot in ADDITION to the existing /sdcard "external memory"? The only problem is that android doesn't really have a proper way to address that, so different phones mount it in different ways. For some, it might be "/sdcard2". For others, it might be mounted as a sub directory of /sdcard (sdcard/ext_storage, etc)
Of course, this causes all kind of problems for programs designed to work on both older phones (where /sdcard was actually external) and newer phones (where /sdcard is built in.)
There are efforts with newer versions of android to try and correct this, but legacy stuff holds us back. In honeycomb (and ICS), "/data" and "/sdcard" are actually the same partition. In fact, "/sdcard" actually points to "/data/media." They use the same space, however. There's no longer a concept of "external memory." (However, its still confusing because programs are usually written to work for many different versions of android.)
Want to make things more confusing? Add in CWM Recovery. In that recovery, "sdcard" refers to the /sdcard partition that is often called "external" memory in android development. Then it refers to "internal sdcard" when talking about any additional memory card that is user accessible. (so "sdcard" is built in memory, and "internal sdcard" is the sdcard that's physically external.)
Confused yet? Me too.
Gary
garyd9 said:
... I'll try to answer the OP question. However, I haven't been around android long enough for this to be an authoritive answer. It's more along the lines of a guess...
The reason for the whacky naming is historical. Back in the early days of android, devices only had a small amount of user storage. It was generally mounted as "/data" and was probably 1-2 GB in size. This area was limited to storing application specific data (and downloaded applications.) Same examples might be your contacts list, your high score in angry birds, etc.
Many of those phones had a SDCard slot, however. Actually, many of the phones not only had the slot, but came with a card as well. The idea was that you could put music files, photo's, etc on this extra sdcard. A user could easily upgrade the card to whatever size was supported by android. In development terms, this became known as the external sdcard (or external memory) because it was user accessible and not required for the device to function. Traditionally, it was mounted as "/sdcard"
As time went on, more and more phones came with this extra storage. At some point, it was no longer user accessible or removable. However, it was still used the same way and for the same purpose (afterall, why would you need more than 1-2 GB for just app storage?) It's still mounted as /sdcard. When you move applications from "internal storage" to "external storage" you are really moving the bulk of the app data from /data to /sdcard.
Of course, competition goes on, and everyone wants to have the biggest and greatest phone. So, why not do something done before and go BACK to adding a user accessible memory card slot in ADDITION to the existing /sdcard "external memory"? The only problem is that android doesn't really have a proper way to address that, so different phones mount it in different ways. For some, it might be "/sdcard2". For others, it might be mounted as a sub directory of /sdcard (sdcard/ext_storage, etc)
Of course, this causes all kind of problems for programs designed to work on both older phones (where /sdcard was actually external) and newer phones (where /sdcard is built in.)
There are efforts with newer versions of android to try and correct this, but legacy stuff holds us back. In honeycomb (and ICS), "/data" and "/sdcard" are actually the same partition. In fact, "/sdcard" actually points to "/data/media." They use the same space, however. There's no longer a concept of "external memory." (However, its still confusing because programs are usually written to work for many different versions of android.)
Want to make things more confusing? Add in CWM Recovery. In that recovery, "sdcard" refers to the /sdcard partition that is often called "external" memory in android development. Then it refers to "internal sdcard" when talking about any additional memory card that is user accessible. (so "sdcard" is built in memory, and "internal sdcard" is the sdcard that's physically external.)
Confused yet? Me too.
Gary
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To expand on Gary's comments here a little bit - I came to the SGS2 from an HTC Aria, which was released roughly 18 months ago (I didn't bother to look up the exact date). This was the first 'decent' Android device available on AT&T.
*ducks the flamethrower blasts from backflip owners*
The Aria had no internal SD storage (or more appropriately named EMMC I guess) and stock had 185MB - yes MB - user available app storage on /data. Needless to say, that is pretty severely limiting as far as app storage goes. To make this even more fun, the phone shipped with Android 2.1 (Eclair) which had NO built in provisions for apps to SD.
Thankfully, the dev community got us a FroYo port fairly quickly - so at least we had Android built-in apps to SD at that point. However, if you take a look at any apps you have Apps2SD'ed on your device, you'll see that in many cases, only about half of the storage cost of these apps actually gets moved to your SD card (internal in the case of the SGS2, external on the Aria).
Later, via CM6 and still later in CM7 we got the ability to move apps to an ext partition on SD cards (this may have eventually been possible at some point on HTC based roms as well, I can't recall). The downside to this was the requirement to "trick" the OS into seeing that ext partition on the external SD card as part of the device's internal storage, and it also meant that putting apps there was an all-or-nothing option. Therefore, if you wanted to switch external SD cards, you had to have a linux box to make a copy of the ext partition on one card, and put it on the other card, or all your apps were gone. This was a royal pain in the arse. On the Aria, I typically ran a 1 GB ext partition on an 8Gb card, and stored both my apps and dalvik cache there.
I currently have a bunch of apps on my SGS2 that I never use, but since I'm only using about 500MB of the available 2GB of internal app storage, I dont' bother to delete them. I don't run a ton of games, but the only time I'd think you'd even want to consider the hassle of moving apps to an ext partion on an external card with the SGS2 would be if you are running out of the internal app storage on /data. It's not getting used for anything at all if you move apps to the external card. If you're committed to doing this though, I'd guess if you grabbed a CM7 build for the SGS2 and an app called S2E in the market, you could probably do it.
sorry for the novel.....
DD
garyd9 said:
... I'll try to answer the OP question. However, I haven't been around android long enough for this to be an authoritive answer. It's more along the lines of a guess...
The reason for the whacky naming is historical. Back in the early days of android, devices only had a small amount of user storage. It was generally mounted as "/data" and was probably 1-2 GB in size. This area was limited to storing application specific data (and downloaded applications.) Same examples might be your contacts list, your high score in angry birds, etc.
Many of those phones had a SDCard slot, however. Actually, many of the phones not only had the slot, but came with a card as well. The idea was that you could put music files, photo's, etc on this extra sdcard. A user could easily upgrade the card to whatever size was supported by android. In development terms, this became known as the external sdcard (or external memory) because it was user accessible and not required for the device to function. Traditionally, it was mounted as "/sdcard"
As time went on, more and more phones came with this extra storage. At some point, it was no longer user accessible or removable. However, it was still used the same way and for the same purpose (afterall, why would you need more than 1-2 GB for just app storage?) It's still mounted as /sdcard. When you move applications from "internal storage" to "external storage" you are really moving the bulk of the app data from /data to /sdcard.
Of course, competition goes on, and everyone wants to have the biggest and greatest phone. So, why not do something done before and go BACK to adding a user accessible memory card slot in ADDITION to the existing /sdcard "external memory"? The only problem is that android doesn't really have a proper way to address that, so different phones mount it in different ways. For some, it might be "/sdcard2". For others, it might be mounted as a sub directory of /sdcard (sdcard/ext_storage, etc)
Of course, this causes all kind of problems for programs designed to work on both older phones (where /sdcard was actually external) and newer phones (where /sdcard is built in.)
There are efforts with newer versions of android to try and correct this, but legacy stuff holds us back. In honeycomb (and ICS), "/data" and "/sdcard" are actually the same partition. In fact, "/sdcard" actually points to "/data/media." They use the same space, however. There's no longer a concept of "external memory." (However, its still confusing because programs are usually written to work for many different versions of android.)
Want to make things more confusing? Add in CWM Recovery. In that recovery, "sdcard" refers to the /sdcard partition that is often called "external" memory in android development. Then it refers to "internal sdcard" when talking about any additional memory card that is user accessible. (so "sdcard" is built in memory, and "internal sdcard" is the sdcard that's physically external.)
Confused yet? Me too.
Gary
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey Gary,
Makes sense, but at the same time, you can mount a share however you'd like in Linux and therefore should be able to do the same in Android. Phones that have two SD cards obviously are able to mount both, and it would make sense to have software use Android's internal mapping for them.
So I guess the real answer is a) I can't move apps to the *external* SD card, b) the mount points differ by phone manufacturer/ROM used, and c) because there is no standard, it's impossible to do everything I want automatically, but for most things I can still move them myself. Does that sound about right?
We need to mount another 16GB card and figure a way to RAID em for faster access..
Edit: yeah been drinking again...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
garyd9 said:
Want to make things more confusing? Add in CWM Recovery. In that recovery, "sdcard" refers to the /sdcard partition that is often called "external" memory in android development. Then it refers to "internal sdcard" when talking about any additional memory card that is user accessible. (so "sdcard" is built in memory, and "internal sdcard" is the sdcard that's physically external.)
Confused yet? Me too.
Gary
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was mainly due to the fact that the Android standards got firmed up during the development of CWM 5.x (which is where support for the "internal" sdcard was first implemented)
Initially, CWM only supported one sdcard - and nearly all integrators chose this to be the internal memory.
Then later in 5.x, CWM added support for external/internal sdcards, following the new Android standard of internal on /emmc and external (but not labeled as such) on /sdcard
The problem is - almost all CWM implementations at this point used /sdcard for the internal mount point.
So the choice when I upgraded to CWM 5.0.2.7 was:
Leave things swapped as is and have the "internal" mislabeled (I had not yet figured out how to build CWM from source at this point)
Swap things and have tons of people be like, "WHERE MAI BACKUPZ?"
I'm thinking of doing the swap next time I update CWM - which might be later this weekend.
Entropy512 said:
I'm thinking of doing the swap next time I update CWM - which might be later this weekend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd suggest not directly swapping. The confusion for people switching between different devices with CWM Recovery would be annoying. (I could even see it confusing an experienced user when they jump between different devices that both have CWM Recovery, but use opposite labels.)
Instead of redefining existing terms, it might make things easier to understand if you replace the string "internal sdcard" with a different, but non-conflicting term, such as: "microSD card" or "replaceable sdcard." When a user sees two options, such as "backup to sdcard" and "backup to replaceable sdcard", it's more obvious which one is which. (Of course, "backup to built-in memory" would be even more clear for the former option.)
Take care
Gary
Great info, thanks to all. Now let me throw in another term, "USB Storage." I ran across this in file manager after I had done a complete factory wipe, cache wipe, format, et al. In "USB Storage" was several files I had thought were on the 16Mb Class 6 microSDHC I had just formatted. So, where does this fit in the grand scheme?
BadElf said:
Great info, thanks to all. Now let me throw in another term, "USB Storage." I ran across this in file manager after I had done a complete factory wipe, cache wipe, format, et al. In "USB Storage" was several files I had thought were on the 16Mb Class 6 microSDHC I had just formatted. So, where does this fit in the grand scheme?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oo! Oo! I can actually answer this one. USB storage is the "internal" SD card. I know this because I added labels to them in Windows and tested this myself. So you have 2GB of internal storage (not an SD card) SD Card (the user-replaceable one) and then USB storage (the internal SD card.)
Yes, very confusing, and I'm glad I made this thread, because I found out I'm not an idiot. Okay, I still may be but not because I don't know the difference and/or usage. It seems there are at least a few others that got confused as well.
Entropy, so the naming convention is controlled by kernel and you can name that whatever you want? I'm for the switch, but maybe make two versions available? One with the old naming convention and one with the new. For the new, my suggestion would be to name all three something descriptive. IE:
internal storage = internal storage (it's 2GB, I don't think people confuse this much)
USB storage = permanent SD card or non-removable SD card
SD Card = external SD card or even removable SD card
I think that should be clear enough. One is internal storage... not an SD card. Out of the two SD cards, one is removable and the other is not. Simple enough.
resurrecting a dead thread
I'm curious why this has not been brought up...It appears with Custom ROMs we can have apps install direct from Play store to removable sd. We just need to properly partition the removable sd : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1158993 .
I am actually looking into this practice. Does Shostock v4 not support such thing?
Also, folks who do partition their removable sd seem to favor amonRA over CWM...
Can someone shed some lights on this?
tora67 said:
I'm curious why this has not been brought up...It appears with Custom ROMs we can have apps install direct from Play store to removable sd. We just need to properly partition the removable sd : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1158993 .
I am actually looking into this practice. Does Shostock v4 not support such thing?
Also, folks who do partition their removable sd seem to favor amonRA over CWM...
Can someone shed some lights on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For starters that's a completely different device. Different manufacturer. HTC does things differently. They used to ship their phones with little storage like 4gb for OS and app install. They didn't provide gobs of onboard storage like Samsung.
Secondly that thread is over a year old.
AmonRA isn't available on this device. Again completely different devices, different methodologies.
The gs2 has plenty of storage and app install space available. Why does everyone think that installing your apps to external SD is a good thing?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
we want more space
I bet many like the OP would like apps and app data stored on their removable sd especially nowadays you can get a class 10 sd for cheap.
Have you noticed how many apps will not work at all with apps on the SD card?
If you have the apps installed on the sdcard and you plug into your computer the apps become unavailable and Widgets for those apps stop working.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Pirateghost said:
. . . Widgets for those apps stop working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And I'm pretty sure you have to re-add them.

New Note, lots of questions Part1

Got my new Note, this is my first droid phone, and I got LOTS of questions. I currently have the i717 version, unrooted.
1) Is currently is any reliable way to install ICS on the i717?
2) How do I check if there were any previous kernel or ROM flashes?
3) Is there a reliable way to root the device WITHOUT increasing the counter (assuming it is currently at 0)?
4) How do I move installed apps, which are currently under "System Storage" to "USB storage"?
I can answer all of your questions very simply. Search and read.
yep all ur answers are here just gotta read,
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Hi guys, found 2 answers so far, still looking for #1 and #4 if someone can point me to the right threads to ready it would be appreciated.
no ics for this device just yet and to move to sd there's an app u can use i just don't know the name or i think u can even use root explorer not sure on that one ill let someone else shine in on that
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
funziebear said:
no ics for this device just yet and to move to sd there's an app u can use i just don't know the name or i think u can even use root explorer not sure on that one ill let someone else shine in on that
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya from what I gathered, there is ICS for the international version. I have yet to see something for the i717.
I dont have an SD yet, I was referring to moving them from System to USB storage.
I will be getting as SD soon though.
GalNote said:
Ya from what I gathered, there is ICS for the international version. I have yet to see something for the i717.
I dont have an SD yet, I was referring to moving them from System to USB storage.
I will be getting as SD soon though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are two potential SD cards for the Note. One is the internal SD card. This is actually the part of the phone where you store your music and other files. It's the space allotted by the OS for storage. The Note comes with 16GB of internal storage, but 2GB is reserved for the system. You cannot access this for data storage. There is also a portion of the internal SD card that is used by the OS itself.
The remaining amount of storage is about 12GB. This is accessible through a file explorer such as Root Explorer, ES File Explorer, etc, and is located in the /sdcard folder. This is where any App2SD type app will move apps to. This is also where you store your music and other files like photos, etc.
The Note also has a slot for an external SD card. To access it, you take the battery cover off and right next to the SIM card, there is a little slot for the micro SD card. The Note is published as handling up to 32GB micro SD cards, but there are plenty of people using 64GB micro SD cards with their phone.
Using the external SD card would allow you to add additional music and photos and other files. It is not used at all by the OS or system, so you would have as much space on it as you can after formatting it. (You lose some space after formatting.)
So to summarize: the Note has 16GB, about 12GB available through the internal SD card. You can add additional storage using the external SD card (officially up to 32 GB, unofficially up to 64Gb).
lactardjosh said:
There are two potential SD cards for the Note. One is the internal SD card. This is actually the part of the phone where you store your music and other files. It's the space allotted by the OS for storage. The Note comes with 16GB of internal storage, but 2GB is reserved for the system. You cannot access this for data storage. There is also a portion of the internal SD card that is used by the OS itself.
The remaining amount of storage is about 12GB. This is accessible through a file explorer such as Root Explorer, ES File Explorer, etc, and is located in the /sdcard folder. This is where any App2SD type app will move apps to. This is also where you store your music and other files like photos, etc.
The Note also has a slot for an external SD card. To access it, you take the battery cover off and right next to the SIM card, there is a little slot for the micro SD card. The Note is published as handling up to 32GB micro SD cards, but there are plenty of people using 64GB micro SD cards with their phone.
Using the external SD card would allow you to add additional music and photos and other files. It is not used at all by the OS or system, so you would have as much space on it as you can after formatting it. (You lose some space after formatting.)
So to summarize: the Note has 16GB, about 12GB available through the internal SD card. You can add additional storage using the external SD card (officially up to 32 GB, unofficially up to 64Gb).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it, but still have a little question. I noticed when I install any app, it goes directly onto the 2GB system reserved space. What if I run out of that 2GB, what happens in that case, can I move the installed apps into the 12GB or I have to move it into the purchased/external SD card?
GalNote said:
Got it, but still have a little question. I noticed when I install any app, it goes directly onto the 2GB system reserved space. What if I run out of that 2GB, what happens in that case, can I move the installed apps into the 12GB or I have to move it into the purchased/external SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read this paragraph again.
The remaining amount of storage is about 12GB. This is accessible through a file explorer such as Root Explorer, ES File Explorer, etc, and is located in the /sdcard folder. This is where any App2SD type app will move apps to. This is also where you store your music and other files like photos, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^ got it, thanks.
K I researched and read, I still cannot find out if I can safely root my Bell i717, without increasing the flash counters.
Also, it seems there is no ICS yet available for this device.
Can someone please chime in?
wow this thread cleared up a lot for me. Still got a few questions though...so when i go to settings and click on an app and click "move app to sd" it moves it to the "internal sd" which has about 12gb of space? so then what goes on the external sd card? is the storage on the SD card ONLY accessible when you plug it into a computer and put it in mass storage mode? I remember when I had my nexus one, moving apps to sd actually put it on the external sd card..
The note is not a DROID. Droid is a verizon marketing term.
You can reset your flash counter. So even if you increase it by flashing CWM or rooting then just reset it back to 0. That's what I did.
Once CWM is installed flash all the ROMs you want through CWM. Just back up nandroid first and you can always go back.
I use a 64GB microSD card and store nandroid backups, photos, videos, podcasts, etc.
The internal SD (USB Storage) is used for app data.
GalNote said:
Hi guys, found 2 answers so far, still looking for #1 and #4 if someone can point me to the right threads to ready it would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Root ir phone throigh odin then go search dev thread for the rom u want read the requiements then flash they r all good
note @ 1.83
... You don't need root to flash a ROM.
Instead of rooting with Odin, just flash CWM with Odin then flash the ROM from there.
The only reason to root first, is to run titanium backup if you so desire

[Q] External SD Card Usage

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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Sent from my EVO using xda premium

[Q] Help managing your storage!

Hi guys!
I have a bit of a problem with my S2 storage. I'm running cyanogenmod. So I wanted to ask you guys how could I best manage all my apps/pics/videos/backups etc.
My current status:
System ROM 528MB, 149MB free
Internal 2.11GB, 637MB free
SD Card 12.3GB, 1.35GB free
Ext. SD Card: 31.9GB, 29.1GB free.
So you see here my problem...I have this huge 32GB SD card that is mostly empty, while all my installed apps go either to the 600MB of internal data partition or to the internal memory. Either way, I barely have 2GB available for data, and a huge partition that now I can't even take for the camera (CM will only save to internal DCIM folder).
Titanium Backup allows to move the data folder anywhere, so it's into the big SD card.
ScummVM allows to save the ROMs anywhere, so also these ones are in the SD card.
Movies/Videos I download are in the SD card.
...And that's it. Whenever I take pictures, I need to remember to move the files manually to the external SD, because the camera app will only save them in the internal memory. What can I do? How can I improve this?
THanks a lot!
Up!
A camera app such as Camera Zoom Fx available on play, will allow you to specify where your pictures are saved.
Also, I am running the latest NEATROM lite based on the JB leak and the stock camera allows you to choose between internal and sd card as storage. This may not be the case on older versions of the stock camera.
Hope this helps with the picture issue at least!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Yeah, thanks. All the Samsung stock cameras allow saving into the SD card. The AOSP one, however, doesn't. Still don't quite understand it.
Anyway, besides the camera, would there be a way to move installed apps (or its data) to the SD card?
timonoj said:
Yeah, thanks. All the Samsung stock cameras allow saving into the SD card. The AOSP one, however, doesn't. Still don't quite understand it.
Anyway, besides the camera, would there be a way to move installed apps (or its data) to the SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never done this with GS2 but on HD2 we could create a sdext partition on external sd. This partition would then be used by system to extend internal storage. I think this can be done on GS2 via cwm by partitioning sdcard. You would need to backup your data from external card first though before partitioning.
There is also Apps2SD on google play which will move installed apps to ext card.
Yeah, that's it! I did something like this on my Nexus One on its day. It wasn't perfect but it was good. I'll look into this. Thanks!

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