With the Evo, connected to my PC, selecting "Mount as disk drive," only the Micro SD card appears in Windows Explorer as a directory. I want and expect to see another directory for Internal Storage.
Had had the Incredible, where _both_ the SD card and Internal Storage appeared as two separate directories. I could see what was stored on ea.
I am under 300MB of memory of avail. space on the Internal - lots of posts about running out of app room in various forums - so curious what media and other data is there, what might be movable to SD card.
Got some further questions about how to copy data from an 8MB card to a 32MB card (just drag to PC and back?) as I just ordered one, and about how to tell certain apps where I want media recorded to (may simply not be an option w Camcorder and others), but mainly just want to understand how to view Internal storage from a directory on my PC when unit is docked. Thx!
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Hi all,
First post as a new Asus Transformer owner:
I seem to be having problems with the MicroSD card, I have a brand new 32GB card, formatted as FAT32, it can be read and written to correctly on my pc.
When inserted into the Transformer I get a "Preparing external storage" message, LOST.DIR is created on the card, and the card is visible as /Removable/MicroSD/.
All good so far but then most apps can't see anything on the card and everything seems to be looking in /mnt/sdcard/ (internal storage) for files.
Examples -
I create a nook folder on the microsd card, then a my documents folder under that and place epub files in there but the nook app can't find files either in /Removable/MicroSD/Nook/MyDocuments or /mnt/sdcard/Nook/MyDocuments
Aldiko book reader - I hit home then sdcard and it displays the contents of /mnt/sdcard with no way to navigate to /Removable/MicroSD
Dropbox places files in /mnt/sdcard not on the MicroSD card
The Music App however is successful in automatically finding music in /Removable/MicroSD/Music
I have tested this with another (8gb) card and the same behavior happens.
Is this normal? if so how do I get the apps to look in (and store files in) the MicroSD card?
I am no expert but I think this is one of the "bugs" that need to be worked on in Android 3.x. It is most likely the reason why the XOOM still has no official microSD support. How are you going to mount the internal memory as /sdcard and in addition use a removable medium, also called /sdcard? Unfortunately, /sdcard is commonly the removable medium so I am curious as to what the solution will be! For now we just have to "suck it up" until someone smart comes up with a work-around
I have two Android devices that I've looked at closely for this: my Acer Iconia A500 tablet, running Honeycomb, and my new Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket phone running Gingerbread. Each has built in memory, can take a micro SD card, and can access external memory through the USB port (using an adapter cable for the OTG port on the Skyrocket). But they handle/map the memory very differently.
On the tablet, I have 32 GB of internal memory. The entire 32 GB space shows up under Internal Storage. That memory is dynamically split between main memory (used for Apps) and "sdcard" for media/data. If I use a "run from SD card" application, it doesn't save me any memory space as it would try to move the App to the SDcard segment of the main memory, reducing the size of the remaining memory (no net gain or loss). If I insert a micro SD card, it shows up as external_SD, and if I plug in a thumb drive, it shows up as "usb_storage." If I use Astro File Manager (a great App), all the media storage shows up under /mnt, where I'll find:
- /mnt/external_SD for the inserted micro SD card,
- /mnt/sdcard for the internal media space,
and
- /mnt/usb_storage for the thumb drive.
On the phone, I have 16 GB of internal memory. The memory appears to have a hard split, with about 2 GB for Internal Storage and 11.25 GB for media/data labeled "USB storage". Note that this "USB Storage" is actually internal memory. The Settings tool also shows the micro SD card as "SD card", but doesn't show anything when I connect a thumb drive. If I use Astro File Manager with a thumb drive connected I find:
- /mnt/Sdcard for the internal media space,
- /mnt/Sdcard/external_sd for the inserted micro SD card,
- /mnt/sdcard/usbstorage for internal media space
and
- /mnt/sdcard/usbstorage/SDA for the thumb drive
All this is fairly confusing. I'd love to know how much is unique to these two devices and how much is because of the operating system (Android 2.3.5 on the phone, Android 3.2 on the tablet). If any of you have other tablets and phones, I'd love to know if your memory set ups match mine.
How is the 16Gb of internal flash memory allocated for various purposes in these phones? It looks to me like about 12Gb is used for "USB storage", or in other words the file system that appears under the /sdcard directory (not counting any actual external card that may be present.
Is the other 4Gb then handled as directly-addressable memory for storage of apps and their internal data storage? I also assume that if you go into the Applications list and select "Move to SD Card" for an app, it actually just moves it from one part of the 16Gb internal memory to another -- is that correct?
As an Android developer, this caused a lot of confusion when the original Galaxy was released, as it essentially had what appeared as both an internal and optional external SD card. But at the Android API level, a call to getExternalStorageDirectory points you to the /sdcard directory, which is actually internal to the device!
So apparently Samsung makes the skyrocket think that the usb storage is the sd card. Because of this when i tap to move an app to the sd card it moves it from system storage too usb storage. I am pretty much out of storage internally. Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone know how i can solve the problem.
ian1 said:
So apparently Samsung makes the skyrocket think that the usb storage is the sd card. Because of this when i tap to move an app to the sd card it moves it from system storage too usb storage. I am pretty much out of storage internally. Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone know how i can solve the problem.
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I do not think that Samsung is unique. An external SD card appears as a directory in the external storage. It is rather easy to use this directory to store music, photos and videos. I have many programs and I am nowhere near tapped out in terms of storage. However, I believe that there are a number of solutions that would allow one to move applications to the external-external SD card.
Ya i was wondering if anyone had heard of a way to do this. I havent found anything yet.
If you are rooted you can probably edit the fstab file to switch the mount points of the internal and external memory. This has been done on other devices and a search should point you to directions to accomplish this.
There are negatives and positives to this approach, so read and understand what yoou are doing and the effects it will have before doing it.
I have over 80 apps installed, including two nav programs with offline maps for the US and have 1.5 GB in the user space for ap installs, 9.4 GB in the internal storage, and 11 GB free on a 32 GB external SD card (music files take up most of the used space).
Thank you!
does this feature work better than having the SD card as an external device?
my concern is if you change the card or have to change the card..
surely everything will go to crap if its integrated and you change or upgrade the card.
I won't integrate it, if something goes wrong you have to reformat entire SD card to make it work as normal.
I will just save everything on SD card while internal memory is used for apps/chat storage
The disadvantage is as you have stated. But the advantages are 1) it will become part of your phone storage. You can store app or any other type of date there. 2) It's encrypted and only work while it's in your phone. You won't be able to read it once it's removed but you don't have to worry about loosing sensitive data if someone got your phone. If you need to change the card (replace with a bigger card), just connect to your computer, copy the data to your computer, switch the card, copy date back to new card.
toiday said:
The disadvantage is as you have stated. But the advantages are 1) it will become part of your phone storage. You can store app or any other type of date there. 2) It's encrypted and only work while it's in your phone. You won't be able to read it once it's removed but you don't have to worry about loosing sensitive data if someone got your phone. If you need to change the card (replace with a bigger card), just connect to your computer, copy the data to your computer, switch the card, copy date back to new card.
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Hi, total n00b here, but is this true? I thought the data stores were completely scattered once an SD card is integrated, so a simple copy of the data (after porting it onto a computer/other storage) to a new SD card would not guarantee reintegration, as you'd have to reintegrate/mount the new SD card.
frankfrank12 said:
Hi, total n00b here, but is this true? I thought the data stores were completely scattered once an SD card is integrated, so a simple copy of the data (after porting it onto a computer/other storage) to a new SD card would not guarantee reintegration, as you'd have to reintegrate/mount the new SD card.
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When you setup initially, you have option for what folders, app you want to store in the SD card. I choose to keep all the app I use often in the phone (faster) and folders like media (video, pictures, music) in SD since they're the reason I need SD card. I currently have 64GB SD card. I plan to upgrade to 128GB when they have it available in UHS-3. At that time, I'll need to migrate from the 64GB to the 128GB. Here is my plan: Under Settings -> Storage & USB, it shows Phone Storage and SD Card. Under SD Card, it show the Apps folder with my few app in it, my music folder, my picture folder, and my video folder. There, I can move the pictures, Video, music folders to the computer. I then move the app back to phone storage (there is option for that). Then I can eject the SD card. Insert the new one and format as internal storage. Copy the folders back from the computer. In addition, I probably don't need to copy my picture files since they're backed up to Google Pictures.
It's not very convenience but the price I pay for encryption. Don't have to do that often anyway.