Hey Guys, I don't what basically Partitioning Sd card means!!?? ( I know it sounds noobish but can't help) Plz can someone explain me in detail about it! Plz ..
..... :what:
Any kind of response will be greatly welcomed!
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
Ansh1107 said:
Hey Guys, I don't what basically Partitioning Sd card means!!?? ( I know it sounds noobish but can't help) Plz can someone explain me in detail about it! Plz ..
..... :what:
Any kind of response will be greatly welcomed!
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
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Click to collapse
To understand what partitioning an SD card means, you have to know what partitioning is in the first place. Partitioning is the act of dividing some kind of physical device, either a hard drive or in this case an sd memory card, into multiple logical devices.
If you had a brand 10GB hard drive, it would come with only one partition, C:\ which totaled 10GB of space. But if you split that hard drive into 2 partitions of equal size, you would have a C:\ and a D:\ drive, each totaling 5GB of space. Partitions don't have to be of equal size, and they don't have to be in the same format.
Now for android, most times partitioning an SD card is used to gain more space to store apps. If you create a partition on the SD card which is formatted in ext2 ext3 or ext4, you can link apps to that folder to free space from your internal SD card.
An example of this would be if you have no more space left in your internal memory for say, Angry Birds. You could partition your 8GB SD card into a 1GB ext3 partition and leave the rest in a 7GB FAT32 partition. In this way, you could use an app like link2sd or app2sd to move apps to the SD card to free internal memory up.
universeman said:
To understand what partitioning an SD card means, you have to know what partitioning is in the first place. Partitioning is the act of dividing some kind of physical device, either a hard drive or in this case an sd memory card, into multiple logical devices.
If you had a brand 10GB hard drive, it would come with only one partition, C:\ which totaled 10GB of space. But if you split that hard drive into 2 partitions of equal size, you would have a C:\ and a D:\ drive, each totaling 5GB of space. Partitions don't have to be of equal size, and they don't have to be in the same format.
Now for android, most times partitioning an SD card is used to gain more space to store apps. If you create a partition on the SD card which is formatted in ext2 ext3 or ext4, you can link apps to that folder to free space from your internal SD card.
An example of this would be if you have no more space left in your internal memory for say, Angry Birds. You could partition your 8GB SD card into a 1GB ext3 partition and leave the rest in a 7GB FAT32 partition. In this way, you could use an app like link2sd or app2sd to move apps to the SD card to free internal memory up.
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Thanks a lit for reply!! Just a Q.So when say i flash a new Rom will all of my partition will be wiped off ...? Will the Remaining(say 7 Gb) will it remain the same ...??
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
Ansh1107 said:
Thanks a lit for reply!! Just a Q.So when say i flash a new Rom will all of my partition will be wiped off ...? Will the Remaining(say 7 Gb) will it remain the same ...??
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
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If you flash a new Rom, you will be formatting the internal flash memory as well as the apps partition on your sd card. In my example, the 7GB partition will be completely unaffected.I would be careful though, there are ptions in CWM recovery that do allow you to flash the 7GB partition. However, if you just do a simple wipe data/factory reset from CWM, your data will be safe.
universeman said:
If you flash a new Rom, you will be formatting the internal flash memory as well as the apps partition on your sd card. In my example, the 7GB partition will be completely unaffected.I would be careful though, there are ptions in CWM recovery that do allow you to flash the 7GB partition. However, if you just do a simple wipe data/factory reset from CWM, your data will be safe.
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OK so partitioning the Sd card do not wipe off music files(for eg) and some other stuff which I access through file explorer! Right ....?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
To understand what partitioning an SD card means, you have to know what partitioning is in the first place. Partitioning is the act of dividing some kind of physical device, either a hard drive or in this case an sd memory card, into multiple logical devices.
If you had a brand 10GB hard drive, it would come with only one partition, C:\ which totaled 10GB of space. But if you split that hard drive into 2 partitions of equal size, you would have a C:\ and a D:\ drive, each totaling 5GB of space. Partitions don't have to be of equal size, and they don't have to be in the same format.
Now for android, most times partitioning an SD card is used to gain more space to store apps. If you create a partition on the SD card which is formatted in ext2 ext3 or ext4, you can link apps to that folder to free space from your internal SD card.
An example of this would be if you have no more space left in your internal memory for say, Angry Birds. You could partition your 8GB SD card into a 1GB ext3 partition and leave the rest in a 7GB FAT32 partition. In this way, you could use an app like link2sd or app2sd to move apps to the SD card to free internal memory up.
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Click to collapse
There are a couple steps missing. Continuing from the hard drive example, the 8GB SD card would have 1 large partition, formatted as FAT (or a variant, such as FAT32). The internal memory space of the Android device is formatted as EXT (or variant), as Android is Linux-based. Android is designed to recognise FAT as "foreign," and EXT is seen as "native." Therefore, we can trick the OS (Android) into thinking there's more drive space than exists physically in the device, in the following way: Repartition the 8GB SD card to 2 partitions, format the 1st one as FAT, & the 2nd one EXT, then tell the OS to use the 1GB EXT drive to store stuff that's normally only put in internal "native" memory. In Windows, this is called a shortcut, & in Linux it's called a link. So you link a folder from the internal memory space to the 2nd partition of the SD card. This is managed quite easily through apps like link2sd, as mentioned previously. The OS (Android) doesn't know that the linked data actually resides on external memory.
Theoretically, you could link the entire everything to a gigantic SD card, and, in a way, that what people did when they rooted the Nook Color. This would give you tremendous space to play with, but does have potentially significant limitations.
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
post-mortem said:
There are a couple steps missing. Continuing from the hard drive example, the 8GB SD card would have 1 large partition, formatted as FAT (or a variant, such as FAT32). The internal memory space of the Android device is formatted as EXT (or variant), as Android is Linux-based. Android is designed to recognise FAT as "foreign," and EXT is seen as "native." Therefore, we can trick the OS (Android) into thinking there's more drive space than exists physically in the device, in the following way: Repartition the 8GB SD card to 2 partitions, format the 1st one as FAT, & the 2nd one EXT, then tell the OS to use the 1GB EXT drive to store stuff that's normally only put in internal "native" memory. In Windows, this is called a shortcut, & in Linux it's called a link. So you link a folder from the internal memory space to the 2nd partition of the SD card. This is managed quite easily through apps like link2sd, as mentioned previously. The OS (Android) doesn't know that the linked data actually resides on external memory.
Theoretically, you could link the entire everything to a gigantic SD card, and, in a way, that what people did when they rooted the Nook Color. This would give you tremendous space to play with, but does have potentially significant limitations.
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
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Using one large SD card was also what I did with my first android phone, the LG Optimus V. It didn't have a real large internal memory space, so I used a class 10 SD microSD card to supplant it. Also, if you want to get truly technical, what link2sd and other similar apps are doing is creating what is called a hard link.
A shortcut, or rather a soft link, differs from a hard link in that a soft link appears to the OS as a shortcut. Meaning the OS knows that the file resides on another storage location. By using a hard link, the OS is not aware that the file resides in another location.
For example: Say you have the following setup
SD Card Partition 1: [/mnt/sdcard-ext/data] (For apps)
Partition 2: [/mnt/sdcard] (For everything else)
Internal Apps: [/data] (Normal app location)
If you wanted to move "/data/angrybirds.apk" to the SD card using a soft link, you (or an app) would have to move "angrybirds.apk" from [/data] to [/mnt/sdcard-ext/data] then create a soft link to "/data/angrybirds.apk".
However, the problem with this approach is that android doesn't accept soft links in place of application files. So to trick it, you create a hard link by the same method above. But this time, because it is a hard link, to the Android OS, the file doesn't appear to have moved at all.
---------- Post added at 01:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:57 AM ----------
Also, I forgot to mention that the class of SD card you use is very important. Cards are ranked from 2-10 with Class 10 being the fastest(1). If possible, I recommend buying at least a Class 8 card if not a Class 10 card. They are not available in most local shops, but they are available online for cheaper than the store would have cost anyway.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Speed_Class_Rating
Ansh1107 said:
OK so partitioning the Sd card do not wipe off music files(for eg) and some other stuff which I access through file explorer! Right ....?
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Partitioning will format the card and erase everything, so backup your sdcard! Like anything on here, make a backup before continuing, but for this, make sure you're backup is on your computer, not your phone.
Also, I forgot to mention that the class of SD card you use is very important. Cards are ranked from 2-10 with Class 10 being the fastest(1). If possible, I recommend buying at least a Class 8 card if not a Class 10 card. They are not available in most local shops, but they are available online for cheaper than the store would have cost anyway.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Speed_Class_Rating
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Actually, those speed ratings are measured using burst read/write, so are most reflective of performance during operations with very large files. Typically, a higher class rating is associated with higher speeds with large files, but a slower speed with small files (~4kB). Hence, the recommended class rating of SD card depends on the intended usage: highest class affordable for high resolution video, while class 4 or 6 for reading/writing many small files (e.g., mobile phones).
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
Thanks a lot guys For replying and letting me explore more about partitioning! So which is a better app to control partitions? A2SD or Link 2Sd?
Does partitioning causes any harm to OS....?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
Thanks a lot guys For replying and letting me explore more about partitioning! So which is a better app to control partitions? A2SD or Link 2Sd?
Does partitioning causes any harm to OS....?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
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You cannot repartition the internal memory, so your question only applies to the external memory (SD card). Partitioning by itself only makes 1 "disk" appear as multiple "drives". So the real question depends on what you do with the partitions. Most people are satisfies with creating 1 additional partition, and using any of the many available "2sd" apps, which will do the hard work of creating the links (=shortcut, remember?) into the 2nd partition.
Basically, pick one and go with it. Remember that repartitioning your SD card will usually obliterate all data on it. Backup, backup!
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
post-mortem said:
You cannot repartition the internal memory, so your question only applies to the external memory (SD card). Partitioning by itself only makes 1 "disk" appear as multiple "drives". So the real question depends on what you do with the partitions. Most people are satisfies with creating 1 additional partition, and using any of the many available "2sd" apps, which will do the hard work of creating the links (=shortcut, remember?) into the 2nd partition.
Basically, pick one and go with it. Remember that repartitioning your SD card will usually obliterate all data on it. Backup, backup!
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities
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I would say it depends on your situation. Link2SD will let you choose what apps you want to be on the SD card. Apps2SD will put everything there. Also, Link2SD has a GUI you can use to move apps, where Apps2SD is done in a command line. So honestly, I would recommend Link2SD. It's free in the market.
As far pas whether partitioning harms the OS? No, it should not. that said, I would always make backups of everything anytime you have a fear of losing data.
If I switch to some other phone what will happen to my Partitions....?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
Partitions where? The partitions on the phone's internal memory will stay on the phone, and the new phone will have its own internal memory (I hope this is obvious). The partitions on the SD card will stay on the SD card. If you put the old SD card into the new phone... well, then nothing happens to the partitions. It's like taking a hard drive out of 1 computer and putting it into another.
post-mortem said:
Partitions where? The partitions on the phone's internal memory will stay on the phone, and the new phone will have its own internal memory (I hope this is obvious). The partitions on the SD card will stay on the SD card. If you put the old SD card into the new phone... well, then nothing happens to the partitions. It's like taking a hard drive out of 1 computer and putting it into another.
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OK so no problems with partitions when switching phone! Right ..?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
Some stock ROMs do not have support for ext, so they will not be able to access any partition which has been formatted ext2/3/4. Therefore, if you have one or more partitions on your SD card which are formatted as ext, you are not guaranteed that the new phone will be able to read it. Of course, you can flash a new ROM (CM, MIUI, etc.), and the new phone will be able to read ext format.
Also, if you make a 2nd partition on your SD card for the purpose of using Link2SD, a2sd, or whatever *2sd scripts, your new phone will not know that you have apps installed on that partition, until you recreate the script to mount that partition during boot.
What is swap partition and what are scripts ...?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!
Swap partition
Script
post-mortem said:
Some stock ROMs do not have support for ext, so they will not be able to access any partition which has been formatted ext2/3/4. Therefore, if you have one or more partitions on your SD card which are formatted as ext, you are not guaranteed that the new phone will be able to read it. Of course, you can flash a new ROM (CM, MIUI, etc.), and the new phone will be able to read ext format.
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I have never used a ROM, stock or otherwise, that hasn't supported at least ext2/3; though your mileage may vary. Most if not all ROMs should be able to use these partition types. However, ext4 is a fairly new partition type, and does require special care to make sure the ROM/Kernel supports it.
Again, before you do any rooting, ROM'ing, or partitioning, you need to do your research and if there is any hint or fear of losing your data, back it up. Make sure the ROM supports the filesystem you intend to use. There should be a changelog / list of features on the thread for your ROM telling you exactly what is in it.
How many types of partitions can be made?
Sent from Galaxy Ace running ICS!