What exactly is the difference between internal and USB storage on the Nexus S? It only has internal memory that's not expandable so why bother with the separation?
Also should I be moving apps to the USB storage since the internal storage of 1GB is 2/3 filled with apps?
The Nexus S uses a single 16GB flash module that is partitioned into two volumes instead of one smaller flash module and an expandable memory slot (SD) setup found in many other phones. The "Internal Storage" is the internal flash memory needed by Android to house the OS installation. The "USB Storage" is partitioned separately to allow the volume to be mounted, which lets you simultaneously use your phone while performing read and write operations on the "external" volume. If it wasn't set up this way, you would have to forego the ability to use your phone while it was mounted. It also allows you to erase and flash a new ROM without affecting "USB Storage" contents (photos, custom ringtones, music, etc.).
If your app has the option to be moved to "external" storage, the only drawback is that you won't be able to access it on the phone while the volume is mounted.
Oh, ok. Thanks. I never bothered using the phone when it is in USB storage mode, but it actually still works except some apps say "not installed".
DestroytheNexus said:
Oh, ok. Thanks. I never bothered using the phone when it is in USB storage mode, but it actually still works except some apps say "not installed".
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Click to collapse
The reason for this is that USB mass storage can only have 1 device access in at any time. if your computer is accessing it, android cannot This means that if you have apps installed to the SD card, they are no longer accessible to Android and as such, are considered not installed, disconnecting USB mass storage and letting the phone re-initialize the partition will "re-install" the program.
The other issue with the separate partitions is that you have limited space for "internal storage", on the nexus, that's around 1 gig, on other phones, it can be as low as 100 MB. Normally, this space cannot be changed, so you have to anticipate the needs of the customers when building the phone.
To correct this problem, ICS uses Media Transfer Protocol, for an explanation on why, look here. Interestingly enough the iPhone also uses a similar method for transferring files, only they have a custom protocol through iTunes rather then the more generic MTP.
Related
I'm a Nexus One owner, previously G1/MyTouch3G also, so I'm no n00b.
With all Androids, if you have a microSD card, you just plug in the USB and you can mount the microSD card as a drive and copy stuff to it. Which is necessary since we have stupid small ass internal storage. Also it's where we copy pictures/mp3s to it.
So now, with the Samsung Galaxy S series of phones with 16 GIGS of internal storage, how do we ACCESS this storage from the PC so we can copy pictures/mp3s to the internal storage? Is there a way to MOUNT the internal storage?
I haven't read a SINGLE thing about this.
It would REALLY suck if we had to manually do it: Mount microSD, copy stuff to it, unmount, use a file explorer on the phone itself and manually move the files into internal storage.
Yeah there's probably root apps and such that you can ssh in, or use adb to transfer, but that's NOT ideal.
Would be nice is the internal storage auto mounts when mounting microSD like Garmin GPS systems. Garmin GPS systems have SD card slot, when you plug it in, you can see the INTERNAL Garmin memory as well as whatever is on the SD card. (You'll see 2 removable storage devices mounting in Windows).
I think when it's plugged in, the normal notice pops up in the notification bar. But instead of just asking you to mount, it asks if you want to mount internal or the sd card.
nxt said:
I'm a Nexus One owner, previously G1/MyTouch3G also, so I'm no n00b.
With all Androids, if you have a microSD card, you just plug in the USB and you can mount the microSD card as a drive and copy stuff to it. Which is necessary since we have stupid small ass internal storage. Also it's where we copy pictures/mp3s to it.
So now, with the Samsung Galaxy S series of phones with 16 GIGS of internal storage, how do we ACCESS this storage from the PC so we can copy pictures/mp3s to the internal storage? Is there a way to MOUNT the internal storage?
I haven't read a SINGLE thing about this.
It would REALLY suck if we had to manually do it: Mount microSD, copy stuff to it, unmount, use a file explorer on the phone itself and manually move the files into internal storage.
Yeah there's probably root apps and such that you can ssh in, or use adb to transfer, but that's NOT ideal.
Would be nice is the internal storage auto mounts when mounting microSD like Garmin GPS systems. Garmin GPS systems have SD card slot, when you plug it in, you can see the INTERNAL Garmin memory as well as whatever is on the SD card. (You'll see 2 removable storage devices mounting in Windows).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No luck accessing internal RAM from me either (and I think other reviewers on CNET had the same bad luck)...Just got mine on Friday, and it is great except for connecting to the PC (64bit Vista) looping through MTP mode (the device keeps flashing back and forth between main screen and MTP mode, and the PC keeps trying to install the right driver to access the device as a USB mass storage device). Multiple restarts and messing with the device in Device Manager yielded no results, so I just used removable SD card to add files to the device. That obviously works fine, but is irritating.
Anyone else having trouble accessing Captivate as Mass Storage Device?
Best wishes to all.
I can't tell if you're using the Captivate driver located here.
Loosely related...I'm curious as to whether all the work going on in the Modaco SGS forums to optimize I/O (such as this) is applicable at all to the Captivate...anyone know?
I installed the driver on my Win7 machine.
I set up the USB to ask when I plug it in. I select Mass Storage. Two drives show up in the list of drivers, but when I click either one, it says "Please insert a disk in the removable disk".
What am I missing?
[EDIT]
Hang on, there was a window behind my windows with a message about install failure, device unplugged. Trying again.
[EDIT2]
Installed again. Didn't get error. Using same method as above, still no go.
So then I select PC Internet the next time I plugged in the USB cable, and it then gave the Windows POPUP saying Installing Drivers, and finished with Ready to Use. But, now I don't see the drives in Explorer. So I launched Windows Mobile Device Center...didn't see anything.
In settings goto Applications > USB Settings > select "Mass Storage" and viola!
moosefist said:
In settings goto Applications > USB Settings > select "Mass Storage" and viola!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the popup set to ask, and as noted in my post, I did select Mass Storage first couple times. It does show drives, but but when I click either one, it says "Please insert a disk in the removable disk".
Thanks for the suggestion though.
The windows 7 drivers for htc android phones are hosed in general for me. I have to use linux in a virtual machine to access ANY htc android phone.
once you hit mass storage, if you bring the notification bar down, you can click the "usb" setting and select mount. Perhaps that will work? (or is that for mac only?)
once you hit mass storage, if you bring the notification bar down, you can click the "usb" setting and select mount. Perhaps that will work? (or is that for mac only?)
yes, when you do this you will be able to access both drives without it asking you to insert a disk
I am new to android so I had this problem for a while. But you made my day madjsp. I have been trying to get this phone connected to my pc for the past 2 days, but with very little success. The kies software detected my phone only twice. But this connection was very erratic. Just to copy 200mb of photos the link showed a transfer time of 7 hours. The device would often disconnect itself after like 10 secs.
But until samsung fixes their software and drivers, the mass storage option works very reliably for transfering files between pc and (internal+external) sd cards.
My directions:
1) Choose the Mass storage option in USB settings of the device
2) Then connect to the comp.
3) There should be a message in the notification bar: "USB connected. Select to copy files to/from your computer" . Tap the notification and select mount from the popup.
Now you can view both sd cards from pc and transfer files to/fro w/ ease.
The last step is the most important one. For all those having the problem where clicking the drive in the pc reads "Insert a media into the drive", this should fix the problem. Maybe it is something android specific that I didn't know...
Same thing happen to me, i found drivers on this site and instead or hitting mass storage when it is connect to PC, I hit media PLAYER and it worked fine i was able to see the 16GB and my SD card, Loaded music and videos and pics with no problem, also remember only plug into the back of computer. you can find drivers on this site that will work on like pages 3-6
doomah69 said:
Same thing happen to me, i found drivers on this site and instead or hitting mass storage when it is connect to PC, I hit media PLAYER and it worked fine i was able to see the 16GB and my SD card, Loaded music and videos and pics with no problem, also remember only plug into the back of computer. you can find drivers on this site that will work on like pages 3-6
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Selecting Media player worked for me as well. I now can see and have access to both my internal and external / removable SD card. Good lookin' out!
Ever since upgrading this to a rooted and custom ROM(Android REvolution HD, right now), I've been having issues with any sort of computer connection. Most notably, anytime I connect, the internal storage mounts, albeit it oddly takes it a while to accept that files are there and display them, but the external SD card never properly mounts. It can display information about the SD card, even how much data is used. But it shows absolutely no files on it. Is this an issue with the SD card(I'm guess it's not since even the internal has problems), and how would I fix this?
[EDIT] Noticed a question related to Media connecting. Is there any way to access files on the internal and external SD card using something like Total Commander?
So I finally got my phone and went through the rooting process, I have root and I'm on JB, I triple checked, but I put my Titanium backup folder on my old SD card which before updating I could access on my new phone, but now I can't seem to get to pull it up. I keep getting "Unfortunately, com.motorola.huxvmm.settings has stopped when I choose the storage option in settings. I also can't get my phone to show up as a removable drive to drop the files onto the internal memory. Besides that everything seems fine, any ideas?
USB mass storage option was removed in jelly been. It sucks.
g1701gst said:
USB mass storage option was removed in jelly been. It sucks.
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Click to collapse
+1 :good:
You could try one of the apk'(s even here on XDA putting a widget on and having mass storage (USBMassStorageToggle, Multi-mount-sd), but since I've lost root (sigh....) when passing the OTA, I can't tell if that actually works....
They switched to MTP mode as it is more secure (something about allowing the app storage and user storage to be the same to increase memory) and allows the device and PC to have access to the memory at the same time.
Borderpatrol1987 said:
They switched to MTP mode as it is more secure (something about allowing the app storage and user storage to be the same to increase memory) and allows the device and PC to have access to the memory at the same time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MTP is supposed to be compatible with the USB spec, but there seems to be a problem for some/lots of users: When you plug in and select MTP, the phone mounts under "Portable Devices" (not "Devices with Removable Storage") like it used to in the past. This in itself is not a big deal, but the issue seems to be that though you can navigate to "Internal Storage" in Windows--that corresponds to /storage/sdcard0 on the phone (at least, mine)--some files on your phone may not be visible on your computer.
For example, I can create a folder in Windows in Internal Storage and see it on my phone, but if I delete that folder from my phone, it doesn't "sync" that delete to the computer.
I've made sure I have the latest Motorola drivers, and tried different USB cables, etc.
The fix I use is a bit complicated, but it works for me: I downloaded Total Commander (TC) on my phone, but I suspect you can do this with any other Android software that allows you to connect to a shared folder on your computer once connected to a USB.
In my case, I did the following:
On my computer, shared the folder, C:\Temp
in TC (on my phone), used the LAN (windows Network) Plugin to connect to that shared folder
Copied files from my phone to the shared folder on my computer
Great job. I've been using total commander too. It's the best and the fastest file manager I know. It has much more functions than (known from Linux) midnight commander.
Well worth the money with plenty plugins. Download shareware version from ghisler.com
Also there is a plugin for web dav too.
Sent via RAZR Max's HD
Good Evening, I have this rom (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2295030)
installed on my phone works 100% ...
However I did something stupid this week, my phone was no memory card in the PC and connected it to move some files to the usb storage, however at the same time I was messing with a stick and need to format it by mistake ended up formatting the storage USB.
Now every time I disconnect appears "damaged card, you may need to remove" and neither to using the SD, put this warning is for internal storage, however I thought of formatting options in android, tab settings> storage, however this rom does not have the option to format and much less "mount" the internal storage.
So I'm without, thus prevented from taking pictures, listening to music internal storage ...
I wonder if you have any way to fix this?
Note: Connected PC normally recognizes the USB storage.
I've been using Z3 till now, there was an option for USB Mass Storage mode, which simply emulated sd card as pen drive. I could simply transfer any file I wanted with the highest speed possible!
This option is gone in XZ Premium, and the way I see it the only method available now is MTP (which sucks massively, words can't describe how bad this protocol is)
So my question is, what can I do to transfer any file I want at top speed to my phone? This is 2017, I've bought high speed SD card, I can't believe I'm stuck with MTP that goes around 5MB/s... There has to be a way for legit file transfer...
I use a app called superbeam, it uses wifi.
Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk
I wouldn't call wifi a solution to that, I'm going to use a high speed sd card too to transfer 4k movies and stuff back and forth so I'd like to know this myself too.
Looks like Sony is providing USB 2.0 cable with Sony XZ Premium (UCB20 is USB 2.0), this is one of the reasons of low transfer speeds.
Sucks for me as well
Anybody found a better solution?
If you have Root, you can get a app from the play store that enables Mass Storage
How is this called?
Would be the solution as soon as root exploit is found
If you have fast internet just FTP? Or just use an SD card reader? But the latter will kill your flaps water resistance after time so wouldn't bother ?
Mass storage mode transfer is a thing of the past for good reason. Your phone, under such a mode, would present its internal storage to the computer to mount up and use as if it were a thumb drive. Trouble is, very few file systems support concurrent read/write mounting by multiple computers, and you won't find any of those that do on a phone. So, when in mass storage mode, the computer must be given exclusive access to the storage, meaning the phone cannot access it. Obviously, this wouldn't work if the phone had to give up exclusive access to important system files, so this lead to the two partition system whereby important stuff was on an OS partition unavailable as mass storage and user data was on an 'sdcard' partition. That partition sizing was set at the factory and couldn't be changed without root and often kernel work, and it usually wasted a ton of space on the OS partition because OEMs are necessarily conservative there. Also, it restricted what file systems OEMs could use for the sdcard partition as your computer is unlikely to understand file systems like ext3/4. So the sdcard partition was quite often fat32, which has a few downsides. Firstly, Microsoft do hold patents there that they enforce, so licensing is needed. Secondly, it is an archaic and crappy file system with limitations like no single file larger than about 4GB. Not a great plan in 2017 - I don't think I even have any movies that small on disk anymore.
All that said, I don't see the problem with MTP. If it's slow for you, it's likely because you're using the supplied cable, which is USB version 2, so slow. I slung about 15 GB or so of film onto my phone yesterday through a USB 3.1 cable in under a minute. It's definitely the fastest USB transfer to a phone I've ever experienced.
Preacher_at said:
How is this called?
Would be the solution as soon as root exploit is found
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
test this but im not sure it work i have no root on my phone im use sdcard reader with my sdcard extreme pro
by @DooMLoRD
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doomlord.xperiasdcardmounter&hl=fr
I have now tested a lot of different solutions for file transfers.
None of the ones emulating a network card and making SMB share worked.
Finally I landed on some FTP server apps.
Now I use "WiFi Pro FTP Server" as this one had best performance out of the ones I tested.
With performance I mean time until directory content (~3.000 jpeg files) is displayed by FTP client. This one takes about half a minute where crap MTP via USB took more than 5 minutes (with new, high quality USB 3.0 cable!).
I have notebook and phone in different WiFi bands to increase performance. Transfer speed is about 4-10MB/s so really good and far beyond MTP.
Of course, I am still missing good old mass storage mode