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!
Click to expand...
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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!
Queations to all....
Should a App2sd app be able to work on our Notes???
The reason im asking is because I had issues getting my 64g card to mount (ended up having to flash a recent OTA update from Samfirmware.com). I then wanted to move some of my apps to the 64g card but App 2 SD from the market says -
"The device does not have a real primary external storage, or the primary extremal storage is emulated. Moving app to SD may not be supported by this device. "
Is this normal? I have never come across this before on any Android device before! Or is it something to do with the 64g card? or the Notes file tree?
Sent from my GT-N7100
Yes it's normal. Samsung make some different approach here.
In my perspective when you used to choose "move to sdcard" in apps manager, the apps move from internal memory to internal storage (/sdcard).
(External microSD card is not on discussion so far, im only talking about tablet internal storage).
Now by default in Samsung devices all apps are going to /sdcard, so you dont have to move them beacuse the are alreday there.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The solution for me (I have white SGN 10.1 16GB) is use DirectoryBind, i can have 20+ GB of games in external microSD Card.
sammmurai said:
Yes it's normal. Samsung make some different approach here.
In my perspective when you used to choose "move to sdcard" in apps manager, the apps move from internal memory to internal storage (/sdcard).
(External microSD card is not on discussion so far, im only talking about tablet internal storage).
Now by default in Samsung devices all apps are going to /sdcard, so you dont have to move them beacuse the are alreday there.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The solution for me (I have white SGN 10.1 16GB) is use DirectoryBind, i can have 20+ GB of games in external microSD Card.
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Think your correct, makes sense anyway!!!
Could you elaborate more on this directory Bind thing you mentioned? ??
Sent from my GT-N7100
DirectoryBind main feature is to link/bind folders with data that are in external micro sd card, to empty folders with the same name that must be in /sdcard/Android/data or /sdcard/Android/obb. So games and apps thinks they're using internal storage but in fact data is in external micro sd card. This way you save the 11 gb reserved for storage.
Sent from my GT-N8000 using Tapatalk
sammmurai said:
DirectoryBind main feature is to link/bind folders with data that are in external micro sd card, to empty folders with the same name that must be in /sdcard/Android/data or /sdcard/Android/obb. So games and apps thinks they're using internal storage but in fact data is in external micro sd card. This way you save the 11 gb reserved for storage.
Sent from my GT-N8000 using Tapatalk
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what happen if u update the app that u changed the directory?? will the app save to the new directory or internal?
Didnt understand the question
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Hello, I have previously owned a Galaxy Ace which never had an internal SD storage and things were so much more simpler. Apps could be installed on removable SD. Apps were not confused when installing. I have realised that with this phone, when installing big games for example FIFA 12 or Need for Speed Most Wanted, it thinks that the internal SD storage is the removable SD card and won't download game data due to not having enough space. This 1.10GB worth of storage is totally useless and I would rather not have it for reasons of simplicity and just have a large removable SD card media instead. This 1.10GB internal storage space is insignificant when compared to 32GB removable SD Card and really is not worth the grief.
I have tried Link2SD to overcome this issue without any success as it moves the data files from the /data/data partition to the removable SD but not the Data which has been downloaded to Android/Data directory on the internal SD storage. Now I know that there are utilities (such as directory bind) which can swap the internal SD with the external SD. I also know that you can modify vold.fstab to do exactly the same. But I would rather not have this internal storage or if possible, have it extended to the internal data storage.instead.
Can someone please guide me on how to extend this irrelevant partion to data partition or have it removed entirely and just have a simple storage configuration like I did with the Galaxy Ace or older phones before all these large storages were introduced. Thanks in advance.
you need modified "vold.fstab"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2044439
No that just swaps the partitions. If you go to settings>storage the Removable SD card shows as USB storage and the internal SD is showing as SD Card. This is not what I want. Furthermore the fact that external SD is mounted in sdcard path is even more annoying and confusing at times.
What I am looking for is removeable SD card to be mounted as mnt/sdcard. And the internal SD card to be extended with some other internal partition such as data partition or just removed altogether. In simple terms I want the same file structure as my Galaxy Ace S5830.
Gizmotech said:
No that just swaps the partitions. If you go to settings>storage the Removable SD card shows as USB storage and the internal SD is showing as SD Card. This is not what I want. Furthermore the fact that external SD is mounted in sdcard path is even more annoying and confusing at times.
What I am looking for is removeable SD card to be mounted as mnt/sdcard. And the internal SD card to be extended with some other internal partition such as data partition or just removed altogether. In simple terms I want the same file structure as my Galaxy Ace S5830.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If want the removable SD card to be mounted as mnt/sdcard then the vold.fstab could do the trick. You said you wanted to play games right? That's what I use to play Need for Speed Most Wanted on my phone. As for the "Internal Storage" or the 1.20 GB Partition, modifying it and adding or removing other partitions would require a .pit file which as far as i know is responsible for partitioning the phone and unfortunately we do not have. Does this answer your question?
It does answer my question although not the answer I wanted to hear. I used to think highly of Android when I used the Galaxy Ace as it did not have this issue due to not having a internal usable storage. But how on hell did Samsung decide to put a puny amount of storage space and mount it as sdcard. I feel sorry for the normal users who have never come across rooting and mods. I am sorry as much as I have love for Android phones, I think my next phone will be an Apple. Never thought I would be saying this but I am honestly tired of this stupid internal sd / external sd configuration. This has even put me off purchasing phones like the Galaxy S3 as you will still have this stupid configuration to get your head over. End of rant.
Is is possible to mount the removable SD card as /mnt/sdcard and the internal puny storage as /mnt/USB or any other name so as not to confuse it with SD Card. At the same time not having the storages swapped and in their right places when checked in settings>storage?
whats the problem with swapping them? I'm hardly annoyed by this kind if situation. if you are almost filling up the 1.20GB storage then you can move some of the apps to the 1.10GB "external_sd". Then to make sure you use the REAL sd card set the default installation path to be internal memory.
Sent from my GT-I8160 running Holo Bean Beta
Gizmotech said:
What I am looking for is removeable SD card to be mounted as mnt/sdcard.
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Click to collapse
and I say again... if you change "vold.fstab" then you will have that you say above. I have /mnt/sdcard = 32gb and /mnt/sdcard/external_sd = 1.1gb
monstro78 said:
and I say again... if you change "vold.fstab" then you will have that you say above. I have /mnt/sdcard = 32gb and /mnt/sdcard/external_sd = 1.1gb
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Click to collapse
That is more of a workaround than a fix as swapping it loses the Unmount SD Card options for the removable media in settings>storage. The same with Directory Bind. They both do the trick but not quite the way I would have wanted it to do so.
Gizmotech said:
That is more of a workaround than a fix as swapping it loses the Unmount SD Card options for the removable media in settings>storage. The same with Directory Bind. They both do the trick but not quite the way I would have wanted it to do so.
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Click to collapse
Then we cant do anything for that matter for now since there are no pit files available to repartition the phone.
Sent from my GT-I8160 running Holo Bean
I was just thinking if there was a way of making a new directory on the /mnt path called 'storage' or something, we could have possibly modified vold.stab. So change where it says /sdcard to /storage and /sdcard/external_sd to /sdcard. I'm not sure if that would work but again, I don't think that another new directory can be created in /mnt without a .pit file.
Gizmotech said:
I was just thinking if there was a way of making a new directory on the /mnt path called 'storage' or something, we could have possibly modified vold.stab. So change where it says /sdcard to /storage and /sdcard/external_sd to /sdcard. I'm not sure if that would work but again, I don't think that another new directory can be created in /mnt without a .pit file.
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Click to collapse
actually there are 3 mount points inside the vold.fstab file. 1) /mnt/sdcard 2)/mnt/external_sd 3)/mnt/usbstorage (i think, i forgot..)
the third is supposed to be used for USB OTG function but for now it remains undefined. I do not know anything about modifying this file so I guess I'll leave it to the experts, ask around and see what turns up.
I just checked the vold.fstab and I think the mount point is mnt/sdcard/external_sd and not mnt/external_sd if I am interpreting the data correctly.
Gizmotech said:
I just checked the vold.fstab and I think the mount point is mnt/sdcard/external_sd and not mnt/external_sd if I am interpreting the data correctly.
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Click to collapse
Yeah youre right.. I guess working on my jelly bean theme made my brain forgetful.
Sent from my GT-I8160 using xda app-developers app