Best use for a SD card - Android General

I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S4 and I just received a 64GB micro SD as a benefit from Samsung exclusive.
Now I have plenty of free space but I don't really know how to use them. Do you have any idea?
I thought at using it for Google music cache but it seems that I cannot do that without rooting. Am I right?
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I'm having EXACTLY the same question but I will develop it a bit:
- should i move all apps (no huge games there) to SD card including my alternative launcher, adn if yes is there an easier way than checking each apps box in "app manager" ? will they update automatically if done so and isn't it problematic that most apps will leave a "data file" in phone memory ?
- should i move all photos, videos (took with GS4) & music to SD card, isn't it problematic that a big miniatures data file will stay in phone? If yes HOW ? impossible to understand.
- shouldn't we create a simple file structure in the sd card (apps - music - photos - videos) or is it automatic ?

Related

Use of SD CARD

When I had a P1000, I used a lot the feature of sending applications and games and its data files to my SD CARD with a single purpose: leave the internal 16Gb memory as free as possible for better perfomance.
Now I have a rooted P6200 and I only can use my SD CARD for storing music and videos because I have no option of MOVE TO SD CARD anymore.
I also tried some applications that MOVE TO SD CARD, but none of them work.
I called the SAMSUNG SUPPORT and they told me I should be able to move to SD, but I read somewhere that it's something about the way that Android 3 and 4 manage partitions... what makes me believe I will not be able.
So, I am confused.
Can I move applications to SD CARD or not?
Can I make a application store data on SD CARD? Example: MailDroid or a game that consumes a lot of the memory - I would prefer to store data on the SD card.
Does anybody have a hint for that?
Thank you!
mario.renor said:
When I had a P1000, I used a lot the feature of sending applications and games and its data files to my SD CARD with a single purpose: leave the internal 16Gb memory as free as possible for better perfomance.
Now I have a rooted P6200 and I only can use my SD CARD for storing music and videos because I have no option of MOVE TO SD CARD anymore.
I also tried some applications that MOVE TO SD CARD, but none of them work.
I called the SAMSUNG SUPPORT and they told me I should be able to move to SD, but I read somewhere that it's something about the way that Android 3 and 4 manage partitions... what makes me believe I will not be able.
So, I am confused.
Can I move applications to SD CARD or not?
Can I make a application store data on SD CARD? Example: MailDroid or a game that consumes a lot of the memory - I would prefer to store data on the SD card.
Does anybody have a hint for that?
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are some apps in the Google Play Market like app 2 sd or move to sd (something like that), you can try one of those.
Personally I have no experience on these apps since I still have plenty of space, but you can read a little the features and see if that works for you
Unfortunately, APP2SD does not work to me
darkshadowx07 said:
There are some apps in the Google Play Market like app 2 sd or move to sd (something like that), you can try one of those.
Personally I have no experience on these apps since I still have plenty of space, but you can read a little the features and see if that works for you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your suggestion, but when APP2SD starts, I receive this message:
Your device has no real primary external storage or primary storage is emulated
APP2SD will not support move 2 card.
I dont understand this message. I have the 16Gb internal memory plus a 32Gb SD card as s imple a s it can b e, but it is not moving to S D.
P lease someone help me how to solve it.
By the way, the 32Gb SD is fully recognized by the P6200. I can see all my files regularly.
Link2sd may work, but I don't think there would be any performance gain from moving the apps over.
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Can I get super user access without rooting? Link2SD tells me I have to allow it to move the app.
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Kumabjorn said:
Can I get super user access without rooting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Super User access is root access. so, no you can't.
Sent from my GT-P6210
From my point of view, rooting is something relatively easy, both to get and to lose: you just flash a zip from the default recovery. It does not even takes your flash count up. Basically, it's a single file that needs to be placed in "/system/bin/". If you need to send it to support, mount "system" as R/W and delete "su".
I could be wrong though, but you should really look into it. I think it is worth it.
By the way, I think you would have to partition your SD Card to use it with Link2SD...
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[Q] Storage Issues After Adding SD Card

Hey Guys -
I purchased a Shield about a month ago and love it! I think I have more fun experimenting with it than playing games. Unfortunatly, the Shield doesn't come with a large amount of storage built in. Fortunately, though, there is a micro sd slot (as opposed to my HTC One which doesn't have one ) I got a good deal at New Egg for a 64gb card and got it. After receiving, I inserted it then installed NextApp SDFix so that KitKat could write to it. Since doing so, it's worked very well and can tell no speed difference for apps residing on the Shield vs the SD Card.
Having a 64gb card and not much internal storage, I'm in the habit of installing apps and if above 100mb, opening settings / apps, browsing to the app, then choosing to "Move to SD Card." I've done this for all apps over 100mb and even some smaller ones. Below are the specs for my Shield followed by the issue I'm having...
My nVidia Shield Specs
- OS: Android KitKat 4.4.2
- Kernel: 3.4.10-g73896af
- Build: KOT49H.01.00.17394.0077 (latest public release)
- sdcard0 (Internal) - 11.32gb used / 1.40gb free
- sdcard1 (SD Card) - 45.28gb used / 12.96gb free
- Software Modifications
- Rooted
- Xposed Installer 2.6.1 + 3-4 modules (basically GUI mods - nothing hardcore)
My Issue
Even though I've moved all 100mb+ apps to sd card, have no media, or other files on internal storage; I don't have enough room to install large apps anymore. I have plently of room on my sd card which is where I'd move it to post install, but first must install it before I can move it. Below are full details for the issue I've found after investigating.
If there's a method to have Shield install apps directly to sd card by default, it may work. I've found solutions online - but - my fear is that trying to do this workaround may mess up any existing symlinking or other things. Details for what I'm talking about are below...
Issue Detailed
When I choose to move apps to the SD Card, I do see space around what the app takes up freed from my internal storage as I should. However, I've verified that all 100mb+ apps have been moved (30+gb worth); but my internal storage shows only 1.40gb available! I understand that moving an app probably doesn't move all of the app's files, but I'd think at least the bulk of them.
When I started to investigate the file system, I found files which should be on the SD Card which seemed to be located on the internal storage. Is this due to symlinking? Even though reported as such, I know it's not possible as the total size of these files exceeded what internal could hold. Do these actions give a false-positive for how much free space I actually do have internally?
Example: When I got the properties of root/Android/obb/ on sdcard0 (internal storage) it showed it's size to be 26.0gb. Internal storage is half that!
To investigate, I installed a couple of apps to show disk usage. I bought Disk & Storage Analyzer (root) and let it run. It was able to show space stats for internal & sd separately - but - seemed to not to be able to tell the correct place individual files were coming from.
Overall
Sorry if I got carried away with description - I'm just frustrated. If you understand how my scenario was designed to work and perhaps what my options are (if any), I'd appreciate it.
Thanks for your help and time! Ben
If I'm not mistaking, moving a super large app to SD card only moves a very little fraction of the app data. For example, it only moves %4 of GTA San Andreas, which is absolute bs. I don't know exactly why, it may be a kitkat issue. I haven't tried moving an app to SD on jb since I went to kitkat as soon as I got my shield a while back.
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Kite-G said:
If I'm not mistaking, moving a super large app to SD card only moves a very little fraction of the app data. For example, it only moves %4 of GTA San Andreas, which is absolute bs. I don't know exactly why, it may be a kitkat issue. I haven't tried moving an app to SD on jb since I went to kitkat as soon as I got my shield a while back.
Sent from my SHIELD using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply, but don't believe that's the case. It's seemingly moving a lot of the data as once i "move" an app, it shows free space back on the OEM storage again as free which may then be used to install other apps to this internal storage.
After additional research, I have a question which may resolve this. As mentioned above, after I received the SD card and inserted it, I installed an app which allowed KitKat to have additional rights to the card that jellybean previously had. Since then, I've found out that it seems as if with the Shield specifically, moving installed apps/games to the SD card is a native feature where this 3rd party app isn't required. The post I read this on said this still occurred using KitKat, too.
Current Question
So - could it be that this 3rd party app is causing the issues? I installed the app before attempting to move an installed game so don't know if it works. Does anyone else know?
I wouldn't mind uninstalling the 3rd party "workaround" app, but don't want to loose a bunch of data in the process.
Your thoughts? Thanks!

[Q] Is it possible to "lock" the microSD card?

Greetings folks! Just a simple thing that pretty much came with 4.3> I think? Let's say I install x app (spotify for example) and it'll save the data in the internal storage, that's good and all. But! When I reboot my phone/tablet it'll start saving things on the sd-card instead which is a no go. I specially bought an microsd card to save my own stuff (movies, songs etc that isn't avail on services via play store). Instead, my internal storage goes unused except for photos and whatnot.
Some micro SD cards have physical lock slides on the card, hope it help
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novice storage question

Hey guys,
I would like to buy 16GB version, but it's on long delay on Moto site and I need to ship this phone to my nieces in Ukraine by the end of August. So I bought 8GB version from Amazon to play with it and see how it works and really love the phone. The storage is the only sour point. 8 GB just does not cut it and Moto does not allow to use SD card storage for app installation. Moving apps to SD card works only for some apps and even then most of the storage being used is Internal, so 3-4 large games and this phone would be out of storage.
Is there is a way to force apps to install fully to SD card? Root + App2SD maybe? I do not have much experience with rooting and would like to avoid it, if possible due to desire to stay on OTA updates schedule.
Any advise?
To be honest rooting is your best bet for an optimal experience. I'm using CM and this phone can move more apps of you install the smaller version of google apps if it is really a big problem your only bet is to order the 16 and wait.
Transfer app to SD Card to free up space
Currently, there seems no tool can help you to move apps to SD card to free up space, but there indeed tools can be used to transfer photos, pictures, music,videos, contacts etc. to the SD card. If you are interest in it, you can read some tutorial for help
Transferring music and photos works wonderfully. And Google Play Music as well as Google Photos supports saving files on SD Card as default which makes it even easier to manage your storage. The apps though is a huge issue. I installed yesterday Walking Dead and it ate more then 1GB of storage of the puny 3GB available out of the box. Add here the app cache as well as storage required to do OTA updates and you really will struggle to install any large apps on the phone without running in 'out of memory' error messages.
The phone is wonderful otherwise - light, bright screen with excellent auto-dimming, good speaker and even better camera, responsive, waterproof (yes, I tested ), pure Lollipop Android experience , etc. etc.

External SD card access (move apps + apps writing to SD) in Lollipop and Marshmallows

With Lollipop, does the Z5 (without rooting):
allow apps to be moved to an external SD card?
allow apps to write to the external SD card?
With the Z3 and Kitkat, point 2 was possible with root, but I haven't figured out point 1, not even with root.
I read somewhere that Lollipop should allow (2), but it should depend on the implementation of each phone.
Also, do you know if these two points are supposed to change in any way with Marshmallows?
Yes to both. The Z3 does both too.
jeremy_inc said:
Yes to both. The Z3 does both too.
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Click to collapse
Mmm, my Z3 with Kitkat does neither without root. Are you sure the Z5 does?
In my Z3:
There is no 'move app to SD card' option.
As for getting apps to write to the external SD card, I only managed to achieve it with root (there's a way to modify write permission which you can only change if you are rooted). Before this change, for example, Titanium Backup couldn't write backups to the external sd card
Sorry, Z3 on Lollipop I meant
Well apps on SD Works on z5
Just like on z1. I don't know if all apps work this way but:
You have to go to your app menu and check those checkboxes under the SD card page
I believe it'll work the same on z3
For apps to write on SD card it's need to be implemented in the app
For example total commander does this:
Once you try moving to SD card it opens the default android dialog and chose SD card
Bare 2 things in mind:
1. The whole app wont be moved over. Some can still take a load of space up on main storage.
2. When you update an app the system moves the whole app back onto the main storage.
This was from my Xperia z3 experience on lollipop.
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JKWR said:
Bare 2 things in mind:
1. The whole app wont be moved over. Some can still take a load of space up on main storage.
2. When you update an app the system moves the whole app back onto the main storage.
This was from my Xperia z3 experience on lollipop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does (2) apply to all apps, or does it depend on how the app was coded by the developers?
I'm thinking of apps where it makes sense to keep the app/engine separate from additional data required (as is the case for games, dictionaries, etc.).
It totally defies the purpose...
To be honest I only remember the biggest culprits which were the big apps, namely:
Ms Word, Excel, PowerPoint. (probably a gb there that you have to mess about with all the time as it seems they are updated at least once a week)
Nearly all Games like plants vs zombies 2, angry birds 2, rayman fiesta run, angry birds transformers, jetpack joyride.
So basically you have to make sure you always have 3-4gig free on your main mem to stop these regular updates from eating every last bit up or getting a long list of update messages saying canot install due to insufficient memory. It drive me nuts on the z3 16gb.
I may have to skip the z5 32gb main mem for this purpose as well. Im a heavy app/game user though so 32gb might be OK for you
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cdl2 said:
With Lollipop, does the Z5 (without rooting):
allow apps to be moved to an external SD card?
allow apps to write to the external SD card?
With the Z3 and Kitkat, point 2 was possible with root, but I haven't figured out point 1, not even with root.
I read somewhere that Lollipop should allow (2), but it should depend on the implementation of each phone.
Also, do you know if these two points are supposed to change in any way with Marshmallows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 - Yes - Go to Settings > Apps > Scroll right one to ON SD CARD tab > tick which app(s) you want moving to the SD card. Not everything is moved though, but enough. The Z3 on Lollipop is exactly the same.
2 - Unrooted, the rules are, as far as I can tell - System apps (like File Commander) have full access to the SD card, so can read and write to/from the SD card. If you install a 3rd party app, like another file manager from Play Store, it will not be able to write to the SD card as it is a user app. Certain 3rd party apps can write to the SD card, but their data is stored in a system sub folder on the SD card, and they are restricted to that location only. If you delete the app, the data is also deleted.
I used to use the SD Fix on KitKat, but I just rooted my Z3, and my File Manager can read/write the SD card. Not really sure how we are going to go with rooting Locked Bootloader Z5's yet, so we'll just have to see.
SD card access is changing again in Marshmallow, and should be better, going by what I've heard. You can now choose to treat your SD card as you do now, or as an 'extension' of your internal memory, but I think if you do choose to extend your internal memory, then it will be encrypted for use in that device only. If you don't use it as an extension, then I'm not yet sure what the permissions will be for general read/write access.
MickieH said:
1 - Yes - Go to Settings > Apps > Scroll right one to ON SD CARD tab > tick which app(s) you want moving to the SD card. Not everything is moved though, but enough. The Z3 on Lollipop is exactly the same.
2 - Unrooted, the rules are, as far as I can tell - System apps (like File Commander) have full access to the SD card, so can read and write to/from the SD card. If you install a 3rd party app, like another file manager from Play Store, it will not be able to write to the SD card as it is a user app. Certain 3rd party apps can write to the SD card, but their data is stored in a system sub folder on the SD card, and they are restricted to that location only. If you delete the app, the data is also deleted.
I used to use the SD Fix on KitKat, but I just rooted my Z3, and my File Manager can read/write the SD card. Not really sure how we are going to go with rooting Locked Bootloader Z5's yet, so we'll just have to see.
SD card access is changing again in Marshmallow, and should be better, going by what I've heard. You can now choose to treat your SD card as you do now, or as an 'extension' of your internal memory, but I think if you do choose to extend your internal memory, then it will be encrypted for use in that device only. If you don't use it as an extension, then I'm not yet sure what the permissions will be for general read/write access.
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Hi, fellows, has anyone solved the problem of writing to external SD cards on marshmallow?

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