Android Newbie Alert: What are the disadvantages of the small 1Gb internal memory with the Galaxy S 4g?
I am trying to decide whether to trade my new G2 in for this phone but I'm worried about the small rom space. I am very tech savvy and plan on putting it through the full paces once I've learned how.
Will there be problems with flashing new roms; multibooting; backing up/restoring?
Limitations to rom types or mods; roms beyond Gingerbread?
Won't a small drive make it slower? I've heard some say the 16Gb on the Vibrant makes it slower. Which is true? (In a Windows PC more space for your system partition = faster system, if you keep the partition within a reasonable size--say 60Gb. True for Android OS?)
I would also think having most apps installed to the SD card would slow things down a lot. I will use my class 6 SD card of course, because I'm sure HTC will stick us with their lousy class 2 cards.
The vibrant lags really bad due to the internal storage, however there ext4 lag fixes that will rid of this problem. The gs4g us low on app storage, only 512 mb but others are reporting even less. The gs4g is very responsive and doesn't lag what so ever. So far I'm liking the gs4g a lot. Just waiting for some custom roms and then it will be all good.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
Samsung know that and I know that is it is the purpose: Difficulty the Modding
jonvaz said:
Samsung know that and I know that is it is the purpose: Difficulty the Modding
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Didn't understand. Can you rewrite? I think you mean the modding will be a problem because of the small space? What problems? Will I regret trading from 4Gb space on the G2?
tq745: You are one of the people who traded the G2 for SGS4G. How many apps do you have installed? Any problems so far? I wish there were roms out already so people could tell me if they're having problems. I need to decide fast. I may already be over my 14 day trial period; I'm afraid to look.
My decision is wavering on potential problems with modding/rom flashing/app storage, and one other thing: The upgraded 4G modem. Others are saying there may be a software upgrade for this??? Or else I may be able to open it up and solder a new modem into my G2??? I think I'll post separately about this in the G2 forum. This would sell me on the G2.
I dont think there will be any problems with custom roms as othe phones have even less rom (nexus one, evo), the problem comes with apps being installed and will probley require you to move apps to SD. I use titanium to move apps to SD.
Had an Aria before my g2. It has a very small amount of system memory and I never had any issues flashing new roms. You can configure Cyanogen to force installation of apps to the sd card to avoid filling the internal memory. Not sure what other roms support that. Otherwise you will have to do some basic housekeeping to move apps to the sd to save memory. Removing bloatware helps too.
I am running cm7 gingerbread on a g2 now and storage management has improved even more. I'm getting the s4g next week and my only concern is that I have always been a HTC guy because they tend to have the most dev support. However the galaxy phones seem to be well supported by the community as well. Looking forward to the extra display size and slimmer form factor.
I'll post again when I get mine.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
So far the only real problem I'm seeing with the internal storage is not being able to run Lag-Fix...but really...I don't think you're going to need it. I wanted to run it just to see IF it would speed it up a little more (You know...squeeze out everything you can) but the program is telling I don't have enough internal storage...oh well.
Other than that...Um...Yeah. You will probably eventually have to move some stuff over to the SD. Not that big of an issue, though...I don't think.
As someone else mentioned, root, get rid of bloat ware and use Titanium Pro to move apps to sd and you should not have a problem.
gggirlgeek said:
Android Newbie Alert: What are the disadvantages of the small 1Gb internal memory with the Galaxy S 4g?
I am trying to decide whether to trade my new G2 in for this phone but I'm worried about the small rom space. I am very tech savvy and plan on putting it through the full paces once I've learned how.
Will there be problems with flashing new roms; multibooting; backing up/restoring?
Limitations to rom types or mods; roms beyond Gingerbread?
Won't a small drive make it slower? I've heard some say the 16Gb on the Vibrant makes it slower. Which is true? (In a Windows PC more space for your system partition = faster system, if you keep the partition within a reasonable size--say 60Gb. True for Android OS?)
I would also think having most apps installed to the SD card would slow things down a lot. I will use my class 6 SD card of course, because I'm sure HTC will stick us with their lousy class 2 cards.
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If my understanding of the Galaxy S 4G is correct, you get a 1 GB internal memory (ROM) that's complemented by an included 16 GB microSD memory card, and you can upgrade to optional 32 GB microSD card. Both the 3G and 4G have an additional 512MB of system RAM. Once ClockworkMod is working properly and giving access to modify the internal ROM, the 1GB internal memory will be more than enough to allow the Galaxy S 4G to operate just as well as the current Vibrant 3G with upgraded ROMs. The only downside is the loss of the larger 16GB internal SD memory storage the Vibrant 3G has to 1GB on the 4G.
After reading some more I ran across an article that explained why the available internal memory on Android phones is always so small. I wish I could remember the where I found it because I am not familiar enough with Android to know the terminology.
As I understand it, there is one type of partition for storage, which the user has access to, and another type for the system OS. It is in a completely different format than ext partitions and is optimized to run very fast. The sacrifice for this is that it is read as only half the size of the Ext formatted partition. So even though the OS doesn't actually take double the space, the space is unavailable to the user (sounds kind like Raid actually, without using multiple drives.) So a 385mb partition for a 200mb OS will make 770mb unavailable to the user, leaving 230mb left on a 1Gb drive (is drive the correct term? It is a simple flash drive, yes)?
This is also permanent once formatted this way and can never be undone according to what I've read. This is why we cannot simply repartition to get the space back.
Does this sound correct? Please fill in the errors and details if you know more about this.
I really think Sammy and Tmo took a perfect phone and purposely ruined it. Why would they remove a 16Gb drive from a phone they finally got right? What a tease!
In the end I still don't see a way to avoid problems with 230mb available memory. OS's slow down when they have no place to write new files. SD cards are much slower than internal memory. New apps and better OS's will make a phone like this obsolete in a year. Hmmmm. I see the logic now.
These phones are full-fledged computers, doing more in one day than most PC's do in their life-cycle. Would you really buy a machine with 1Ghz cpu, 512MB ram, 1020p HD touch AMOLED screen, 5.1 surround sound, 802.11n hotspot, 4G, Lastest 3D gaming GPU graphics, HD video camera with 2-way real time video, turn-by-turn GPS, HDMI out,...... and 230mb available hard drive space???? Heck, no!
Of course it has no space left over! In fact a PC would have a lot less if run on a 1Gb hard drive...... Oh, but they'll throw in a 16GB external USB drive, if we don't mind a few freezes and restarts along the way.
Think about the amount of multitasking a smart phone is doing 24 hours a day, using high-end effects that bring most PC's to a crawl..... reliably... while trying to conserve battery life!
Windows 7 can do an almost comparable job... with 3Gb or Ram on a 16GB hard drive minimum, 40Gb including apps, (mine has 1.65TB,) and 3 hours of battery life.
Hope I've put it in perspective.
I'm mad. I'm stuck with a half-a$$ed phone no matter what. And they did it on purpose so I would buy another half-baked phone in a year -- less if they can help it.
That's my rant. I'll go and pout in my corner now.
MvP77 said:
I dont think there will be any problems with custom roms as othe phones have even less rom (nexus one, evo), the problem comes with apps being installed and will probley require you to move apps to SD. I use titanium to move apps to SD.
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I just got Titanium backup pro and froze a few annoying apps -- Finance, Amazon MP3, Photo bucket, twitter, and face book.
Still on stock rom, temp rooted.
Then I moved everything that doesn't need a widget or primary access (LauncherPro, Lookout, etc.) to SD
I'm back to where I started with this stock rom; slow unresponsive app tray, widgets FC'ing, and hesitation when trying to answer calls. It was this way out of the box.
This was all fixed when I installed LauncherPro. It was fine with Titanium free. Now it's back. I disabled put the networking and sync settings back to battery-friendly (didn't need to with LauncherPro) and it's still pokey after rebooting.
I don't know about this SD card business. I think my point has just been made for me.
Oh, well 2 more days to romming heaven. Think I'll keep the G2 though. Hope my rain dance to the radio gods ends up working.
gggirlgeek said:
I really think Sammy and Tmo took a perfect phone and purposely ruined it. Why would they remove a 16Gb drive from a phone they finally got right? What a tease!
In the end I still don't see a way to avoid problems with 230mb available memory. OS's slow down when they have no place to write new files. SD cards are much slower than internal memory. New apps and better OS's will make a phone like this obsolete in a year. Hmmmm. I see the logic now.
These phones are full-fledged computers, doing more in one day than most PC's do in their life-cycle. Would you really buy a machine with 1Ghz cpu, 512MB ram, 1020p HD touch AMOLED screen, 5.1 surround sound, 802.11n hotspot, 4G, Lastest 3D gaming GPU graphics, HD video camera with 2-way real time video, turn-by-turn GPS, HDMI out,...... and 230mb available hard drive space???? Heck, no!
Of course it has no space left over! In fact a PC would have a lot less if run on a 1Gb hard drive...... Oh, but they'll throw in a 16GB external USB drive, if we don't mind a few freezes and restarts along the way.
Think about the amount of multitasking a smart phone is doing 24 hours a day, using high-end effects that bring most PC's to a crawl..... reliably... while trying to conserve battery life!
Windows 7 can do an almost comparable job... with 3Gb or Ram on a 16GB hard drive minimum, 40Gb including apps, (mine has 1.65TB,) and 3 hours of battery life.
Hope I've put it in perspective.
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I had a long talk with both T-MO and Samsung. I was told by Samsung that the SGS 4G still has 16GB of internal ROM, in addition to the 16GB external SD chip that it ships with. They were very tight lipped about why you cannot see the internal memory the way you can with the former 3G model. I think it has to do with the way they are partitioning it as you say. Partitioning is an easy way to hide the actual size of a given storage space. That is how Windows Vista and 7 hide their Restore partition, in a separate partition in the front of the Drive. Dell also does this with its PC Restore partition using a utility developed by Symantec. I’d like to find a utility that can read the partition structure on these Android devices. DroidExplorer lets you see part of the internal memory but not the partition structure from what I’ve seen.
nwpro3 said:
I had a long talk with both T-MO and Samsung. I was told by Samsung that the SGS 4G still has 16GB of internal ROM, in addition to the 16GB external SD chip that it ships with. They were very tight lipped about why you cannot see the internal memory the way you can with the former 3G model. I think it has to do with the way they are partitioning it as you say. Partitioning is an easy way to hide the actual size of a given storage space. That is how Windows Vista and 7 hide their Restore partition, in a separate partition in the front of the Drive. Dell also does this with its PC Restore partition using a utility developed by Symantec. I’d like to find a utility that can read the partition structure on these Android devices. DroidExplorer lets you see part of the internal memory but not the partition structure from what I’ve seen.
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I also just had a talk with tmo and they told me the phone had 16gb of internal. After making sure they weren't confusing it with the vibrant the, guy could not tell me why it only saw 500mb for apps. Something seems fishy...
MvP77 said:
I also just had a talk with tmo and they told me the phone had 16gb of internal. After making sure they weren't confusing it with the vibrant the, guy could not tell me why it only saw 500mb for apps. Something seems fishy...
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I was just looking on the TMO support site today at the specs listed and they show: Internal memory: RAM: 512MB; ROM: 1024MB which jives with what I’ve seen at some of the other mobile web sites. What’s strange is that all that talking to Samsung and they could not even interpret their own specs that they have on their own web site. They have yet not responded with an answer by email as they have promised. I guess they justify 16GB ONBOARD on their specs by including or should I say changing the external SD to 16GB. Personal preference I think I should have stayed with the SGS 3G and had the advantage of using some of the trick ROMs that are out for that now. I really don’t care about the better quality camera or the 4G speed. I’m lucky to get a very slow EDGE speed where I live anyway. I guess it depends on who you talk to in tech support and whether or not they even have a clue what they are talking about. I know this from experience. I have worked in tech support for Dell and I was astonished by some of the clueless techs that worked there. There is a learning curve and you can’t know everything but reading the specs from a device is right in front of your face in the tools and reference material these companies provide. You just have to know how to look it up.
nwpro3 said:
I was just looking on the TMO support site today at the specs listed and they show: Internal memory: RAM: 512MB; ROM: 1024MB which jives with what I’ve seen at some of the other mobile web sites. What’s strange is that all that talking to Samsung and they could not even interpret their own specs that they have on their own web site. They have yet not responded with an answer by email as they have promised. I guess they justify 16GB ONBOARD on their specs by including or should I say changing the external SD to 16GB. Personal preference I think I should have stayed with the SGS 3G and had the advantage of using some of the trick ROMs that are out for that now. I really don’t care about the better quality camera or the 4G speed. I’m lucky to get a very slow EDGE speed where I live anyway. I guess it depends on who you talk to in tech support and whether or not they even have a clue what they are talking about. I know this from experience. I have worked in tech support for Dell and I was astonished by some of the clueless techs that worked there. There is a learning curve and you can’t know everything but reading the specs from a device is right in front of your face in the tools and reference material these companies provide. You just have to know how to look it up.
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I'll trade you my 3G Vib for your 4G hehe
krylon360 said:
I'll trade you my 3G Vib for your 4G hehe
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Yeah, but the SGS4G is costing me another $150.00 when after the rebate the Vibrant would have been free with the 2 year contract. It remains to be seen if the new phone is really that much better. I would not be that concerned by the added costs except I have been unemployed since October. And YES I would rather have the better toy, If only next week I could count on a paycheck.
Perhaps the only "frustrating" thing for me, at this point, is that the built-in apps, when updated, are truly bloat if they can't be moved to SD card (yeah, I know, root the thing already -- I'm talking about Joe Average).
For example, Google Maps / Navigation v5.2.1 is out, which very unscientifically "feels better" than the as-shipped version, chews up another 8.95 MB of app space. Market self-updated (thanks to that being the default setting for the Google apps, imagine that) for another 4.80 MB.
Nearly 10% of that precious 150 MB already fried just by Google...
I would have to say that it was a poor decision on T-Mobile's part to trim the internal storage so much for the general-public user. At least there are tools for those able to root their phones to move the large number of apps that don't allow native Froyo move-to-SD.
i found that the internal storage for files was only about 10gb... 16gb internal storage is what all the specs say. i guess some 6gigs are allocated for apps and such? 10gigs really isn't much with the 8MP camera and ability to shoot HD vid.
am i missing something here? i'd like to have more storage capacity for music and still have room to shoot a few pics or even a video
any help would be appreciated. thx!
I have 10 GB, too. But there are 2 GB more for apps ("Internal memory") and the rest is for the OS and that stuff I think
4 GB reserved for the system??
I had the One X, which is supposed to have 32 GB, but 29,xx GB were usable. So the One X uses less system space?
I don't know, it's just what I think
10.5gb for user
2.5gb for apps
2.gb for ROM..
thats according to TB so i assume thats right
Its almost 16gb.. But hey a ford mustang 550bhp only has 543bhp
cawith said:
4 GB reserved for the system??
I had the One X, which is supposed to have 32 GB, but 29,xx GB were usable. So the One X uses less system space?
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From hanging out in the HOX channel I think their partition setup is the same as the HOS. They have 32 GB and about 6 are claimed from the beginning for /app /data and other, smaller partitions. At least I recall people mentioning something about roughly 26 GB usable space.
Actually I find it ridiculous that HTC does not allow users to choose the partition size they need. And without S-OFF and full device access it is not possible to modify the partitions for devs... Aside from the fact that with ICS there is not even a NEED to define partitions as strictly as before, because of this new unified storage concept...
i was hoping that some devs can work on expanding the accessible storage capacity to more than 10GB. the phone supposed has 16GB, so i assume that the 6GB difference is used for OS and apps, but is that much really necessary? prolly not for me. i'd rather have the extra space for taking pics and having a decent amount of music or audiobooks on the phone.
can some clever devs repartition the internal storage with your roms?
first of all this is in the wrong section, It should be in Q&A,
secondly, Its not possible until we have S-OFF.. We cannot modify the partitions without it.. and even when we do have it, Its not an easy job...
although that being said, Look at what XDA Devs have accomplished since android was released I think ''in time'' it could happen
In two minds whether to buy the 16 or 32 GB version. I know I can add a big SD card to the 16GB but how much space does the stock rom take up?
And where in the UK can I get the 32 GB?
Thanks
Obviously you should get the largest capacity you can afford /find. I got mine From best buy 16 DB is all they had in stock
wish it were 64 DB.or had apps to SD will have to use directly bind im guessing. not understanding those scripts in dev area some things need to be on main storage.
Would like a method of being able to select what to move
erica_renee said:
Obviously you should get the largest capacity you can afford /find. I got mine From best buy 16 DB is all they had in stock
wish it were 64 DB.or had apps to SD will have to use directly bind im guessing. not understanding those scripts in dev area some things need to be on main storage.
Would like a method of being able to select what to move
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Get the 32 GB if you can afford it. Otherwise, the 16GB is adequate with an external SD.
Of course this varies for user to user.
blud7 said:
Get the 32 GB if you can afford it. Otherwise, the 16GB is adequate with an external SD.
Of course this varies for user to user.
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I'd do what he suggested
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Hi,
I recently purchased Samsung Galaxy SII Plus. As per the site, it comes with 8GB inbuilt memory. When I received the phone, it shows only 3.9 GB total space and 3.56 GB space available. When I contacted the seller, they told me that its Android system which is occupying the remaining space. I am not aware if this is the right reason. Does anyone know about it?
It's normal... All Android OEMs lie about the storage space.
For example the HTC One S 16GB comes with 9.3GB which seems a lot more like 8GB to me.
cjhaveri79 said:
Hi,
I recently purchased Samsung Galaxy SII Plus. As per the site, it comes with 8GB inbuilt memory. When I received the phone, it shows only 3.9 GB total space and 3.56 GB space available. When I contacted the seller, they told me that its Android system which is occupying the remaining space. I am not aware if this is the right reason. Does anyone know about it?
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Click to collapse
It's a pisstake but it's true. I really hope advertising odes change to prevent this.
Surface pro has a similar problem
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Using Nexus4 stock and unrooted, Kii keyboarding it up
Yeah, I thought it meant 8 GB available to user too, not 8 GB in total including system files. Thanks to my SD card though, I still have 2.7 GB of internal memory free.
Why is the /cache partition 1 GB though, seems a little overkill?
its almost the same for all device(my old ace says it have 512mb,when only bout 180 is available to me). There are no other internal memory stuff inside your phone,so whatever system will definitely eat some of your internal memory.Even laptop manufacturer are the same(320gb only 280 available),what u expect them to say? Sigh,i dont understand why people only make a fuss bout it now,does everyone start using smartphone only after 2013?
Well people need more and more space andOS need more and more space and phone memory isn't increasing dramatically.
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