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[Q] Titanium Backup and Android's Backup Service

I'm looking at buying Titanium Backup Pro, but I need to know if it does a few things first (some required, some not,) and if not, how to ask the developers to add them.
I know that TB supports AES-256 encryption of app data, supports backing up to box.net, and supports backup scheduling. But can it support all three of those at once? E.g. do regular encrypted backups to box.net. I've seen conflicting information about this, need to know what the verdict is.
I also need to know if TB will store its own settings (e.g. filters, backup lists, etc) on to android's backup service instead of just the SD card. The idea is that I can move to a new rom or even a new phone without regard to whether or not the SD card remains intact. Effectively: sign into google play, google play picks up TB and restores its settings from the cloud, with one click TB gets to work restoring according to my parameters, regardless of the state of the SD card. With any luck, my launcher and other configurations are how I left them (I'll probably never move away from AOSP roms, or roms that are close to it.)
Does TB support shadow copies of backups? If so, can it be integrated into the above?
And finally, can TB detect which apps make use of android's cloud service, and leave their data alone? (e.g. don't merge the backed up data into them, instead let google play take care of that.)
Basically what I'm aiming for is a secured stateless android, so to speak.

[Q] Rooting and SD Cards.

Hello, I wanted to know about how SD cards and Root and all the stuff that is associated with rooting (ROMS, backups, etc) interact. I am on Verizon, currently have a Droid X2, which is a really bad phone, and am due for an upgrade already. I am considering choosing between the HTC One and the GS4, but leaning towards the One because of the design/speakers/snapiness/etc. But there is one thing that I'm concerned about. It doesn't have expandable storage. No expandable storage = no SD Card. I wanted to know because I've seen a few reviews and some of them say that Rooters should stay clear of the One because it doesn't have an SD card.
Another thing: I currently own a Nexus 7 which is rooted, so no SD card there either, but I never realized that I won't be able to quickly restore all of my apps through titanium like I do on my X2, because I realized that all the backups are saved on my X2s SD card, so whenever I factory restore or change ROMs, it's convenient to have my apps and the app data on the SD card. So if I were to wipe my Nexus 7 or change ROMS, the backups would be gone because they are stored on the internal storage, right?
So my questions are:
What role does an SD card have in the Rooting processes and root related things? Is it necessary? What are the advantages of having an SD on the device?
Can any of the roles an SD card has be worked around without one?
Can I have my backups backed up to the cloud or other method in which they can be quickly restored, like on my X2 with the SD card?
Why do the reviewers stay to stay clear of devices without SD card slots?
Should I get the One, and now that I think of it, should have I got my Nexus 7 since I'm a rooter and might change ROMs/have to factory reset?

So my questions are:
What role does an SD card have in the Rooting processes and root related things? Is it necessary? What are the advantages of having an SD on the device?
Nothing; the advice about the One just meant that people who root and ROM their devices tend to horde a lot of phone-related files, so expandable storage is a plus since it allows you to cost-effectively add storage as needed. As for advantages? Being able to add storage as you need it, for cheap, and the ability to seamlessly move your files from phone to phone or computer easily. Plus, apps require internal storage, so another plus of having external storage is that you can put all of your media and other files on external storage to save app space.
Can any of the roles an SD card has be worked around without one?
Sort of; both phones (One and S4) support USB OTG. It's a cheap, $2 cable on eBay that's a microUSB adapter on side (goes into the charger port on your phone) and a full-sized USB port on the other. It lets you plug in flash drives, keyboards, mice, etc. There's also this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyfei/mini-microsd-reader-for-android-smartphones-and-ta
Can I have my backups backed up to the cloud or other method in which they can be quickly restored, like on my X2 with the SD card?
If by backups you mean Titanium Backup, yes. Titanium Backup has a native export to cloud option that supports Google Drive, Dropbox, and other providers. If you mean Nandroids (full device backups), just copy them off your phone to your computer. They're saved in a folder on either your SD card or internal storage (guessing your SD card on your Droid X2). I don't recommend at all restoring app backups from two different devices, let alone two completely different versions of Android. It's guaranteed to screw up your ROM in one way or another. It's fine to restore an app to a different device/version of Android, but not the data with it.
Why do the reviewers stay to stay clear of devices without SD card slots?
A few reasons, though none of them have to do with the ability to root:
- If your phone dies (completely, due to damage or just having a bad unit), the data is pretty much gone and unrecoverable. If you were using a microSD card, you could have just pulled it out of the phone and called it a day.
- You can expand the storage for cheap; one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone is that going from 16GB to 32GB costs $100. A 16GB microSD card is like, what, $10? Nuff said.
- Apps can only be installed to internal storage (unless you use some root apps that are a pain in the butt). If you offload all your media (photos, music, videos, etc) to your external storage, you can have room for all your apps. Remember that games are starting to take up over a gigabyte each in some cases. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Asphalt 7, etc.
Should I get the One, and now that I think of it, should have I got my Nexus 7 since I'm a rooter and might change ROMs/have to factory reset?
It depends on your preferences. The One is a great phone in itself; it depends on you whether or not the lack of microSD card slot is a deal-breaker. It won't affect your ability to root the phone, but consider the answers to your questions that I gave you (I'm not swaying you from or towards it). The Nexus 7 is a great tablet; again, having a microSD card slot has nothing to do with the ability to root your device.

Product F(RED) said:
So my questions are:
What role does an SD card have in the Rooting processes and root related things? Is it necessary? What are the advantages of having an SD on the device?
Nothing; the advice about the One just meant that people who root and ROM their devices tend to horde a lot of phone-related files, so expandable storage is a plus since it allows you to cost-effectively add storage as needed. As for advantages? Being able to add storage as you need it, for cheap, and the ability to seamlessly move your files from phone to phone or computer easily. Plus, apps require internal storage, so another plus of having external storage is that you can put all of your media and other files on external storage to save app space.
Can any of the roles an SD card has be worked around without one?
Sort of; both phones (One and S4) support USB OTG. It's a cheap, $2 cable on eBay that's a microUSB adapter on side (goes into the charger port on your phone) and a full-sized USB port on the other. It lets you plug in flash drives, keyboards, mice, etc. There's also this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyfei/mini-microsd-reader-for-android-smartphones-and-ta
Can I have my backups backed up to the cloud or other method in which they can be quickly restored, like on my X2 with the SD card?
If by backups you mean Titanium Backup, yes. Titanium Backup has a native export to cloud option that supports Google Drive, Dropbox, and other providers. If you mean Nandroids (full device backups), just copy them off your phone to your computer. They're saved in a folder on either your SD card or internal storage (guessing your SD card on your Droid X2). I don't recommend at all restoring app backups from two different devices, let alone two completely different versions of Android. It's guaranteed to screw up your ROM in one way or another. It's fine to restore an app to a different device/version of Android, but not the data with it.
Why do the reviewers stay to stay clear of devices without SD card slots?
A few reasons, though none of them have to do with the ability to root:
- If your phone dies (completely, due to damage or just having a bad unit), the data is pretty much gone and unrecoverable. If you were using a microSD card, you could have just pulled it out of the phone and called it a day.
- You can expand the storage for cheap; one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone is that going from 16GB to 32GB costs $100. A 16GB microSD card is like, what, $10? Nuff said.
- Apps can only be installed to internal storage (unless you use some root apps that are a pain in the butt). If you offload all your media (photos, music, videos, etc) to your external storage, you can have room for all your apps. Remember that games are starting to take up over a gigabyte each in some cases. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Asphalt 7, etc.
Should I get the One, and now that I think of it, should have I got my Nexus 7 since I'm a rooter and might change ROMs/have to factory reset?
It depends on your preferences. The One is a great phone in itself; it depends on you whether or not the lack of microSD card slot is a deal-breaker. It won't affect your ability to root the phone, but consider the answers to your questions that I gave you (I'm not swaying you from or towards it). The Nexus 7 is a great tablet; again, having a microSD card slot has nothing to do with the ability to root your device.
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Thank you for replying so quickly, I appreciate that! I know that SD cards don't affect rooting whatsoever, but some features that you need to root like titanium backup for restoring app data/apps.
As far as cloud backups go, I know how to backup my applications and app data to the cloud, but how would you go about restoring the apps and data? I'm asking because if you have an SD card you find the location on the SD card where your backups are and you just restore straight from titanium. Since they're in the cloud, would you have to manually move them from PC to the internal storage folder? Or download them from the cloud one by one to you're device? (I know you can create a flashable zip file, but last time I tried it on my X2, it boot looped, so I had to factory restore it.)
That's my main concern is backups and restoring data. How do you do it from the cloud that's as fast as from an SD card? Or how do you perform restores at all from the cloud? Thanks so much!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Thank you for replying so quickly, I appreciate that! I know that SD cards don't affect rooting whatsoever, but some features that you need to root like titanium backup for restoring app data/apps.
On phones running Ice Cream Sandwich and above, the internal storage shows up as an SD card (the phone may not say it, but if you go into Android's root directory with a file browser, you'd see /mnt/sdcard/ , which is really just the internal storage. If you put a memory card into a Galaxy S3 or S4, the card shows up as /mnt/extsdcard/. Most technical apps allow you to choose where to save/load to and from. Titanium Backup is one of those apps. You can copy your backup folder from the memory card in your X2 to the internal storage in the One. Or you can even use one of those USB OTG cables to put it on a flash drive or card reader directly into the One (remember, a USB OTG cable gives you a full USB port).
As far as cloud backups go, I know how to backup my applications and app data to the cloud, but how would you go about restoring the apps and data? I'm asking because if you have an SD card you find the location on the SD card where your backups are and you just restore straight from titanium. Since they're in the cloud, would you have to manually move them from PC to the internal storage folder? Or download them from the cloud one by one to you're device? (I know you can create a flashable zip file, but last time I tried it on my X2, it boot looped, so I had to factory restore it.)
To be honest, I haven't used Titanium Backup's cloud feature because my home internet isn't too fast, so uploads would be slow, so I don't know much about restoring from the cloud. But I would assume you'd be able to do so. A quick Google search should help you out.
That's my main concern is backups and restoring data. How do you do it from the cloud that's as fast as from an SD card? Or how do you perform restores at all from the cloud? Thanks so much!
Well pulling files over the internet will always be much slower than reading them from local storage; like I said, you can specify to Titanium Backup where your backups are located. You can even export certain app backups into one file (if you hit Menu in TB, you'll see the option if you scroll down a bit). Then you can import it to your One. Or like I said, just move the TB folder on your memory card to your One's internal storage. Like I said, I don't have experience with cloud backups for TB or Nandroid, so Google or someone else would get you a better answer than I can give you.

Best way to backup external SD

I recently had some problems with my SD Card, so I am not sure if it will fail some time soon. I've been in need of a backup plan for some time now so I want to know how you handle your backups.
Right now I'm thinking of automated backups to my NAS when I'm at home, but I'm not sure how to realize that. I don't really need any fancy stuff like multiple revisions, just the most recent version of every file on my sd card backed up while using the least storage space possible.
Is it smarter to use some kind of disk image file to store the files or is just having the whole file/folder structure duplicated better? Which type of backup would be faster or has an app available that's supporting it?

Here you go (I personally use the cable to backup my media but you can try the others if you want)
https://www.wondershare.com/android/backup-sd-card-android.html
press thanks if I helped you ?.

Help migrating data from old device

So I just got a Note20 Ultra and had a Note 9. I used smart switch and samsung cloud to transfer everything. The apps transferred fine, but none of the app data did.
I was able transfer everything to my Tab S7+ just fine, and it even syncs with my apps. Like if I make it to another level of a game on the Note 9 it will carry over to the tab. Why isn't it doing that with the Note20?

May not work well with different devices and especially OS's.
Never use it to store critical data.
Apparently it does not save secure folder data.
If it doesn't work right you may need to do a factory reset and hand load.
I use it to save homepage settings, contacts and not much more. I load app from saved copies. A clean load can last a year or longer, a bad load won't.

blackhawk said:
May not work well with different devices and especially OS's.
Never use it to store critical data.
Apparently it does not save secure folder data.
If it doesn't work right you may need to do a factory reset and hand load.
I use it to save homepage settings, contacts and not much more. I load app from saved copies. A clean load can last a year or longer, a bad load won't.
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Click to collapse
It's the same OS though, on all devices. It's just not syncing the app data correctly, and helium is outdated now

link1227 said:
It's the same OS though, on all devices. It's just not syncing the app data correctly, and helium is outdated now
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Click to collapse
Apps that allow backup like Poweramp, ColorNote, Digi Clock are hard or impossible to recreate. Fortunately they allow for complete backup. The lesser apps I don't worry about.
Homepage settings however are a pain and can't be completely backed up. I keep a image of my favorite icon pack from Galaxy store so I can easily search for it. Shortcuts need to be recreated. SmartSwitch will partially recreate homepage but loses the icon pack, icon/folder position and so on.
Use your SD card as a data drive; all critical data and backups go here. Redundantly back this up to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. Use ApkExport to make installable copies of all your apps and app updates; no Playstore needed for a reload. Do not encrypt data drives, ever... or you will lose data eventually.
Only loaded apps, the DCIM and download folder go on internal memory. Regularly backup the DCIM folder to the data drive. Do Not name it DCIM folder there as it will cause issues.
If your OS crash and burns, all your data and backups are on the data drive... everything you need for a full reload.
No perfect but you can easily backup a stock Samsung like this and carry everything you need to do a full rebuild in the phone.

So I was able to transfer it from the tab s7 but not the note 9, so whatever

Between Swift backup and nova prime- can one not get everything backed up completely including app data?

dj24 said:
Between Swift backup and nova prime- can one not get everything backed up completely including app data?
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Click to collapse
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've never heard of those, but I will try. Thank you!

link1227 said:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've never heard of those, but I will try. Thank you!
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Click to collapse
The reason you do a factory reset most times is to give the OS a clean slate.
Migrating app data can also migrate problem(s). If the degradation is subtle you may never pick it up.
A fast running, stable, glitch free platform is worth a little more set up time.

Your can only backup/recovery full data on a rooted device.

If you use the SD card as a data drive, backup the apps that allow there. Take some screen shots of the homescreen layout/icon pack apk used, use SmartSwitch to save homescreen, backup contacts and use ApkExport to save installable copies for quick reload. Backup all passwords.
I use ColorNote to save all bookmarks and many of my notes because it backups to the SD card.
Hyperlinks can open directly from it.
Takes about 2 hours to get it back to 99%. If you organize it, it's not that bad. I keep a master backup folder that has that kit in it.
♤Preplanning is the key, otherwise it's a data gauntlet.
The first load is the hardest. After 2 back to back boot loops I stopped screwing around with reloads and got very efficient at it
A couple weeks ago I brought my second N10+ online. I simply swapped the older N10+'s SD and sim card to it. It didn't take long to set it up.

Lost then refound device -erase my data remotly- how to reverse/stop it? s7 TAB

So i lost my device first, thought i wouldn't get it back, so out of frustration i used find my device and locked first, then erased the data.
Now i have the device with me, and i am too nervous for giving it access to wifi. What should i do? i don't have energy to backup photos, progress of the read books/watched movies. etc..
Is there a way to reverse or cancel this? i have tried to remove the google account from the device and sign out, but still nervous to start wifi and see what will happen
please help ?

What were you thinking? No data backup?
When you lock or encrypt a device you are the one most likely to be locked out!!!
Try taking it to a Samsung Experience center at Best Buy or a data recovery specialist.

i have access to the tablet, i just don't know how to do the best backup with less steps, i will look into it, but for now, i don't want to lose any data, is there a way? i have access to the tablet as long as i am not using internet/wifi

METAL66 said:
i have access to the tablet, i just don't know how to do the best backup with less steps, i will look into it, but for now, i don't want to lose any data, is there a way? i have access to the tablet as long as i am not using internet/wifi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App settings are lost unless they provide the ability to create a exportable backup copy like Poweramp does. Copy all critical data, folder by folder by copy/paste to the PC. Verify the data size and that files are readable.
Make sure you know the Google account password and any other critical ones. Backup contacts and messages. Bookmarks.
Make at least 2 copies of this data to 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. You can never have too much backup... time staggered backups to multiple hdds are a good strategy. Keep backup hdds isolated from each other and the PC so one event can't take them all out. Store in separate locations preferably in an earth grounded metal box or safe. Keep clear on all magnets.
NEVER trust SmartSwitch to backup critical data.
Develope a plan now... put some thought into it.
If the device has a SD card slot use the SD card as your data drive. All critical data goes here. Then simply backup the SD card regularly. Do Not encrypt the SD card or any backup hdds!!! On the internal memory only apps, and the download and dcim folders go on it. Manually backup the two latter folders regularly to the SD card. There can only be one folder with the name "dcim" in it on the device! Rename backup folders something else ie Pic Master, etc.