From the recovery image to get APPS2SD by simply running the format the SD using Ext2+Swap+fat32 right?
I have a class 6 card. How do I know if this actually works? I formatted and my internals space did not change?
Are there major benefits of doing APPS2SD?
Yes, first format the SD card.
To see if its working,
Check your Settings -> SD card & phone storage -> Internal phone storage. Make note of what it is at. Install some apps, maybe even try reinstalling some of the apps on your phone. Then, check the internal storage again and see if you have some more space.
As for the benefits, it just frees up your internal memory on your phone. I don't think it makes your phone faster or anything.
The question I have about APPS2SD is this. How come when I use it my internal memory drops after I install apps. I have not used it since I had to go back to the original Sprint ROM to do the update and installing the same apps I had before, my internal memory was about the same as it was when I used APPS2SD. I used the recovery screen to format to Fat32-Ext2-Swap and files were on the sd card when I checked, but my internal memory still drops everytime I install something. What is the real benifit of this if the internal memory drops anyway. I am real confused about this and have not decided if it is worth using since I have read it can damage your memory card. Can someone with knowledge of how this works please explain it.
Thx for all the great Info found here.
AppsToSD only puts the apps themselves on the SD. The internal memory is still used by the boot-cache, dalvik-cache, and actual app data like settings, saved games, cache, etc.
Must it be ext3?
What if i have ext2?
rvenes said:
Must it be ext3?
What if i have ext2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If youre using one of the newer recovery images there should be an option to upgrade ext2 to ext3
as for the difference...im not to sure exactly
Tipharet said:
How do I know if this actually works? I formatted and my internals space did not change
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answer: . . . . .
nelson8403 said:
Just because the apps are installed to the SD card doesn't mean they don't store things on the phone.. cache is stored on the phones, theres a /data/data folder on the phone that the apps populate as well, it just doesn't take AS MUCH space on your phone as a non appstosd
also to make sure your apps are working go into your adb shell, type in
Code:
cd /data/app
pwd
cd /data/app-private
pwd
What this will do is go to your /data/app folder and because with appstosd that is a symbolic link to /system/sd/app the PWD (present working directory) will display /system/sd/app, if PWD shows /data/app you are not running appstosd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rvenes said:
Must it be ext3?
What if i have ext2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know it works just fine on ext2.
As far as the difference, the nutshell version is that ext3 is pretty much just ext2 with journaling hacked in. If you don't know that that means, do a google search on "journaling file system".
There should be no downside whatsoever to switching to ext3. It can still be read from and written to by anything that can use ext2, and it adds more robust error recovery.
Caveats: I'm not sure how well, or if, that error recovery works on flash memory devices. My expertise is working with large servers that use hard disks. I also don't know if there are tools in our android builds that take advantage of the benefits that ext3 provides.
Having said that, I'm still confident that choosing to upgrade to ext3 offers NO downside, and while there might also be no upside, there is also the potential for a huge upside.
My advice: Do it.
Related
i was wondering is there a way to put all the apps cache in the sd because for my search it seems like you can only do it for some. Im also running the Cyanogen rom 3.6
I know there is an app in the market named ClearMe (or there was) that will allow this if you are looking for a less manual method
Edit: you said all apps. I'm not sure of a method.... yet..
not just cache to sd, storage to sd
ruffrider5956 said:
i was wondering is there a way to put all the apps cache in the sd because for my search it seems like you can only do it for some. Im also running the Cyanogen rom 3.6
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been wondering about a couple of things since I flashed Cyanogen's ROM. 1) Calendar storage is on internal storage. I have 5MB there so that sucks. Is there any way to change that? 2) Various programs, while the app itself is installed on SD, some data, but not all, goes to the phone's internal storage. This seems random. Is there any way to move ALL storage and ALL cache to the SD? When I was on JF v1.51, all data and cache was on SD. I have 63mb free internal but on JF I had 73mb free at all times. Now I fluctuate. Any thoughts?
aaronratner said:
I have been wondering about a few things since I flashed cyanogen's rom. 1) calendar storage is on internal. I have 5mb there so that sucks. Any way to change that? 2) various programs, while the app itself is installed on as, some data, but not all, goes to the phone. This seems random. Anyway to move ALL storage and ALL cache to the as? When I was on JF v1.51, all data and cache were on sd. I have 63mb free internal but on JF I had 73mb free at all times. Now I fluctuate. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do you need 73mb free? Is 63mb not enough? I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just think you might be worrying about something that is not an issue. The phone works ok with 20+ MB free and works great with 30+ MB. If you have too much free memory, it is just sitting there doing nothing. You want to use the phone's resources the best way you can, not just have them sit there being unused.
I really don't see the point in moving ALL cache to SD. I've found that the phone boots up much faster if your Dalvik-Cache is using internal memory. It is about 30MB on my phone. I did move my app, app-private, media, and data to my SD card. I've heard arguments that it is not a good idea to move the data over but I have over 100 apps and my data folder is about 6 MB. So a Class 6 card could move that entire folder in about 1 second.
Nice first post, but...
Just for reference, I don't really care if I have 10MB free. My phone is running very smoothly. Most of the questions that I ask are purely for educational purposes. I was wondering what the difference was between the apps to sd I did on JF1.51 (I did it manually and I'll show it at the end of this post for reference) and the built in method in cyanogen's ROM. I was curious about why the free memory fluctuated on cyanogen's and not JF's.
I think that some apps are using the phone's internal memory and some are using the ext2 partition. One example: I use NewsRob (an RSS reader). It asks me where I want to store the downloaded RSS feeds and I said my SD card. It created a folder and stored the file on my SD card (not the ext2 partition but the fat32). However, the internal memory was also affected even though the app itself is on SD (on ext2). Another example is my calendar app. The storage, of which I have 5MB, is stored on internal memory. On JF's it was not. Why? What is done differently?
If I enter the following commands in terminal emulator...
Code:
su
df system/sd
...I get 553920K total, 106180K used, 447740K available (block size 4096).
However, when I go to Settings > SD card & phone storage I get 540MB under total space and 409MB available.
That doesn't seem to jive or am I missing something? Hey, everything seems to be working well so I don't really care on that end. However I do care that I don't understand why this is the way it is.
Reference: My apps to sd method on JF.
In terminal emulator
Code:
busybox cp -a /data/app /system/sd/
busybox cp -a /data/dalvik-cache /system/sd/
busybox cp -a /data/data /system/sd/
Then in Recovery Terminal (Alt+X on JF menu in Recovery Mode)
Code:
mount data
rm -rf /data/app
ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app
rm -rf /data/data (optional)
ln -s /system/sd/data /data/data
rm -rf /data/dalvik-cache
ln -s /system/sd/dalvik-cache /data/dalvik-cache
reboot
I'm using "move cache for root users" - first result after searching for "cache."
It moves Browser, Market, GMaps, Street View, Gmail, and Steel caches to SD.
If you have apps2sd I would assume all caches would be on the SD card, not positive tho.
juphro said:
I'm using "move cache for root users" - first result after searching for "cache."
It moves Browser, Market, GMaps, Street View, Gmail, and Steel caches to SD.
If you have apps2sd I would assume all caches would be on the SD card, not positive tho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
using that program as well and yes it does put all the cache on your sd card.
imbonez9 said:
using that program as well and yes it does put all the cache on your sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too use that program. It's called TA Utility. It works well but I'd like more than that. For example, as stated in my original description of the "problem" is that there are other apps that don't get included in this. For one thing, calendar. That's 5MB right there. There are also various program that use some internal storage even if they cache the bulk of the files on the SD (fat32 partition). I don't actually think that this is a problem. I am just very interested in understanding the inner workings of the a2sd that I had done on JF and the a2sd that is done automatically on Cyanogen's ROM.
Another program that is a "problem" is the Work Email that was ported over by Cyanogen from myTouch. Even if you don't use it, opening it once adds more than a MB of data to the internal storage. While I removed the storage, if I wanted to use the Work Email app for some reason it would "cost" me a meg. Again, this is not a real issue as I have nearly 200 apps installed and still have 64MB of internal storage left. I just want the "why" behind all this.
My question, then, is why do certain apps "cost" me internal storage while others do not? It cannot be random. There needs to be a reason and there also needs to be a way to change that. I just don't know why and how.
aaronratner said:
I too use that program. It's called TA Utility. It works well but I'd like more than that. For example, as stated in my original description of the "problem" is that there are other apps that don't get included in this. For one thing, calendar. That's 5MB right there. There are also various program that use some internal storage even if they cache the bulk of the files on the SD (fat32 partition). I don't actually think that this is a problem. I am just very interested in understanding the inner workings of the a2sd that I had done on JF and the a2sd that is done automatically on Cyanogen's ROM.
Another program that is a "problem" is the Work Email that was ported over by Cyanogen from myTouch. Even if you don't use it, opening it once adds more than a MB of data to the internal storage. While I removed the storage, if I wanted to use the Work Email app for some reason it would "cost" me a meg. Again, this is not a real issue as I have nearly 200 apps installed and still have 64MB of internal storage left. I just want the "why" behind all this.
My question, then, is why do certain apps "cost" me internal storage while others do not? It cannot be random. There needs to be a reason and there also needs to be a way to change that. I just don't know why and how.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I''m not sure its the app that is taking up the room but the space it needs to park it on the phone. Like i installed docs2go. It adds to my internal but not as much as the whole program is.
[SOLVED] - Solution
I have figured out the answer to my original question for all those who are interested. I wanted to know the difference between the A2SD that I used on JF (I did it myself) and the auto-A2SD in Cyanogen's ROM. It's very simple. The /data/data/ folder on Cyanogen is not moved to SD whereas I has it sysmlinked on JF.
If you are running Cyanogen, run the following in TE...
Code:
su
du -h /data/data/
to see what you have stored. I am going to spend some time on the forum looking to see what, if anything, can be safely moved (in a stable way) to /system/sd/ on Cyanogen. I will either report back here or start a new thread if I think my findings are worth sharing (meaning, if I come up with anything more than what everyone else but me already knows, LOL). I suspect it might be a bit of an issue since Cyanogen warns against using any other A2SD methods while using his ROM. Time will tell.
I believe that the reason /data/data is not moved to sd anymore is because it proved to be unstable for most (not all) people here. Also, if you manualy move /data/data to sd at some point on Cyan's rom it will be moved back to internal memory automaticaly next time you reboot. This is just the way Cyan has it set up due to the problems people had when the whole data folder was moved.
Agreed
borodin1 said:
I believe that the reason /data/data is not moved to sd anymore is because it proved to be unstable for most (not all) people here. Also, if you manualy move /data/data to sd at some point on Cyan's rom it will be moved back to internal memory automaticaly next time you reboot. This is just the way Cyan has it set up due to the problems people had when the whole data folder was moved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree with that. /data/data on SD was NEVER stable for me. I don't think my phone lasted more than three days after moving it. My main reason for posting was to understand what was different between what I did on JF and what Cyanogen did by default. I now fully understand the difference and, most importantly, the reasons behind it. I just have to keep and eye on which programs write data and how much data they write and what, if any, should/could be deleted. The calendar storage, for example, cannot be deleted or calendar entries disappear. For me, it's 5.5MB.
Perhaps, if I am really bored, I (or someone else) will write and app or script that can remove data/cache for ANY app added to a list. For now, I have the obvious caches moved over and a cache cleaning app for those caches moved to SD. A more efficient and more customizable method for this process is definitely needed but I have learned that these "problems" seemed to get "solved" as Android grows up. For now, manual methods will have to do.
Hi there,
I've got everything working on my newly reflashed Sprint Hero. (Thanks to everyone that contributed to the gigantic thread....read all (currently) 28 pages...you guys made it easy).
My question is whether apps 2 sd is actually working?
I've put completely bare ROMs on my hero (reverted back to stock ROM, wiped it, wiped & partitioned the sdcard to fat32, ext2 & swap, then flashed with 1.1). I then go to install an app and it doesn't show up on the SD card and my internal memory decreases (indicating that its not on the SD card?)
Don't think I've missed any relevant details, but Im keen to get this working.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
It sounds like you did everything correctly.
try this:
adb shell
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
cd /system/sd
ls
This should say:
[0;0mapp [0m
[0;0mapp-private [0m
as in /system/sd/app
/system/sd/app-private
then type:
cd /system/sd/app
ls
this should list the programs on the ext2 partition of your sdcard and, if you type:
cd /data/app
ls
you would still see the programs listed, but it is just telling you what you have installed they are not actually there, from what I understand.
Also, the internal memory on my phone also went down, but it went down 5 or so mb instead of 20 or so mb.
While I'm here would you mind telling me if when you said
dom2114 said:
(reverted back to stock ROM, wiped it,...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you mean you reverted to a Nandroid backup then you performed a factory reset, and then flashed with 1.1, because I was wondering if this is possible?
hi there crake
really appreciate the detailed reply.
did everything you said and everything was exactly as you described, except that in /system/sd, i also have a lost+found folder
did the next 2 steps you outlined and yes, /data/app was a duplicate of /system/sd/app. I didn't realize that these were the locations (one being the actual location and the other being the 'symlink') of the ext2 partition.
One final question for you. How big was your fat32 partition? It didn't look like there was a way to control how big you want the fat32 partitions relative to the ext2 partition (& the swap partition...not sure what that is).
In answer to your question: yes, thats exactly what I did.
I wanted a 100% free implementation of modaco 1.1 (i.e. no apps etc). Here's what i did just FYI:
Flashed my nandroid backup back on
Hard reset it
Turned the phone on and just put my basic gmail/facebook login details in
Turned it off and decided to take another nandroid backup in case I wanted to go back to this state...(so I now have 2 nandroid backups)
Enabled USB transfer and copied this new backup off
Wiped the SD card & dalvik cache and then partitioned the card to fat32, ext2 and swap
Transferred the Modaco ROM to the SD Card
Flashed the phone w/ Modaco
End result was a 100% 'stock' Modaco ROM...if that makes any sense.
Appreciate an answer and any info as to the partition sizes.
EDIT:
Realized that this 'new backup' I performed (in the 4th step above) is useless if I end up wiping/repartioning the sdcard as this ROM refers to apps that the modaco ROM moved to the SD. These will obviously be removed after a format/repartition.
Thanks for the info, I used the 2gb (1.8-ish) sd card that came with my phone, after partitioning, the fat32 partition was somewhere around 1.4 gb. There was no option to modify partition size so I assumed it partitions the ext2 to a predetermined size and the rest is partitioned as fat32.
crake001 said:
Thanks for the info, I used the 2gb (1.8-ish) sd card that came with my phone, after partitioning, the fat32 partition was somewhere around 1.4 gb. There was no option to modify partition size so I assumed it partitions the ext2 to a predetermined size and the rest is partitioned as fat32.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe its around 450MB, mine is like 446MB as ext2, the rest of my 8GB sd card is FAT32. It automatically did this, but when I go to All Applications, Apps to SD isn't even listed as an installed application. I went to the market place and installed Apps to SD 2, and it told me I needed to read the tutorial (wtf ?).
So my guess is, the MoDaCo ROM does all the work for you that the Apps to SD program would normally do, and it just always saves it to your SD card.
simplyphp said:
I believe its around 450MB, mine is like 446MB as ext2, the rest of my 8GB sd card is FAT32. It automatically did this, but when I go to All Applications, Apps to SD isn't even listed as an installed application. I went to the market place and installed Apps to SD 2, and it told me I needed to read the tutorial (wtf ?).
So my guess is, the MoDaCo ROM does all the work for you that the Apps to SD program would normally do, and it just always saves it to your SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, thats the conclusion I came to. In the adb shell, if you type apps2sd, something starts happening...Im not smart enough to know what though. Figured Id mention if someone wants to play around
Thanks you all for the info. This was exactly what I was looking for. Wanted to know the size of the ext2 partition and how to control it if we even could but looks like it's automatic as stated. Then to find a way to check to make sure the apps were getting installed on the partition.
I installed the MoDaCo 1.1 over top of all my apps/settings etc. I do have my SD card partitioned via my recovery image option.
What do I need to do to get all those apps over to my sd card and off my phone?
Hello. I am struggling with this for three days now. I can't seem to make it work. So I think I need a detailed how-to because obviously I am doing something wrong.
I am using this clockwork recovery image: http://android.modaco.com/content/z...27215/oled-tft-2-5-1-8-clockworkmod-recovery/
Then I go to clockwork recovery mode and create 1GB ext partition. Wipe everything from everywhere.
After that I install paul's alpha3 prebake.
What happens is I have 1GB less storage on my class4 8GB SD, but don't see the ext3 partition (where should I look for it exactly)
In normal use the only way you'll know if its working or not is if you run out of space or not.
To find your ext partition look in '/sd-ext' or '/system/sd', you might need a file explorer that can use root privileges, I use estrongs. If the directories 'app' and 'app-private' are there then its working.
If your still sure its not working double check that the prebaked version comes with apps2sd...not all do.
Thank you. I think the prebaked alpha3 version doesn't have the apps2sd scripts. I tried to install Darktremor Apps2SD 2.7.5.2 but it killed my OS and had to flash it again. So is there any specific a2SD that I can use with this rom?
OK. I installed the Japanese jellyfish ROM yesterday and everything works like a charm so I guess prebaked alpha3 didn't have the apps2sd scripts.
Thank you again for your help, mate!
what is apps2ext?
It basically gets some storage space from the SD card and lies the system that it's part of the apps section of the internal memory
cynepmeh said:
It basically gets some storage space from the SD card and lies the system that it's part of the apps section of the internal memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so it is basically like a different storage architecture for the SD card? Like we can have fat32, ntfs etc?
I am no expert here. From what I know - scripts create some symlinks so the app storage is actually placed on the sd, but the system doesn't know that and thinks it is still the old place. The path is the same, but it actually is something like a shortcut. The ext is probably because it needs to be linix partition or something...
This is what I think and it may not be true however
Hello again, I need clarification with this subject...
I had a difficult time in rooting my android, thinking I failed. so for many times I rooted, installed xrecovery, then most importantly apps2sd. but I don't think it works, then I found all about Links2sd. I installed it, and each time after installing I always select the "link2sd" option, and I check the include davlik cache, but my phone memory is continually decreasing... is this normal or not? could there be a conflict with apps2sd and link2sd since I don't know if I have deleted apps2sd. sorry I'm an android newbie. Thanks..
Well... if you had app2sd link2sd would monit about it and asked you to uninstall it first.
If you don't know if your phone is rooted, look through apps - if you have a superuser app - you're rooted
As for link2sd working or not: connect your phone to the computer and open minitool partition wizard home. It will see your ext2 partition along with free and occupied space. If there are any apps on ext2 partition of your SD card - apps are installing there and the slight decrease of space is due to the existing shortcut files. Because you have created ext2 partition, haven't you?...
I did what you said and yes I found files on the other partition I created. but problem is, some files still go to the phone memory, for example the game app "ninjump" has 15mb installed on the phone memory while on links2sd it shows that it is linked to the sd card.
also, I tried removing the memory card, and when I turned on my x8 the programs were missing, so I suppose links2sd is working.
only problem is now is that some chunks are still installed to the phone memory. is there a way of totally redirecting everything to the sd card?
link2sd: Leave data files in Internal Memory, and you can choose the apps to SD
app2sd: Copy all data from the application to the SD, It's all automatic
nowonanx8 said:
I did what you said and yes I found files on the other partition I created. but problem is, some files still go to the phone memory, for example the game app "ninjump" has 15mb installed on the phone memory while on links2sd it shows that it is linked to the sd card.
also, I tried removing the memory card, and when I turned on my x8 the programs were missing, so I suppose links2sd is working.
only problem is now is that some chunks are still installed to the phone memory. is there a way of totally redirecting everything to the sd card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, here's the deal - how many times did you install ninjump in the past? If more then once, and meanwhile you moved it to or from ext2 it might have (though the probability is very slight) that you have two apps - one in internal storage and one in ext2 storage.
So, navigate into ext2 partition (it's a folder in root directory - sdext or so) and look for this app. It might be hard, as names of linked apps are somewhat messed up, but there should be icons If there is no app on ext2, try switching it back to internal mode and then onto ext2 again - perhaps without linking dalvik cache.
chequebo1 said:
link2sd: Leave data files in Internal Memory, and you can choose the apps to SD
app2sd: Copy all data from the application to the SD, It's all automatic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you, that was sooooo relevant!
APP2SD
I having problem with the app2sd too..i dunno whether it works...This is what i had done..I had busybox, superuser, and xrecovery installed and rooted. But when come to partitioning the sd card, i partitioned it into 3 parts : FAt, ext2 and ext3...after that i installed the update.zip and custom zip of app2sd...the phone starts not recognizing the sd partition...anyone can help here??
I use titanium backup to see app2sd works or not. if a2sd decrease, so it work.
if internal still decrease, I guess some file or even some app just can't work with app2sd.
one question too, how or can I move games data from fat sdcard to ext2 partition? like gameloft data. I need my fat space for other file
Graveir said:
Ok, here's the deal - how many times did you install ninjump in the past? If more then once, and meanwhile you moved it to or from ext2 it might have (though the probability is very slight) that you have two apps - one in internal storage and one in ext2 storage.
So, navigate into ext2 partition (it's a folder in root directory - sdext or so) and look for this app. It might be hard, as names of linked apps are somewhat messed up, but there should be icons If there is no app on ext2, try switching it back to internal mode and then onto ext2 again - perhaps without linking dalvik cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried navigating to the ext2 partition using minitool partition wizard, and I indeed saw files that I have installed there. so do you mean that apps2sd is better than links2sd? thanks..
Well... I'm not saying anything is better, though I used both solutions in three different ways.
For stock SE ROM link2sd is better, since you only need to partition SD card into primary fat32 and primary ext2 - nothing more. Then you install an app and all works fine.
With custom ROM you cannot use link2sd, since they all have app2sd hack preinstalled (well, you can always modify files, but what for?). Problem occurs when you have this hack AND ext2 partition. The hack then moves automatically all your apps to ext2 memory along with dalvik cache if you install them in internal storage. If you install in external storage, the app goes to fat32 secure folder and dalvik cache remains in ext2. If you don't have any ext on custom ROM, dalvik cache is always in internal storage, while you can move any non-system app onto fat32 sd card.
The ext2 solution in custom ROMs may seem convinient, but for me it was not. When you use apps like phone locator, they should always dwell in internal memory, since SD card can be easily taken out, while deleting such an app from a remotely locked down phone would require flashing, otherwise the device is useless for the thief
Well actually both app2sd and link2sd are typically similliar. I've tried app2sd before and it still leave some files in internal memory. So will link2sd. But link2sd is much more easier to use because once your phone is rooted you just need to install it on your phone without going through the adb shell thing. Easy for newbie for sure. But you just have to manually link new installed applications and games. That's what differ link2sd with app2sd. Now I'm using link2sd. If you want to make sure, why don't you try those froyo phone. Try to use the app2sd stuff on those phone. They still install some applications on their internal as well although they have built in app2sd.
Sent from my E15i using XDA Premium App
Hello.
I'm using the latest aurora and I'd like to discuss an idea I had.
Since the U8800 has plenty internal memory and it's quite fast comparing to an average sd card, it'd be great if we could use the internal memory for the tasks that need "speed" instead of "space".
Running apps from the sd card is the perfect example!
So the idea would be, while keeping the external sdcard mounted on /mnt/sdcard, having /mnt/sdcard/Android/data, for instance, point to the «internal sdcard path»/Android/data.
What do you think would be the best solution:
- hacking the mount points?
- using links?
- other solution?
Any developer or filesystem savvy user can point the advantages or dangers of using this solution?
- e.g.: the system or some apps may check if the external sd-card is mounted before trying to read/write to /mnt/sdcard/Android/data... that would mean the system/those apss may think that path isn't reachable with the ext-sdcard unmounted, altough they can be read.
Suggestions? Rants? Ideas?
Regards!
I have wondered if the /data/app or maybe the whole /data partition could be mounted in the internal storage partition. That would give 2gb space for apps and associated files instead of 3-400 ish and would mean no need to move apps to sd card which would mean faster loads at startup due to internal memory being faster.
VuDuCuRSe said:
Hello.
I'm using the latest aurora and I'd like to discuss an idea I had.
Since the U8800 has plenty internal memory and it's quite fast comparing to an average sd card, it'd be great if we could use the internal memory for the tasks that need "speed" instead of "space".
Running apps from the sd card is the perfect example!
So the idea would be, while keeping the external sdcard mounted on /mnt/sdcard, having /mnt/sdcard/Android/data, for instance, point to the «internal sdcard path»/Android/data.
What do you think would be the best solution:
- hacking the mount points?
- using links?
- other solution?
Any developer or filesystem savvy user can point the advantages or dangers of using this solution?
- e.g.: the system or some apps may check if the external sd-card is mounted before trying to read/write to /mnt/sdcard/Android/data... that would mean the system/those apss may think that path isn't reachable with the ext-sdcard unmounted, altough they can be read.
Suggestions? Rants? Ideas?
Regards!
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Well this is known for a while now . Quoted from my thread here:
vold.fstab - CHANGE THE DEFAULT SDCARD: -thanks to julle131
There is this file named vold.fstab at your /system/etc/ folder, which controls which of your sdcards (Internal/External) will be mounted when you connect your phone to the PC. The last 2 lines are the only that matter. These are the two possibilities:
EXTERNAL SDCARD MOUNTED (DEFAULT):
dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard auto /devices/platform/msm_sdcc.4/mmc_host
dev_mount emmc /mnt/sdcard1 14 /devices/platform/msm_sdcc.2/mmc_host
INTERNAL SDCARD MOUNTED:
dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard 14 /devices/platform/msm_sdcc.2/mmc_host
dev_mount emmc /mnt/sdcard1 auto /devices/platform/msm_sdcc.4/mmc_host
change them as you wish with a root explorer or before flashing.
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Make this change and every app will use the internal sdcard. Gallery works ok with images to external sdcard, it just might take a while for the first refresh. But I don't know if you'll notice any difference in terms of speed....
Cheers
spirosbond said:
Well this is known for a while now . Quoted from my thread here:
Make this change and every app will use the internal sdcard. Gallery works ok with images to external sdcard, it just might take a while for the first refresh. But I don't know if you'll notice any difference in terms of speed....
Cheers
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That's not what he talked, I think. He said that the apparel would be installed on the external sd card, but the data would be moved to the internal one. And we have speed, but the main card would be the external one.
I think its a great idea if I understood it right!
Sent from my U8800 using xda premium
mrasquinho said:
That's not what he talked, I think. He said that the apparel would be installed on the external sd card, but the data would be moved to the internal one. And we have speed, but the main card would be the external one.
I think its a great idea if I understood it right!
Sent from my U8800 using xda premium
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Oh I see! Sorry about that. As far as I know apps are not choosing were to put their data. They just say to the OS "I want these things to be at the sdcard" and the OS puts them at the correct place. So you can't "hack" the app to "see" at somewhere else. On the other hand the OS initialises on boot which card is the primary and which is the secondary. So my knowledge stops there and I can't imagine a way to make this separation between app data and the rest...
I hope for someone else's help!
PaulMilbank said:
I have wondered if the /data/app or maybe the whole /data partition could be mounted in the internal storage partition. That would give 2gb space for apps and associated files instead of 3-400 ish and would mean no need to move apps to sd card which would mean faster loads at startup due to internal memory being faster.
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Maybe this cannot be done, because I think that the mapping of the partitions and mounts comes from the bootloader, but there is already the solution of resizing the data partition using the space of internal storage.
PaulMilbank said:
I have wondered if the /data/app or maybe the whole /data partition could be mounted in the internal storage partition. That would give 2gb space for apps and associated files instead of 3-400 ish and would mean no need to move apps to sd card which would mean faster loads at startup due to internal memory being faster.
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That's a great idea!
I almost don't use the so called "internal sd card", therefor I have 2GB of fast empty space being wasted.
Why not simply mounting the internal sd-card partition in the data folder and the data partition on the internal sd card folder?
I only use the internal sd card to hold ringtones and other small stuff that I need to be in accessible 100% of the time, so a few hundred MB are enough!
Me gusta!
Every ROM flashes it's own fstab, right?
So all we'd need to do would be, editing the fstab before flashing it.
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Regarding the my first idea... I don't think one can simply mount a path on another path. We'd need a "virtual" device pointing to /mnt/sdcard-internal/data/ then mount that virtual device on /mnt/sdcard-external/data/.
My knowledge of unix mount/filesystems is not much more than what's explained here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount
OK, just found this:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/11079/mount-a-directory-to-look-like-a-drive
there is a FUSE filesystem named bindfs that probably does exactly what you want. For example the following:
bindfs -n /media/USB-HDD-01/ISO/ /home/johnc/ISO-images
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would result in ISO-images to show up as a mounted filesystem in the Places sidepanel in Nautilus. The -n is required because otherwise bindfs tries to use the allow_other FUSE option, which by default is not allowed for regular users (if you use bindfs in /etc/fstab this is not a problem).
The first directory you give is the existing one, the second directory you give is an empty directory under which the contents of the existing one will appear.
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So, bindfs depends on FUSE... and there's a port of fuse to android: https://github.com/seth-hg/fuse-android but looking at the README I get the feeling that it's not really working. The last step would be having a kernel with FUSE support... and regarding that, I have no idea, how easy it is to get a kernel like that for our U8800 :\
Finding such a solution to expand the DATA partition indirectly would be great!
I used to apply genokolar's custom partition method as "1.2G DATA + 1.46G INTERNAL SD" before, but i found out that it has some issues with Official 2.3 Roms. One of them -the most important IMHO- is the BOOTLOOP problem occurring in some specific situations!!!
See the details in my post here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=25853141&postcount=134
(Seems that I don't encounter the bootloops on Custom Roms, but i'm not %100 sure and never will be )
So i unfortunately gave up using it, and revert to the stock partition .
I will be grateful to the one who will find a better and reliable solution. Hope to see it soon...
I still have to gather more information on the official update "modus operandi".
My goal is to simply reformat both partitions and then swap their mount points.
If the official update formats the partitions before applying the flashing official ROM files, then partitioning changes shouldn't cause any failure on the official update.
But like I said, I'm still yet to confirm that info.
Gen's idea was great (I learned a lot just by looking at his scripts) but resizing partitions has its dangers.
Since "no one" really uses the internal memory, why not simply exchange its room with /data, right?
This would be awesome! I would love to have 2gb for apps, instead of cluttering my phone.. plus the 2gb of internal storage are just a waste for me.. I never use them.. so this would be great!