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Can someone please educate me on partitioning the sd? Based on what I've read and my discussions with others, ext swap is for cache, fat32 is for apps, and the remainder is for usb storage???
I have a 8 GB class 6 (supposed to be faster) Samsung sd partioned at ext swap - 0 and fat 32 - 500.
If I'm right about ext swap (please correct me if I'm wrong), I could make my phone faster if I allocated some sd space to it??? One forum I read said that the phone is usually faster but it could have been referring to a different phone and a slower card.
If I did decide to change my partition what affects would it have (wipe sd, reinstall custom rom, etc)?
Thanks for any feedback!
Partitioning the SD card allows you to utilize a2sd/app2sd and/or swap space on your SD card - if the ROM in question supports it.
Note that the ext and swap partitions are separate things, not one and the same thing.
swap is for swap - set it to 0 (you will never need it)
ext{2|3} is for the A2SD/APPS2SD space for storing applications (and dalvik-cache for some ROMs) - 512 MB will be more than you ever need.
the rest is the VFAT partition - the MS-DOS partition you see from your Windoze box when you mount it from the PC.
Note also that partitioning your card destroys all data on it - make a backup if you decide to partition.
Neither A2SD nor having swap space will speed your phone up. (Adding swap - for ROMs which support it - will actually slow your phone down, except certain pathological cases, unless you become an expert on the process trimmer configuration and experiment with swappiness controls. The reason this happens is because the as-configured process trimmer kicks in too late if you merely add swap and do not reconfigure the trimmer).
My recommendation? Keep your life simple and avoid both A2SD and especially use of a swap area on the SD card, until such a time as you "need it". You might find a practical need for A2SD if you are going to be trying out a whole bunch of new ROMs as they come out, or you are an app hoarder and run out of space in /data.
Probably you will never need to use a swap partition on your card.
Again, in neither case will you notice a perceptible gain in "performance" of the phone.
bftb0
PS Josh. Please stop putting usage questions in the Development forum. Please. Put them in the General forum.
Thanks for clearing that up......and i will stop posting in development.
I found this post in some other section!!
i am just giving the same information here for my fellow g3 mates!!
Full credit go to neoKushan
here the original thread!! http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=742351
Nows here what we are here for!!! Clear your doubts guys!!!
Ok, so here's the deal, in a very longwinded way that should hopefully explain everything and answer ALL questions.
You have an SD card in your phone and, a bit like normal PC Hard Drives, you can "partition" them (split them into two or more sections of different filesystems). Normally, your SD card is just one big FAT32 partition, which is fine for storing your pics, messages, emails, etc.
Now, other then your Phone's SD card, your phone will have its own internal flash memory (or "NAND") storage. Tradditionally with Android, you could only install applications to this NAND storage, you cannot install them onto your SD card. So if you have an empty 32GB SD card, but only 5Mb of internal phone storage, you still wont be able to install many apps, if any at all.
This was done to protect the apps from things like piracy - it's not easy to access the location where apps are installed on your phone's internal storage (normally impossible without root), so you can't for example buy an app, copy it, refund it, then install it again.
Still, this is no good for those of us who like to install lots and lots of apps, legitimately, as we run out of internal storage very quickly.
So Google came up with a way to install apps to the SD card. A folder is created called something like .android_secure and this stores (I believe) encrypted versions of applications, but there's a few catches:
1) Apps aren't automatically stored here, you have to manually "move" them
2) Not all apps are capable of being moved, in fact most apps aren't, the developer needs to update their app and allow it. Some apps aren't and wont be updated and some developers may not want to allow it for whatever reason.
3) Not all app data is moved, most of it is but some data is left on your phone so many people still run out of internal storage quickly.
4) You can force ALL apps to be moved to this area by default, but it breaks incompatible ones - such as Widgets, which are unable to load due to the SD card not being "prepared".
So that's Froyo's version. Before Froyo existed, some very clever people came up with a thing called "Apps2SD". Remember I said that your SD card normally is one big FAT32 partition? Well, Apps2SD works by having your SD card patitioned into TWO filesystems. A normal FAT32 partition for your usual stuff and a secondary "EXT" partition. EXT is just a filesystem, like FAT32 or NTFS, but it's the filesystem used by Android internally. The SD card is normally FAT32 because it's a "universal" filesystem, that just about any machine will be able to read, whereas EXT filesystems are generally Linux only, but I digress.
EXT has several different versions. The most common one you'll see is ext3. The main difference between ext2 and ext3 is "journaling", which is just a fancy way of saying that should an operation (such as copying, writing or reading) be interrupted unexpectedly (say, by you turning your phone off), then no data should be lost or corrupted. You know how when you turn your phone on, it says "preparing SD card"? It takes a few minutes, but what it's actually doing is checking that the FAT32 partition hasn't been damaged, because FAT does NOT have journaling. If you used a computer back in the Windows 98 days, you may remember that lovely blue "Scandisk" screen that had to run every time you didn't shut your computer down correctly - that's the same thing. But then Windows 2000/XP came along with NTFS, which also has journaling, meaning you had less chance of loosing data. But I digress once more.
So you have your SD card partitioned into EXT and FAT32. Generally it doesn't matter if it's ext3 or ext4, but you don't get any real advantage with ext4 over ext3 in this instance. Apps2SD then runs a special script on your phone which "symbolically links" the folder from your phone's internal storage where your apps are normally stored, to the ext partition on your SD card. A symbolic link is a bit like a shortcut for folders, except it's transparent to the OS: In other words, Android doesn't know that when it's installing it's apps to the internal phone storage, it's actually being stored on the SD card. This effectively boosts your internal phone memory from the previous 5mb that you had in my example above, up to whatever size you made the ext partition on your SD card (often 512Mb or 1Gb, but it depends on how many apps you install).
Plus, because it's "journaled", it doesn't need to be "prepared", meaning it's ready to go as soon as the phone starts - so your widgets and apps work immediately (unlike "forced" Froyo Apps2SD, where widgets disappear).
The catch with Apps2SD is that whatever space the ext partition takes up is taken away from the SD card. So if you have a 4Gb card (with something like 3.5Gb of actual storage) and you make a 512Mb ext partition, your SD card will "shrink" to 3Gb. The space isn't actually lost, it's just being used by the ext partition. If you reformat your card, you'll get it back.
Finally, there's a difference between "Apps2SD" and "Apps2SD+". Remember I said that your apps are stored on a special folder inside your Phone's NAND storage? Well, that was a bit of a lie. It's actually stored in TWO places. There's a second area which is called the Davlik Cache. You don't really need to worry about what this is for (Hint: IT's to do with the Java runetime your phone uses to run apps), all you need to know is that apps use it to store data, which also eats up internal phone memory. Apps2SD+ moves davlik cache to the ext partition on your SD card as well, freeing up even more space. Some people believe that this may come at the cost of performance, as the internal NAND memory should be faster than your SD card (Which is why you also get people arguing over which "class" SD card is better for Apps2SD - the logic being that a faster SD card means less impact from this move), but the truth of the matter is that your applications will be running from your Phone's RAM anyway, so performance isn't really impacted at all. Since most apps are only a few hundred Kb's in size, or a couple of MB at the most, it's a non-issue.
Finally, any recent version of Apps2SD/Apps2SD+ should work with an SD card that is or isn't formatted with an ext partition. It'll check for this partition when your phone first boots and if it's not there, just use internal phone storage.
Having an ext partition WITHOUT Apps2SD+ shouldn't cause any issues, either, so you can format your SD card whenever you're ready.
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning".
I don't really claim to be an expert but I wrote this and nobody really chimed in to say anything was wrong, so hopefully it applies here.
I'll try to keep an eye on this thread in case anyone has questions.
I don't really claim to be an expert but I wrote this and nobody really chimed in to say anything was wrong, so hopefully it applies here.
I'll try to keep an eye on this thread in case anyone has questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot buddy.. People may know all that but you have written in such a simple manner that even a small kid will understand..
Acid lestitious 2.0. Fugumod 2.2 build 1.9
thanx soo muxh for this info...it's getting really confusing out there with everyone claiming this type is better than that blah blah blah etcetc....this is very helpful
thanks again
JohnstonF said:
thanx soo muxh for this info...it's getting really confusing out there with everyone claiming this type is better than that blah blah blah etcetc....this is very helpful
thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome
Acid lestitious 2.0. Fugumod 2.2
okay, so i just flashed Kyrillos' ROM (7.0, then upgraded to 7.1)
now i want to partition my SD card to create SWAP, and also to create a partition to add extra space to the internal memory (what is it's name, again?)
i don't know too much about what type of partition to do, so can you guide me through the process or give me a link where i can read further?
also, what are the recommended partition sizes?
PS : i have a 4GB, class 4 SD card. and i just downloaded minitool.
Mohit12 said:
okay, so i just flashed Kyrillos' ROM (7.0, then upgraded to 7.1)
now i want to partition my SD card to create SWAP, and also to create a partition to add extra space to the internal memory (what is it's name, again?)
i don't know too much about what type of partition to do, so can you guide me through the process or give me a link where i can read further?
also, what are the recommended partition sizes?
PS : i have a 4GB, class 4 SD card. and i just downloaded minitool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can flash g3mod kernel and do partition in uer sd card.mine is 8 GB Card, Class 4...I have 1024 as Ext Size and 256 as SWAP. so the choice is uers.
Mohit12 said:
okay, so i just flashed Kyrillos' ROM (7.0, then upgraded to 7.1)
now i want to partition my SD card to create SWAP, and also to create a partition to add extra space to the internal memory (what is it's name, again?)
i don't know too much about what type of partition to do, so can you guide me through the process or give me a link where i can read further?
also, what are the recommended partition sizes?
PS : i have a 4GB, class 4 SD card. and i just downloaded minitool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the answer to that is already in the forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=SD_card_partitioning
Hope this helps
darksyde18 said:
Well, the answer to that is already in the forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=SD_card_partitioning
Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been looking for that too , Thanks
okay, i didn't know i'd need a card reader :/
i don't have it. any way to partition it using the CWM?
and what sizes do you recommend? i was thinking maybe 128 MB SWAP and 512 as the internal memory size.
and do i have to flash the g3mod kernel? i'm currently running 2.6.32.9. this came with Kyrillos' 7.0.
wait, i'm getting confused now. when i flash Kryillos' ROM 7.0, does my kernel also get changed? or am i running the stock kernel?
and the CWM i'm talking about is just.. recovery. the one that i access using vol up + vol down + home key + power key.
that also has partition SD card option under advanced > partition SD card.
will this do or do i have to flash g3mod kernel?
Once you flash Kryillos' ROM you are no longer running the stock kernel
CWM is ClockWorkMod Recovery and it comes with the ROM and so it's different (Google it)
And about making a SWAP, well , you might wanna read this -
"1. An Android swap partition must live on your SD card. SD cards are very, very slow memory. They are 100 to 1000x slower than a SIM. They are 10 to 100x slower than a hard drive. They are marginally faster than a network connection. When an application is “swapped out” it is copied into this very slow memory, and copied back to physical memory when it needs to run. On the other hand, when an app needs to be restarted after being terminated by Android, it is loaded not from the SD card but from the device’s (relatively) fast physical memory.
2. When an Android app is terminated because of low memory, it decides what information must be persisted to represent it’s state. This can be very, very small. For example, it might be an integer index into a database. When an app is moved into virtual memory, the OS has no idea what’s important. It just moves the application in whole. It can’t be smart about it.
3. Having swap actually prevents the native Android memory management scheme from activating. The system sees memory and doesn’t distinguish between physical and virtual. It will therefore prefer swap over the native Android memory management scheme, and won’t activate the native scheme until swap is full.
4. Having swap requires some overhead of system resources."
darksyde18 said:
Once you flash Kryillos' ROM you are no longer running the stock kernel
CWM is ClockWorkMod Recovery and it comes with the ROM and so it's different (Google it)
And about making a SWAP, well , you might wanna read this -
"1. An Android swap partition must live on your SD card. SD cards are very, very slow memory. They are 100 to 1000x slower than a SIM. They are 10 to 100x slower than a hard drive. They are marginally faster than a network connection. When an application is “swapped out” it is copied into this very slow memory, and copied back to physical memory when it needs to run. On the other hand, when an app needs to be restarted after being terminated by Android, it is loaded not from the SD card but from the device’s (relatively) fast physical memory.
2. When an Android app is terminated because of low memory, it decides what information must be persisted to represent it’s state. This can be very, very small. For example, it might be an integer index into a database. When an app is moved into virtual memory, the OS has no idea what’s important. It just moves the application in whole. It can’t be smart about it.
3. Having swap actually prevents the native Android memory management scheme from activating. The system sees memory and doesn’t distinguish between physical and virtual. It will therefore prefer swap over the native Android memory management scheme, and won’t activate the native scheme until swap is full.
4. Having swap requires some overhead of system resources."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice and informative.
I have american android NAND MAGLDR installed in my HD2. But I have one problem with low internal memory.
Briefly: I have very low internal memory. About 50 MB only despite the fact that I have moved all my downloaded market apps onto my SD card. Preinstalled Android apps like MAPS, facebook and so on Im not able to move to my SD card. But there are still updates of this apps and Im afraid of that there will not be any free space for them in the while because 50 MB is really very little.
is there any option how to solve this problem?
Samuelgentl said:
I have american installed android MAGDLR NAND since yesterday. But I have one problem with internal memory.
Briefly: I have very low internal memory. About 50 MB only despite the fact that I have moved all my downloaded market apps onto my SD card. Preinstalled Android apps like MAPS, facebook and so on Im not able to move to my SD card. But there are still updates of this apps and Im afraid of that there will not be any free space for them in the while because 50 MB is really very little.
It is ok ? ... can I do something with this problem ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search in the american android thread about data2sd script or an a2sd+ script, when you get there, there should bin instructions on how to install it, as it varies for different roms.
Cheers,
Evil.
evilbarcode said:
Search in the american android thread about data2sd script or an a2sd+ script, when you get there, there should bin instructions on how to install it, as it varies for different roms.
Cheers,
Evil.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been trying to find out hot to create partition for my MAGDLR NAND american android on its thread but Im completely confused of the amounth of posts there. (I know that for somebody it could be easy but my English is not very good and reading takes me much more time than somebody who can english well )
I find out in another thread how to create partition when one use CLK but I have MAGDLR And instruction how to create partition on SD card for MAGDLR I cant find
Samuelgentl said:
I have been trying to find out hot to create partition for my MAGDLR NAND american android on its thread but Im completely confused of the amounth of posts there. (I know that for somebody it could be easy but my English is not very good and reading takes me much more time than somebody who can english well )
I find out in another thread how to create partition when one use CLK but I have MAGDLR And instruction how to create partition on SD card for MAGDLR I cant find
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm the one responding to all you questions in different threads just follow my dive and you will figure it out, take your time, learn all that you need to then you will know what needs to be done and you will be able to do it.
I made ext3 partition cca 800 MB and swap partition cca 133 MB on my SD card by using MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition.
Then I have put my SD card into HD2 and by using MAGLDR I have installed american android 2.3.7 NAND.
But problem is it shows that my internal memory is still the same (as was before I made ext3 partition 218 MB total and 159 MB free)
I believed that when I create ext3 partition it will increase my internal memory. But it did only that some space from my SD card disappeared.
Could somebody explain me why is that, what did I wrong ?
I made ext3 partition cca 800 MB and swap partition cca 133 MB on my SD card by using MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition just as was written in here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...authkey=CLDJw80N&pli=1#heading=h.7a0p0in86w01
Then I have put my SD card into HD2 and by using MAGLDR I have installed american android 2.3.7 NAND.
But problem is it shows that my internal memory is still the same (as was before I made ext3 partition 218 MB total and 159 MB free)
I believed that when I create ext3 partition it will increase my internal memory. But it did only that some space from my SD card disappeared.
Also when I run android commander it shows that there is no ext partition
Could somebody explain me why is that, what did I wrong ? please help me Im working on it more than 48 hours
Samuelgentl said:
I made ext3 partition cca 800 MB and swap partition cca 133 MB on my SD card by using MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition just as was written in here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...authkey=CLDJw80N&pli=1#heading=h.7a0p0in86w01
Then I have put my SD card into HD2 and by using MAGLDR I have installed american android 2.3.7 NAND.
But problem is it shows that my internal memory is still the same (as was before I made ext3 partition 218 MB total and 159 MB free)
I believed that when I create ext3 partition it will increase my internal memory. But it did only that some space from my SD card disappeared.
Also when I run android commander it shows that there is no ext partition
Could somebody explain me why is that, what did I wrong ? please help me Im working on it more than 48 hours
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on the script you are using, internal memory wont show an increase. If you want to see if its working use titanium backup. The reason for this is different scripts use different symlinks and linked directories.
evilbarcode said:
Depending on the script you are using, internal memory wont show an increase. If you want to see if its working use titanium backup. The reason for this is different scripts use different symlinks and linked directories.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
titanium backup dont show me anything like ext3 partition
I have no idea what I did wrong .. I did it in accordance with instructions witch was written in american android FAQ
could somebody tell me please how could I use a ext3 SD partition in american android 2.3.7 NAND? Im working on it 60 hours and I dont know what I do wrong because my android is not able to mount that partition:
here is what I did:
1. operating system wm 6,5 HTC HD2
2. flash MAGLDR 1.13 and choosed option 5. flash USB
3. run american android setup (ACA setup exe) and installed it
4. took my SD card 4GB and by using minitools partition wizard i created:
- HD2 partition, primary, FAT 32, cluster 32k
- sd-ext partion, primary, ext3, 800 MB
- linux swap, primary, 128 MB
5. then I insert SD card into HTC HD2 and restart
6. android, titanium backup, android commander are not able to detect any ext3 partition
7. Link2SD was able to detect this partition and install apps in there but when I restarted my phone all apps installed in sd2 partition just disappeared. So now link2sd just shows there is something on sd2 partition but Im not able to see it nor use it
could somebody tell me what I did wrong ?
How could I run data2sd script or a2sd+ script on american android rom ? (I have looking for it on the thread but I didnt find instructions)
or tell me another option how to free internal memory of phone for american android 2.3.7 NAND CM7,2
hi guys new user of HTC HD2 here (previous motorola defy user)
so I got this phone yesterday thru swapping, and this phone is awesome, but I was rather disappointed with the internal memory. Mines got 186mb of application space so I always get memory full prompts. I know there is a mod to increase the size.
I flashed paranoid android this morning and boy is it good looking
I just want to increase my internal memory and Id be happy with it
what's the maximum I can a lot to it?
chachoi said:
hi guys new user of HTC HD2 here (previous motorola defy user)
so I got this phone yesterday thru swapping, and this phone is awesome, but I was rather disappointed with the internal memory. Mines got 186mb of application space so I always get memory full prompts. I know there is a mod to increase the size.
I flashed paranoid android this morning and boy is it good looking
I just want to increase my internal memory and Id be happy with it
what's the maximum I can a lot to it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK first things first,
Are you familiar with the 'stuff' of the HD2? MAGLDR bootloader, ClockworkMod Recovery(CWM)? sd-ext partitions?
well I'm trying to learn this terms but this is gonna take a while I think,
the Previous owner has installed magdlr 1.13 and clockworkmod and I have flashed paranoid android rom this morning. So I do have a recovery
sd-ext partion not so much
**okay okay, you will need to do a lot of research about your device and using it to its full potential; too much that it can't be explained within one post **
but here is a method I found in xda of performing a sd-ext partition within cwm:
> GO to advance and then partition SD card
> Remember this will wipe the sd card so back everything up if need be
> Choose how much space you want, 1024mb is recommended, on the partition then then choose 0MB for swap
>PLEASE NOTE PARTITIONING WILL WIPE THE SD CARD!
>and hey presto your done
> from here you can install link2sd and your set to go. -note, you will need to read about link2sd before use. just search it
There are many benifits of this using EXT-Partition such as you apps will automatically transfer to your partition meaning you will free space on your internal storage!
apologies if there's any misinformation there, quite tired :$
Sent from space..
ah I see, so basically the sd card will be detected as and internal card and I won't face memory full errors whenever uninstalling?
but I can just use link2sd app to transfer apps to sd card manually right?
I was wondering why I only have 186mb of internal memory wherein in GSM arena it says at least 512mb.
what I want to do is a phone modification to increase it, just in case the sd card was corrupted, I still have my apps on the phone memory
thanks for the reply though, if you can add something feel free :victory:
chachoi said:
ah I see, so basically the sd card will be detected as and internal card and I won't face memory full errors whenever uninstalling?
but I can just use link2sd app to transfer apps to sd card manually right?
I was wondering why I only have 186mb of internal memory wherein in GSM arena it says at least 512mb.
what I want to do is a phone modification to increase it, just in case the sd card was corrupted, I still have my apps on the phone memory
thanks for the reply though, if you can add something feel free :victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It says 186Mb because when you flash CWM, you also partition your NAND to run Android. Essentially, the storage you get is 512Mb-CWM partition size, although normally it's lower as there are probably things other than this installed to the NAND.
Thank you
Nigeldg said:
It says 186Mb because when you flash CWM, you also partition your NAND to run Android. Essentially, the storage you get is 512Mb-CWM partition size, although normally it's lower as there are probably things other than this installed to the NAND.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi so are you saying I can increase my phone memory by re-partition? how can you tell me please! id be happy by 300mb at least
chachoi said:
Hi so are you saying I can increase my phone memory by re-partition? how can you tell me please! id be happy by 300mb at least
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it depends on the partition size you're currently using. If it's already the minimum for your ROM then no you can't increase the storage by repartitioning the NAND, but if it's any more than the minimum then you can increase this, by reflashing recovery with the correct size. Make a full backup in CWM first though.
so I reflashed 150MB recovery partition and flashed AOKP build by xylograph
now I have 217MB of internal memory
what should I flash so I can have more space?
the less is your recovery partition - more internal memory you get. Minimal recovery partition can be about 100 mb for some light roms I belive. So you can get 50 more mb than you hav now.
You've mentioned 300mb earlier, even if you get your desired 300mb it's gonna get filled up very soon.
I would advise you as was mentioned above to borrow 1gb from your sd card for sd-ext partition. Most of the roms support from the box (without intsalling any additional apps or scripts) sd-ext partition and install apps by default on that partiotion, Paranoid Android does, for instance, actually 80% of the roms do as well...
I don't know if it means anything, but you could look into a US HD2. Its got 1024 mb internal memory! That's double!
ok maybe ill experiment with this sd-ext partition
never had to deal with tgis when I was on defy
try this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1661892
I installed AOKP in NAND & had only a few 100mb's available, I just used Link2SD & moved most apps/ games to SD. SD has no ext. part. yet. will do it latter when i get a 32gig card, now just testing a 4gig SD