Database Users

Is App2SD necessary for MyTouch?

I installed Cyanogen Rom v4.0.1 and successfully partition sd card with fat32/ext4/swap. Afterward, I realize there are over 300MB in the /data/.
It seems like for normal usage (not excess # of app installed), It doesn't really need to use App2SD and the internal memory should be sufficient space. That should make the phone more stable and speeder since it doesn't depend on the sdcard at all. I dont' plan to install Hero since i won't need the /swap.
What do you think?

going from using no apps to sd to using apps to sd I find that everything seems to run faster for me. Yes i tested it.

That is very interesting. I wonder why app2sd to faster? I mean the sd card IS slower than the internal flash memory.

It's not necessary for Magic/MyTouch3g. It was designed for HTC Dream which has a small amount of storage for apps, Magic does not have that problem.

im running qtek hero rom...how could i disable/remove a2sd?

Format SD Card
waacow said:
I installed Cyanogen Rom v4.0.1 and successfully partition sd card with fat32/ext4/swap. Afterward, I realize there are over 300MB in the /data/.
It seems like for normal usage (not excess # of app installed), It doesn't really need to use App2SD and the internal memory should be sufficient space. That should make the phone more stable and speeder since it doesn't depend on the sdcard at all. I dont' plan to install Hero since i won't need the /swap.
What do you think?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Installed Rom fine. Having some issue with Sync Calendar but otherwise great. Question: How do I partition SD Card with fat32/ext4/swap???

marknlee said:
Installed Rom fine. Having some issue with Sync Calendar but otherwise great. Question: How do I partition SD Card with fat32/ext4/swap???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The easiest way is to fastboot Amon_RA's recovery.img, there is an option in there to create and format the partitions, you just select it with the trackball.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=530492

APPS2SD Confusion.

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.

[Q] Galaxy 3 Apps2SD. Data still being saved on the internal memory..

Hey everyone.
I installed a leaked version of Froyo on my Galaxy 3 I5800. I'm using the hack to always install the apps on the memory card. However, only the main apks of the apps are being stored on the memory card. Any application data is still being stored on the internal memory. For example, installing Angry Birds takes 10 MB on the memory card, but also takes about 2 MB on the internal phone memory..
Apps2SD is a huge improvement, but still, if the data's being stored on the internal memory, I'm gonna run out of space some time or the other.
Is there a hack or something to make the phone keep even the data on the memory card? I've heard about Apps2Ext but not sure if that can be installed on my phone and whether it stores the app data on the EXT partition too.
Any ideas?

Android documentation says that even when app. is installed on SD card,
"The .apk file is saved on the external storage, but all private user data, databases, optimized .dex files, and extracted native code are saved on the internal device memory."

TekkenLaw said:
Android documentation says that even when app. is installed on SD card,
"The .apk file is saved on the external storage, but all private user data, databases, optimized .dex files, and extracted native code are saved on the internal device memory."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May be that's better because program can run faster.. anyway you can solve it by creating of ext2 partition on your SD card and virtualy enlarge internal storage.
But I haven't found any manual how to do it on i5800.

Are there ext2 capabilities in the i5800's Froyo? I'm asking because 2.1 lacks them, much to my dismay. A Linuxish device with a closed file system (rfs) with no tools available (and FAT), erm...

addicted2088 said:
Hey everyone.
I installed a leaked version of Froyo on my Galaxy 3 I5800. I'm using the hack to always install the apps on the memory card. However, only the main apks of the apps are being stored on the memory card. Any application data is still being stored on the internal memory. For example, installing Angry Birds takes 10 MB on the memory card, but also takes about 2 MB on the internal phone memory..
Apps2SD is a huge improvement, but still, if the data's being stored on the internal memory, I'm gonna run out of space some time or the other.
Is there a hack or something to make the phone keep even the data on the memory card? I've heard about Apps2Ext but not sure if that can be installed on my phone and whether it stores the app data on the EXT partition too.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
install move to SD first then choose the option Exteral SD.Anything you install from now on will be installed to the SDCARD but aware the widgets and programs that require root doesn't work well in the SDCARD together with home replacement program.Unless of course the app itself support installing to SD.

banahaw said:
install move to SD first then choose the option Exteral SD.Anything you install from now on will be installed to the SDCARD but aware the widgets and programs that require root doesn't work well in the SDCARD together with home replacement program.Unless of course the app itself support installing to SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is what he did. But not everything will be saved to SD. This is the what he says.

nastyba said:
this is what he did. But not everything will be saved to SD. This is the what he says.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the APK file, that is the main package, is installed on the SD card. However, all the data that the application actually saves are usually on the internal device memory.
I have enabled Move to SD and set the install path to external, but it will still save application data on the phone memory. That is how Android is designed to work

banahaw said:
install move to SD first then choose the option Exteral SD.Anything you install from now on will be installed to the SDCARD but aware the widgets and programs that require root doesn't work well in the SDCARD together with home replacement program.Unless of course the app itself support installing to SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes, I'm aware of all this. But still wanted to mention the point that the internal memory will always get used..

addicted2088 said:
Oh yes, I'm aware of all this. But still wanted to mention the point that the internal memory will always get used..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can extend your internal storage with your SD card, but you need to create ext2 partition on your SD card first and then <i>and this is the problem</i> explain to your i5800 to use this partion on SD card.
I've red many articles about it on HTC / SE phones where this method work. They say that the ROM must be customized, which haven't been done yet with our phone. The problem is, that the good programmers have Desire / or SGS and they do not care about the i5800

nastyba said:
you can extend your internal storage with your SD card, but you need to create ext2 partition on your SD card first
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And this is where the problem starts: The i5800 cannot handle ext2, at least not with its stock roms. You're stuck with an exotic proprietary file system (rfs) for which no tools are available.

mizch said:
And this is where the problem starts: The i5800 cannot handle ext2, at least not with its stock roms. You're stuck with an exotic proprietary file system (rfs) for which no tools are available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may be one day there will be a custom rom which will allows it

nastyba said:
may be one day there will be a custom rom which will allows it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mizch said:
And this is where the problem starts: The i5800 cannot handle ext2, at least not with its stock roms. You're stuck with an exotic proprietary file system (rfs) for which no tools are available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this problem allready solved?
Because my bro has problems with the little internal space.

(•.•) said:
Is this problem allready solved?
Because my bro has problems with the little internal space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. For that you need to first flash a fugumod kernel. Then you can use Kyrillos' apptosd script from here. You need to use apptosd script v3 if you want your /data/data to be transferred to your SD. But script v3 works good only with class 6 SD card or higher.
Oh yes. You need to convert your data partition to ext4 and create an ext4 partition in SD card also.

ok formating...
seems that i have here a class 4 sd card 8gb... damn it!

I am currently on Kyrillos 6.1. If i create an EXT4 partition in my SD card, via CWM recovery, how can i move the apps which are already installed in my phone memory to that partition? Like if i use Titanium backup, then would moving the apps would go to FAT partition or the newly created EXT4 partition?

mrn123 said:
I am currently on Kyrillos 6.1. If i create an EXT4 partition in my SD card, via CWM recovery, how can i move the apps which are already installed in my phone memory to that partition? Like if i use Titanium backup, then would moving the apps would go to FAT partition or the newly created EXT4 partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First backup your apps using titanuim backup. It will get backed up in SD card. Then copy the backed up apps and the rest of the stuff in your SD card to your PC. Then goto recovery, advanced, partition SD card. Create the required partitions. All data in SD card will be erased. Then in recovery only, wipe data. Then reboot. After that all the apps which you install will goto the ext partition that you created.

Thanks Dhiren!!! I was just wondering whether there was any way to directly move the apps to the EXT4 partition which are already installed on phone memory..I shall try out as you said...

APPS2SD and LINK2SD question.

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

link2sd

installed link2d on stockrom after root with universal androot and formatted the second partition with fat32 since it doesn't support extX partitions.
Everything works.
link2sd asks what to link: app, dalvik-cache and library
Maybe must play with these settings to have WIDGETS still working when linked ?
I remember they usually stop working when installed on sd...
this omap is really fast !!!
with flash working great too !

I've used it just for games and a few things that are bulky like opera. I didn't try and widgets/livewallpapers because of the time spent preparing the SD card on startup.
It's so much easier using this when you don't have to worry about apps eating up all of your available storage.

I use it with almost everything. Only things that I'd like to have available when things go wrong and I have to boot without the card, I leave unlinked.
BTW. I'm using a kernel driver that was in the app2card .apk file to allow be to mount the partition as ext2 instead of fat32

A good thread on how to re-partition the SD card
Thanks to bakpinar

ghostwheel said:
I use it with almost everything. Only things that I'd like to have available when things go wrong and I have to boot without the card, I leave unlinked.
BTW. I'm using a kernel driver that was in the app2card .apk file to allow be to mount the partition as ext2 instead of fat32
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you post details about the driver file to use? I guess you must move it somewhere...
I dont need them since i'm happy with fat32 but someone could find them useful
Sent from my MotoMB511 using XDA App

I'd be interested in finding out what you did to get app2card working....
I used it to partition the sd card fine (well when i finally managed to click the done button... grr...) and it copied apps to the same partition but it won't mount the partition and has kept the apps in the main memory too...
is there better apps or a way to do it that's easier?
does the flipout support ext2?
I love this phone to bits already but it's a major let down when you can only get a few apps on it with it being full and having a fit!!

Meh.... tried link2sd... now my home button doesn't work and nothing will download from the market...