i've been seeing that "Ext4 is required" for newer ROMs, but i was wondering what that actually means with respect to Android...i understand that it's a filesystem. thanks and sorry for the ignorance.
From my understanding it's kind of like how a hard drive is formatted. In this case we used to have rfs and thanks to the good folks here we now have the now becoming standard ext4 which is supposed to be a bit speedier on the I/O I believe.
I think it also supports larger file sizes.
great...thanks for the info.
rockrerun said:
I think it also supports larger file sizes.
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I don't think that would matter though. It's the SD card that is in FAT32 that would hold the over 4gb file. The phone will play it in any case. Now...if you formatted the SD to ext4 then I suppose this would be true. I don't know if the new file ext4 was needed to "read" an ext4 sd card or not though. I could simply format my sd to ext4 (since I'm still on RFS for now) and check out if an over 4gb video file would play...or be seen at all.
Related
Hello
Sometimes i want to move file that's bigger then 4G to a sd-cart. Unfortunately FAT32 don't support this
So I asked google and google didn't know eather, but he gave me interesting project. Android-x86
Android-x86 supports NTFS as file system.
So i was wandering, if in kernel i turn module ntfs on, will i be possible to convert fat32 partition to ntfs?
will it work then?
[edit] I know I can change fat32 to ext3/4 but will it be mounted to /sd-cart/ so i'll be able to write/read it from the phone?[/edit]
really interesting any news about this???
anyway some notice about other platform??? how is it possible that still today don't exist an operative system for smartphone with filesystem support more than old fat32 4gb data??? this has no sense for me
confiq said:
[edit] I know I can change fat32 to ext3/4 but will it be mounted to /sd-cart/ so i'll be able to write/read it from the phone?[/edit]
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I realise I'm replying to an old post but as there's been recent activity on this thread...
I'd just use an ext2 partition. If you're running A2SD you probably have one already. I run MCR 3.2 on my Hero & this partition is mounted (as a result of A2SD) on /system/sd & is obviously read/write. Max filesize under ext2/3 is 16GB for a 1KB blocksize.
anything happen with this? with the wealth of tablets coming out with the ability to mount host powered usb harddrives it would be great to be able to read/write (or even just read) ntfs natively within Android. formatting to Ext3 is the only option at the moment and is a bit of a ballache if i want to use the drive for anything else or take it to a friends etc.
thefunkygibbon said:
anything happen with this? with the wealth of tablets coming out with the ability to mount host powered usb harddrives it would be great to be able to read/write (or even just read) ntfs natively within Android. formatting to Ext3 is the only option at the moment and is a bit of a ballache if i want to use the drive for anything else or take it to a friends etc.
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Havent heard anything yet. But you can use the EXT2/3 FS driver for windows to make your life a little easier. I use it when I pull hdds out of my NAS.
http://www.fs-driver.org/
I'm going to be running Cyanogen's 5.0.6 with Amon_RA's, I know that I can format my card through there with the newest version of the RA, my question is though what are the best partition size to create for a 16GB card class 6, I'm not sure what the swap size should be and what size ext partition should be I would like about 1GB for apps. Then which is the best to use, ext2 ext3 or ext4, I know this question has been answer on the mytouch and g1 millions of times just not sure if its the same thing on Nexus. I'm not sure what the advantages are over the different exts.
Use ext4. and swap is no longer required.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Apps2SD on CM will only work with ext4 partitions...
craigacgomez said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Apps2SD on CM will only work with ext4 partitions...
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You're correct. I'll update my post. Thanks
ok so if swap isn't needed anymore then what is the maximum size ext4 I can have before seeing a performance decrease or does it matter.
DynaBass139 said:
ok so if swap isn't needed anymore then what is the maximum size ext4 I can have before seeing a performance decrease or does it matter.
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Shouldn't matter
Hey all, I'm having a bit of a dilemma and hoping some of you can help me
So - with the introduction of NAND, we are finally able to run Android similar to a native device. Great!
I've dabbled with a large number of ROM's now and settled(ish) on a basic Desire ROM which I have to say, runs absolutely perfectly.
However, I'm missing some of the features from the DesireHD SD card days and I see there are various builds. I tried a squashedfs build and found that it was far more laggy than the unsquashed Desire build I use now.
I've just noticed that there are number of newer builds using an EXT partition on the SD card to store the apps while the ROM itself sits in the NAND.
But is it worth it is my question? Running all the apps off an SD card, surely is akin to just running the whole system from SD? Also, what's the difference between EXT3 and EXT4? I've seen a ROM which advise to use EXT3 while the other suggests 4.
Finally, if the apps run from a partition, does that mean USB Mass Storage connection is out of the question?
Phew. Thanks
NAND is suppose to have a faster read, than write when compared to SD.
NAND and SD has about 100,000 P/E cycles. SD is cheaper to replace than phone, but by the time you get to that many write cycles, your phone is an antique.
You can still use SD card when in USB Mass Storage mode. You will only see the FAT32 partition in Windows. Unless you use a 3rd party program for usb mass storage mode.
ext4
ext3
Comparison of all file systems
There isn't that much difference in ext4 and ext3, especially on a phone. ext2 is probably faster than ext3, but it doesn't have journaling, so, the data is more likely to corrupt when device is not properly turned off.
LiFE1688 said:
There isn't that much difference in ext4 and ext3, especially on a phone. ext2 is probably faster than ext3, but it doesn't have journaling, so, the data is more likely to corrupt when device is not properly turned off.
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So in fact, if I use a DesireHD CWK Rom with the Apps stuck in EXT4 lets say, it won't be a massively notable difference to say just a Desire CWK Rom on NAND because the OS is still on NAND and it's just the apps that aren't. Furthermore, once they are in the RAM, it makes little difference anyway, right?
There is a difference in ext4 and ext3. Not all kernels support ext4 is probably the biggest. ext4 doesn't cause files fragmentation as much as ext3. Unfortunately, none of us used ext3/4 partitions in SD card long enough to notice the speed lost when files are fragmented in the ext3/4 partition.
So if you are going to use Desire build, check to see if the kernel supports ext4 in the first place. So far, I have seen MDJ's 10 Kernels supporting ext4, other than that, I don't remember seeing another.
Great, I'll see what happens! Thanks
I've been hearing a lot about partitioning sd cards and I know it's done in recovery mode.
So my question is - What's the difference between ext2, ext3, ext4 and swap partition?
Please help out!!
ext2 - Linux file system (no journaling)
ext3 - basically ext2 with journaling
ext4 - next generation of ext3 with better journaling and performance
swap - if internal memory should run full, parts would be swapped to the swap space, so it is basically an enhancement of internal memory
Check each out in the wikipedia, its worth it!
EDIT: I'd personally always go for ext4 and 128 swap
tbschommer said:
ext2 - Linux file system (no journaling)
ext3 - basically ext2 with journaling
ext4 - next generation of ext3 with better journaling and performance
swap - if internal memory should run full, parts would be swapped to the swap space, so it is basically an enhancement of internal memory
Check each out in the wikipedia, its worth it!
EDIT: I'd personally always go for ext4 and 128 swap
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Thanks man,
But still I have few more questions..
What do you mean by "journaling"? And why do we need ext, ext2, ext4 for our mobile?
And swap is for enhancing internal memory or RAM?
Aced443 said:
Thanks man,
But still I have few more questions..
What do you mean by "journaling"? And why do we need ext, ext2, ext4 for our mobile?
And swap is for enhancing internal memory or RAM?
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Click to collapse
Journaling filesystem - quote from Wikipedia:
A journaling file system is a file system that keeps track of the changes that will be made in a journal (usually a circular log in a dedicated area of the file system) before committing them to the main file system. In the event of a system crash or power failure, such file systems are quicker to bring back online and less likely to become corrupted.
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Sorry I can't elaborate on why Android uses ext4 - I only read that one reason is that it's capable of multithreading. I hope one of the experts can tell us both more
Swap - you're right, of course - is used for RAM.
I've an I9505 with AOSP MIUI and ChronicKernel, and I have just bought a new 16GB Sandisk Ultra HCI (1) MicroSD.
Do you suggest to format it with an EXT4 filesystem or the default FAT32?
I've done some speed test, and the writing speed of 1GB file seems the same.
I don't usually need to store single files bigger than 2GB.
I also do not need to write on it from Windows. I can in any case safety read EXT4 on Windows with many apps.
I only seen that with the EXT4 I have 1GB less of free space, caused maybe by the SU allocated space. Tune2FS -m 0 seems don't work here.
The recovery seems to work on EXT4 well.
Is EXT4 much more safe, affrodable, fast and modern to justificate the upgrade?
Are there some more good reason to chose EXT4 over the very diffuse Fat32?
The only complains regards free space and writing from Windows. Seems possible just by few software, like Ext2Fsd-0.51, but it's still not possible to erase android user created files. I have in any case few of this needs.
Thank you in advance for your kind reply.
I have not seen significant difference in performance between filesystems.
However, I do need (from time to time) to have files bigger than 2GB on my SD card, since I use it as external disc too... so I go by inertia with NTFS.
You WILL need sooner or later > 2GB file on your SD... So, in your case, EXT4...
Thank you Bodisson.
I'm still looking a way to freeup the SU allocated space, wich is so hight. 1GB of loss space on a 16GB card!!!
Bodisson said:
You WILL need sooner or later > 2GB file on your SD... So, in your case, EXT4...
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No, Fat32 has support for files up to 4GB. So only if you need files bigger than THAT you should change filesystem.
If you don't: simply stick with Fat32 as it is way way WAY more compatible with every phone, camera, computer, whatever.
Pfeffernuss said:
No, Fat32 has support for files up to 4GB. So only if you need files bigger than THAT you should change filesystem.
If you don't: simply stick with Fat32 as it is way way WAY more compatible with every phone, camera, computer, whatever.
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Thank you Pfeffernuss. I did a mistake. Fat32 and < 4GB file dimension, right!
In any case I would sacrifice compatibility but reliability. Fat32 is an old filesystem, and not very affrodable in case of OS crash. File recovery is also not at best. Speed for big files are the same, I admit. But the speed for small file access is much more slow.
I also use FTP and SCP for file tranfer.
I do not like to unmount MicroSD inside a full working OS to let it Windows directly compatibile. And also the internal memory is in any case Windows non accessibile.
Both can use MTP onthefly.
I like NTFS for Windows based usage. It's really much more fast and secure than Fat32.
I want to do the same in a Linux environment.
I'm finally oriented to an EXT4 ...
In any case thanks for your reply.