Database Users

Swap Partition When Using Apps2sd

Hey guys,
I am planning to format my sdcard to fat32/ext_ partitions for use of apps2sd. I have a few questions I would like answered first though.
-Is a swap partition required? I have little space on my sd and would rather not use one. If it is required, what size/file system would you suggest? I take it there is no invisible swap partition by default?
-Ext 2, 3 or 4 for my apps2sd partition?
- I am planning to make my apps2sd partition only about 200mb, will that work well?
Thanks.

- swap: depending on rom, but in general: no
- i would recommend ext2, you can use 3 or 4 as well. keep in mind that ext4 doesn't work on any 2.1 rom until we have the kernel sources (after official release).
- it will work, the size only determines how many apps you can install there. average size of an app is ~1mb, though can go from a few kb to several mb (i.e. copilot.apk has 14mb).

Thanks a lot Any particular advantage of ext2 over ext3?

tbman1996 said:
Thanks a lot Any particular advantage of ext2 over ext3?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ext3 and ext4 wear out your sdcard quicker, because of journaling features.
Since, compared to a system or cache partition, the sdcard is not written to as much, and system crashes where the mobile is shut down during a write operation are rare for Android, journaling doesn't offer any significant advantage. The unnecessary journaling however, accounts for extra writes to the flash memory chips, which in turn equals extra wear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2 said:
ext2 is still the filesystem of choice for flash-based storage media (such as SD cards, SSDs, and USB flash drives) since its lack of a journal minimizes the number of writes and flash devices have only a limited number of write cycles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] Ext3 or ext4

Is it possible to have our data sectors written as ext3 or ext4. I remember from my g1 days that they are supposed to be faster then ext2 never heard a diffenate on that though.... Personal experience is ext3 is fastest but thats just experience and imo, nothing to prove that...sorry if this had been asked I searched and dididn't come up with anything..

A tutorial on how to create a swap partition is also interesting.
Sorry for my english...

Ext2 is used because the way the data is accessed under ext3 and ext4 reduces the life of an SSD. Ext3 and Ext4 would be fine if you used HDDs, but we don't have a slot that big on our HD2s.

Thanks for the response, but I think some of us are willing to cook a sd card if it improves performance.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

how de we create ext4 partition?

[Q] What is EXT4 and what are the benefits of it?

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.

Its time to partition. A few questions.

Okay, I am now thinking of partitioning my SD Card....
So a few questions:
1. What are ext4, SWAP and any other kind of partitions and the difference between them?
2. How do I partition and what should be the size of different partitions, how many partitions and each partition for what purpose?
3. After partitioning, what next so that all my apps go to partitioned SD Card, like adding a few App2SD Scripts?
4. What exactly are these App2SD and Data2SD Scripts and the difference between them?

[email protected] said:
Okay, I am now thinking of partitioning my SD Card....
So a few questions:
1. What are ext4, SWAP and any other kind of partitions and the difference between them?
2. How do I partition and what should be the size of different partitions, how many partitions and each partition for what purpose?
3. After partitioning, what next so that all my apps go to partitioned SD Card, like adding a few App2SD Scripts?
4. What exactly are these App2SD and Data2SD Scripts and the difference between them?
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See THIS
And also THIS

That was a good read....
But what is "Swap"?
I have no idea what that is....
And is there specifically any difference between ext3 and ext4?

[email protected] said:
That was a good read....
But what is "Swap"?
I have no idea what that is....
And is there specifically any difference between ext3 and ext4?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK swap is a partition that makes it run as ram when its required.. In short for memory!!
And ext3 and ext4 are just linux partitions and ext4 is recommended. Google is always your friend!!

[email protected] said:
That was a good read....
But what is "Swap"?
I have no idea what that is....
And is there specifically any difference between ext3 and ext4?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are getting some errors/bugs after partitioning, disable swap as it doesnt work for every1
Sent from my GT-i5801 using XDA App

neo1691 said:
AFAIK swap is a partition that makes it run as ram when its required.. In short for memory!!
And ext3 and ext4 are just linux partitions and ext4 is recommended. Google is always your friend!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all the info mate....

[Q] Do you suggest EXT4 over Fat32 for 16GB MicroSD??

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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.