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I'm looking at getting a low-end 7" tablet over the next couple of weeks. My biggest concern over the Kindle though is the lack of expandable memory. Is there any cloud-based alternatives out there that would allow you to use something along the lines of APP2SD that actually puts the files some place like Box.net? I know I can use Cloud Reader for books and the Cloud Drive for music, pictures, and docs, but my Bible software alone is 495MB with all the different translations and such and I don't see any way to put all the apps I want on a Kindle with its limited internal memory. I'd even be willing to root if it meant that I could do something like have my 50GB of Box.net space as a virtual SD card.
As especially folks in this forum know, Android likes having free storage space for data and app updates. Depending on the apps you use and what you are trying to update, an Android device can start having install errors and start also slowing down anywhere on average from 500MB to 1GB.
The Nook HD+ though seems to start getting freaky if less than 3GB. I noticed this after reinstalling NFSMW, which needs 2.26GB to operate. Everything was fine when I installed this game with more space, but I had about 2.9GB free after installing that game as one of my apps to remain on the Nook. Once going below 3GB, all apps were very-very slow to start (5 to 10 seconds) and a lot of app crashes. I booted to the image disk and cleared cache, but the only thing that worked was to unintall NFSMW (I also had to manually delete the 1.8GB data file, since it did not uninstall).
The Nook HD+ from that point went from a speedy great device to near junk. I have tested this several times with other large apps with the same result.
On a positive note, the Nook HD+ works great with all Bluetooth gamepads I tested and the emulators. Did not try a PS3 controller, since did not expect it work.
With the Nook HD/HD+, the /data storage system is different than many older devices. If you look at my HD/HD+ Tips thread linked in my signature you will learn more. The bottom line is that /data and /media (sdcard) share the free space on the device. The HD+ comes with either 12GB or 28GB of free space depending on which model you have. As you add media files you start restricting /data. So to get more /data space, delete files on sdcard or move them to external SD.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
Given your great results making the device better, your word holds firm meaning for me. The issue here though is I see discrete totals in the storage tab for both internal and micro sd and see no aggrergate total for both. I have had 624mb free in the 32gb micro sd since getting the Nook and had about 5.5GB free with internal. Everything is fine until the internal gets below 3GB and the tablet turns to mud. The micro sd content has not deviated. Added: I have also used without the sd card installed and same issue. Performance is awful if near or less than 3gb.
Also, even after getting storage back to 5.5GB free, the device does not seem as zippy in spite of claering the cache as well. The device is not getting hot, so not an issue of a rogue app sucking up cpu cycles. I thought maybe the battery saver mode was activated, but it is not. That would not have slowed things down that much anyway.
Also, for some reason games like Asphalt 7 take forever to load up. Some big games are about normal, some take literally six to ten times longer to load up (on average). A7 seems the worst of the games for loading slow. I think I recall a few reviews commenting on this, but did not understand what they were talking about. Must be the way the data is compiled and placed in storage.
Added: Actually after more review, all the games I have tested load slowly. This is in contrast to when games install, it is faster than other devices. I did not notice when testing since was more a focus on gameplay. Some games load up real fast on other devices, so I did not notice when others were slow. Was testing off and on through several days with no time contraints. The big data games are the snail slow loaders.
That is odd to have the device that is the fastest installing games and updating, but the absolute slowest loading them to play. They are not slow during gameplay, but do slow down when levels load.
rushless said:
Given your great results making the device better, your word holds firm meaning for me. The issue here though is I see discrete totals in the storage tab for both internal and micro sd and see no aggrergate total for both. I have had 624mb free in the 32gb micro sd since getting the Nook and had about 5.5GB free with internal. Everything is fine until the internal gets below 3GB and the tablet turns to mud. The micro sd content has not deviated. Added: I have also used without the sd card installed and same issue. Performance is awful if near or less than 3gb.
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Click to collapse
Part of the problem is you are confusing "SD card" and "sdcard". They are two different things. "SD card" in settings is your external SD. And internal is the combined /data and /media (sdcard). If you were to look at "sdcard" with your file manager, you would see the same amount of free space available as it shows in settings for internal. If you look at /mnt/ext_sdcard with your file manager, you will see it has the same amount of free space shown in "SD card" in settings.
So how the confusion comes about is that apps use the internal "sdcard" to store their media data files instead of the external SD. This decreases the amount of free space for new apps to install to and operate.
If you want your apps to use the external SD for storing their media files, I have a zip on my HD/HD+ CWM thread linked in my signature that will swap the internal "sdcard" and the external "ext_sdcard" so that apps will use the external SD. Doing that helps in two ways. It stops your apps from clogging up your internal space with media files, leaving more room for your apps themselves. Second, generally large external SDs have even more media space.
Now, about your 32GB external SD having only 624MB free, you must have your CWM SD or a Hybrid SD inserted in the slot for it to only show 624MB free. Either that or you have a HUGE amount of media files there.
If you have your CWM SD inserted, you should not be using it for external storage, it should be removed and stored away and another card used.
If you have the Hybrid SD inserted, you need to flash my zip from my Hybrid thread that lets stock see the large media partition on the Hybrid SD instead of just the small boot partition.
I know it is confusing, but once you understand it, you can set your system up to hum.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
I appreciate the difference between the storage and that is what I am referring to. Mapping has been that way since ICS. It was changed after HC due to Android team getting rid of apps2sd. App data needs to be mapped to the first concurrent "sd" that is mapped. The internal "sd". My external sd is loaded with MAMEreloaded and PSX roms, so yes, it is filled up with 624mb left and the internal sd (called same thing on all ICS and JB devices) has 5.5gb free.
That was my point about the operational floor, since the HD+ appears to not like going below 3gb. BTW' though I missed the the terminology on permissions and unknown sources, it does not mean I am a tech illiterate In my defense though, from a framework standpoint, they are the same thing as far as permissions to access secure layers of the framework. If Android team had their complete way, no side loading would be allowed and external sd cards would be gone as well. They seem to strive to be more like iOS more each year.
In summary, I appreciate that the external card is mapped with an ext suffix. At least that is how it shows on all my current devices via ES Explorer.
rushless said:
I appreciate the difference between the storage and that is what I am referring to. Mapping has been that way since ICS. It was changed after HC due to Android team getting rid of apps2sd. App data needs to be mapped to the first concurrent "sd" that is mapped. The internal "sd". My external sd is loaded with MAMEreloaded and PSX roms, so yes, it is filled up with 624mb left and the internal sd (called same thing on all ICS and JB devices) has 5.5gb free.
That was my point about the operational floor, since the HD+ appears to not like going below 3gb. BTW' though I missed the the terminology on permissions and unknown sources, it does not mean I am a tech illiterate
In summary, I appreciate that the external card is mapped with an ext suffix. At least that is how it shows on all my current devices via ES Explorer.
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Well, since your external SD is loaded with non HD+ stuff, why not get another SD, do the swap zip, and have plenty of room internally so it does not turn to mud.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
Having issues with my connection, so my edit was parsed. Now complete in the reply above.
All I was asking is if the floor for internal storage was 3gb, since that is when I ran into mud. I have plenty of cards, but apps can not be installed to the external card. I have a lot of Gameloft and EA games, so run out of space quickly. Since the Nook seems to have read issues with large data files, I will remove the large data file games. Problem solved! I have them all on my 128g iPad 4 anyway. Just mainly wanted to test them out on the Nook to see if it could handle them. I guess the answer is "kind of", due to the apparent read issues it seems to have with those games. Compared to my Excite 7.7 and TF300, all large games load slower, but seem to play fine when finally loaded and until new data needs to be read into ram. The iPad makes them all seem slow in comparison.
rushless said:
Having issues with my connection, so my edit was parsed. Now complete in the reply above.
All I was asking is if the floor for internal storage was 3gb, since that is when I ran into mud. I have plenty of cards, but apps can not be installed to the external card. I have a lot of Gameloft and EA games, so run out of space quickly. Since the Nook seems to have read issues with large data files, I will remove the large data file games. Problem solved! I have them all on my 128g iPad 4 anyway. Just mainly wanted to test them out on the Nook to see if it could handle them. I guess the answer is "kind of", due to the apparent read issues it seems to have with those games. Compared to my Excite 7.7 and TF300, all large games load slower, but seem to play fine when finally loaded and until new data needs to be read into ram. The iPad makes them all seem slow in comparison.
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One final note. If you do the swap, those large data files for the gameloft games, etc, get installed to external SD. They are designed so those extra files run from SD even if the app itself must be on /data.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
Not to question per say, but I do not think data goes to the external card. All is installed to the internal storage with no option to do otherwise for any of the games I have tested. I had a 16gb that was empty when I first got the tablet and installed Nova and MW3. The external card was empty until I put game roms on it. It eventually became my image disk for flashing unkown sources.
What am I missing? Thanks.
rushless said:
Not to question per say, but I do not think data goes to the external card. All is installed to the internal storage with no option to do otherwise for any of the games I have tested. I had a 16gb that was empty when I first got the tablet and installed Nova and MW3. The external card was empty until I put game roms on it. It eventually became my image disk for flashing unkown sources.
What am I missing? Thanks.
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Click to collapse
You are missing the fact that you did not flash my swap zip and reboot so that the external SD becomes sdcard and the gameloft will install the data files there.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
Cool! I might check that out, but then I will probably be confined to that one card since both treated as one- correct?
I might not need it, since every large data game I have tried loads up a lot slower (in some cases like Asphalt 7 and Need for Speed Most Wanted, WAY too slow). I will stick with smaller games, emulators, web and media and leave the big dogs to my other tabs.
For $200 with a great display on an Android device, I will put up with the odd behavior with large data games by not installing them anymore
rushless said:
Cool! I might check that out, but then I will probably be confined to that one card since both treated as one- correct?
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Click to collapse
Yes, anytime you would want to run that large game that had the data files on that one SD would have to be run with that SD inserted.
But most folks that do this swap have one very large SD (32 or 64GB) and always leave it inserted and all of their app's data is stored there. Books, game data, music, etc. Then they never fill up internal memory with media files that potentially could choke /data.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.
I've done some searching, but the volume of content on these forums, along with the different operating modes, is making my head spin a bit. Advice or pointers to posts of particular importance gratefully appreciated. My HD+ is running 10.1 installed internally.
I plan to run with an external card in the SD slot, to keep content there and preserve internal space for applications, or app data that can't be pushed to the external card. I have the card (never used). Is there a file system choice for this card that maximizes performance? If so do I command the tablet to format the card, or do that on my supporting PC with SDFormatter?
I'm not clear if the patch to "swap" internal and external SD card locations is just for tablets running stock B&N software, or if this is also the desirable approach for a tablet running CM? If I don't use the patch, is there a post with guidelines for hacking configuration of existing apps (Kindle reader, Google books, etc) to use the external SD card?
Am I correct in understanding I may need to reference more than just the Google Play Store, to obtain apps that Google doesn't sanction (like an ad blocker for my browser)? Recommendations on alternate app stores ... Amazon's, other?
Do folks pull their eBook content straight to their tablet (via paid-content stores or free sources), or is the "better" practice to take a hop to your PC, into Calibre for conversion/backup/library management, and then down to the tablet?
One of my goals for the tablet is to catch up on a backlog of web site-based content that I need to read. I'd like to have the tablet pull content (in a "crawlish" kind of way with guidance/limits) while at home, tethered to power and next to solid WiFi, so I can read while traveling when I'm not the driver. Anyone know of a thread that is a good reference to setup of a solid, "offline browsing" strategy?
Thanks,
Alan Roberts
>Is there a file system choice for [SD] card that maximizes performance?
I don't think it matters. Use FAT32 or exFAT if you want to have >4GB files. NTFS or ext4 are alternatives, although their delayed-write feature means unmounting the card as versus simply yanking it out. Since it's for storage, it'll be mostly reads and not writes, and speed shouldn't be an issue.
>is [patch to swap int & ext SDcard location] the desirable approach for a tablet running CM?
Suggest sticking with plain vanilla unless there is good reason to do otherwise. Even with a 16GB Nook, there should be plenty of space for apps, and you can store large multimedia on ext SDcard w/o need for swap patch. Suggest you use the Nook more extensively to find out what your needs are, before making systemic changes to the OS.
>[may I] need to reference more than just the Google Play Store, to obtain apps that Google doesn't sanction
Goog Play Store is a superset of Amazon's store, so no need to have both. Some people want to include Amazon's as that has free apps daily. It's a preference, not a necessity. Sideloading apps has little to do with app stores. Aside from apps (you mentioned ad blocker) not available in 'stores', there are times when you simply want to install an apk file, as with apps on XDA and elsewhere. There's no need to do anything extra to sideload.
>Do folks pull their eBook content straight to their tablet
Unless your workflow goes through the PC, it's much simpler and faster to download straight to the tablet. You can of course download to the PC for functions other than reading.
>Anyone know of a thread that is a good reference to setup of a solid, "offline browsing" strategy?
Depends on what type of content you have in mind. There are RSS reader apps, Flipboard, etc. Suggest you go into Goog Play store and try some searches with relevant keywords, or search via Goog with same keywords + 'Android app' suffix.
Why does it seem that with every iteration of Android, we have to revisit workarounds to get 3rd party apps the ability to read/write to external storage? What is the point of having up to 200GB of storage for only native apps to use? I'm not even talking about Adoptive Storage, which is an entirely other ridiculousness. A lot of the apps I use have been fortunately been updated to explicitly ask for permission from the OS, but is there a way to just tell Android to give it up to all apps? Particularly those apps that are slow/no to update?
-Thanks
P.S. I fully anticipate needing to revisit this nonsense with Android N
The big issue with adoptable storage and running apps from the SD card is speed. This is why Samsung and LG both left it out. If you use an SD card for adoptable storage the whole system will slow down. Then people complain of long startup times for apps. Not realizing that the issue isn't from Android or the phone but from the SD card. If you want to load apps to the SD card you can. But the trade off is slow load times for those apps.
arsmithsr said:
The big issue with adoptable storage and running apps from the SD card is speed. This is why Samsung and LG both left it out. If you use an SD card for adoptable storage the whole system will slow down. Then people complain of long startup times for apps. Not realizing that the issue isn't from Android or the phone but from the SD card. If you want to load apps to the SD card you can. But the trade off is slow load times for those apps.
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Click to collapse
Just speaking for myself, I bought the 64gig extreme and moved all apps that would let me including games. Now if I reboot it takes forever to load up everything. But once everything is loaded and it settles down, I only notice a extremely small lag. Barely noticeable. I think your card read/write has everything to do with it. My racing games play flawless.
Granted you know and can tell and you know you did it. Most wouldn't and then would complain of slow speeds. They would also throw a cheap card in there and then wonder why the phone was so slow. I can see why Manufacturers would not put that functionality in there. I work in IT and see these type of things all the time.
I can understand (and live with) the limitation for adoptable storage. However, I do not understand why 3rd party apps (most of them) cannot even write data to sd card while still installed in the internal memory? Be it editing/saving pictures, saving backups, etc. Some applications can workaround it by opening a dialog where you select the sd card and the app is granted a write access to the selected folder on the card. Bot most other apps cannot do that and then fail on writing data there (some of them fail even on reading)
Anyone knows why this stupid idea was implemented and how to work-around it?
Vitore1 said:
I can understand (and live with) the limitation for adoptable storage. However, I do not understand why 3rd party apps (most of them) cannot even write data to sd card while still installed in the internal memory? Be it editing/saving pictures, saving backups, etc. Some applications can workaround it by opening a dialog where you select the sd card and the app is granted a write access to the selected folder on the card. Bot most other apps cannot do that and then fail on writing data there (some of them fail even on reading)
Anyone knows why this stupid idea was implemented and how to work-around it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I read that it was done for security reasons but it is really a PITA. No solution for that.
Vitore1 said:
I can understand (and live with) the limitation for adoptable storage. However, I do not understand why 3rd party apps (most of them) cannot even write data to sd card while still installed in the internal memory? Be it editing/saving pictures, saving backups, etc. Some applications can workaround it by opening a dialog where you select the sd card and the app is granted a write access to the selected folder on the card. Bot most other apps cannot do that and then fail on writing data there (some of them fail even on reading)
Anyone knows why this stupid idea was implemented and how to work-around it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Security, only say around it is for the app developers to update their apps.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Like the title says, no one been able to make any progress on rooting this thing?
I haven't...
I don't care about being able to install custom ROMs, I just need Google Play to look at somewhere other than internal storage to update apps. I have a 128gb card and I can install whatever I want to it but I can't update apps because everything wants more storage space than is available in the amount left on the device after the base OS and apps are installed to just hold the temp files to update with. If I could alias that to the memory card this would be the perfect cheap tablet. As it stands now I can't even update the built-in apps.
Schnapple said:
I don't care about being able to install custom ROMs, I just need Google Play to look at somewhere other than internal storage to update apps. I have a 128gb card and I can install whatever I want to it but I can't update apps because everything wants more storage space than is available in the amount left on the device after the base OS and apps are installed to just hold the temp files to update with. If I could alias that to the memory card this would be the perfect cheap tablet. As it stands now I can't even update the built-in apps.
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Click to collapse
I've got the same problem. If only I could update and install apps. You know, like what a tablet is supposed to be for?
Are you using unified storage (formatted as internal) with your SD?
smileygon10 said:
I've got the same problem. If only I could update and install apps. You know, like what a tablet is supposed to be for?
Are you using unified storage (formatted as internal) with your SD?
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Click to collapse
Yeah. And like a lot of things with Android I'm learning, nothing quite works like you think it would, especially if it means you'd have an easy time with something.
I guess on some level we can blame B&N for not putting more than 8GB in the thing. Heck, 10GB would fix the problems.
I keep returning here hoping for a miracle. I too have an SD configured for adoptable storage. But Google forces most of their own apps including non-essential crap onto internal. At this point I don't think even a base load device will function properly since updates to Google's own apps have bloated the onboard memory requirements.
Its a shame. I got these for my kids thinking they would be good low-risk devices that they could use to read, game, etc. I guess that's still partly true. The kids could use them as frisbees
I don't think Google forces their apps to be on internal. I've installed apps from the Play Store like Google Translate, and it allowed me to move to SD card. So I think it's B&N. They preinstall apps, and preinstalled apps can't be moved.
j3Eg said:
I keep returning here hoping for a miracle. I too have an SD configured for adoptable storage. But Google forces most of their own apps including non-essential crap onto internal. At this point I don't think even a base load device will function properly since updates to Google's own apps have bloated the onboard memory requirements.
Its a shame. I got these for my kids thinking they would be good low-risk devices that they could use to read, game, etc. I guess that's still partly true. The kids could use them as frisbees
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Click to collapse
It seems that while you can move many of the apps, they move right back when updated (which happens frequently). So trying to keep enough free space on the built-in storage is a losing proposition.
mniehaus said:
It seems that while you can move many of the apps, they move right back when updated (which happens frequently). So trying to keep enough free space on the built-in storage is a losing proposition.
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Yeah. I don't even have enough space to update or install apps, even with a 32 GB SD card. Apparently the Play Store isn't smart enough to be able to download and install/update an app directly to the SD card. I've had to turn off Auto-Update Apps because it would push incessant notifications that I don't have enough space to update X app.
I also have a Nook 7 with 128GB SD card formatted for internal storage--and I can't update apps either. Storage says I have 3.14 to 3.21G (depending) out of 3.36G available storage. I'm new to this, but I'd thought formatting the SD card as internal storage would solve the problem, and it obviously hasn't for me or for several others in this thread.
Does anyone have any ideas? I don't want to root until July when the warranty runs out.
Schnapple said:
Yeah. And like a lot of things with Android I'm learning, nothing quite works like you think it would, especially if it means you'd have an easy time with something.
I guess on some level we can blame B&N for not putting more than 8GB in the thing. Heck, 10GB would fix the problems.
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Click to collapse
They do have a new version that has 32GB.