[Q] Can WP8 format SD card from a WP7 Device?

[Q] Can WP8 format SD card from a WP7 Device? - Windows 8 General

I have the old memory card from my HTC Trophy, as it stands before WP8 you needed to find a Nokia Symbian device to format it. My Question is will the WP8 devices that have an SD card slot be able to format them also?
Thanks!
I posted in Win8 instead of WP8, sorry .. please delete

You don't specifically need a Symbian device, that's just typically the easiest way to find a SD cardreader device that implements the full SD spec, including the 'S' (Secure) part.
Win8 won't do any good here one way or the other, it's about your hardware and your drivers. Windows drivers tend to not include any support for that feature.

^ absolutely, you tend to find only some hardware that will support the full SD card spec, I spoke to the folk who look after the spec ages ago and they said that the ability to do it has bee there for years, but many SD card manufactures use the secure storage area to actually run programs to help speed up the cards, wiping that area could potentially reduce the random and/or sequential read speeds, sp its not something they have pushed for, as foe software doing it, there's no excuse other than no one has developed it yet
Sent from my Samsung Focus S using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

Related

Multiple Micro-SD cards..

Anyone have the knowledge to use multiple Micro-SD cards in the BA,
using an switch and and Micro-SD bridge?
Would be great if we could use more then one SD and up the available space.
Or maybe add two Micro-SD's to one adapter.

hmmm, intresting idea.
but i think the maximum space will be 4gb, due the fact that there is no SDHC driver for BA...
seems to be some kind of fat 16/32 problem.

could you post a link or a picture of the product you plan on using, i can't really picture it.
but if you already have something like that, you could also explain the way it works with a pc card reader.
here are some options i could imagine:
1. if you can combine 2 cards to some sort of raid system offering you one partition from 2 cards, it wouldn't work because of the maximum partition size.
2. if you actually switch between the cards and both are 4gb max, i could imagine that it works, on the other hand, when letting an adaptor for mini-sd or micro-sd in and just change the "small" inside card, it does not recognize the change. also, that wouldn't be such a great advantage in storage space, just a better way to carry a 2nd card.
3. if it combines 2 cards for permanent use of both and they are presented as 2 different partitions, it just might work, as the BA also supports several partitions on one sd card, and that way, data traffic between the 2 cards would also be possible.
also, i have to throw in: the fat16/32 in this case just influences the maximum file size, not the partition size. if the ba could just read fat16, you could simply make several 4gb partitions on a sdhc card ...if there was a sdhc driver.

There are a few card adapters for Stick Pro Duo that are for dual microSD cards. I don't think I have ever seen it for microSD to SD.
Hey Chef, here is a link for that
http://www.amazon.com/MicroSD-MicroSDHC-Adapter-Converts-Cards/dp/B001RPEJA4
It is a pretty nice idea and probably the BA will just see it as another drive (ie Storage Card1 and Storage Card2).

Those MicroSD > MS adapters look very interesting indeed.
Something like that would be great for SD as well. Havn't found anything though.
That is rather interesting..
But I think we are going to have to be creative here, and
make one our self.
Before attaching, and possibly destroying, some cards I would like some more information if possible.
Will/can the adapter detect them as two cards if we connect them together. Detect them as two partitions..
Or will it mess up completely.(Possibly) The BA can handle more memory, and will rename it's location accordingly that's for sure, but through an standard SD bridge..?
Can the internal bridge handle more then one device at a time..?
External: TV, GPS, Radio, Camera, WiFi ect. can be used with the SDIO interface, so it may be possible along those lines,

egzthunder1 said:
http://www.amazon.com/MicroSD-MicroSDHC-Adapter-Converts-Cards/dp/B001RPEJA4
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this adapter MS PRO DUO

fanik said:
this adapter MS PRO DUO
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you read my post, you would see that I said that even before the link was posted...

May sound dumb, please excuse me if it does but speed our phones up this way?

Is there a developer (I know there is) that can enable readyboost for windows mobile platform it would be a no brainer. Think about it most complaints we hear on the forum is from everyone having some kind of ram issue (similar to PC complaints). If we here on xda were able to create a project that would enable our sd cards to be able to do this that would be a great accomplishment. And would make our devices zippier? Sorry if it sounds dumb, but its 2010 and technology has come a long way, I mean why not we can run android from sd card and it is zippy?

ReadyBoost is not a RAM extension, it's a low-latency cache to speed up access time to mechanical media. Phones don't have hard drives, they already have flash, so this is totally unneeded.

[Q] Slow Android USB-Masstorage connection

I searched similar threads, but i found no proper answer to my question.
Is this a general android-build problem on the HD2?
I tried it with different PC's (XP/W7) and Roms (SD and NAND) and everytime
i get a only a transfer rate between 300 to 500 kbyte/s
(this is really slow! WM 6.5 connection was up to 10 Mbyte/sec)
It's a C10 sdcard and i already installed the SD read forward patch with 2048kb.
So internal reading/writing speed is not the problem.
What can i do to speed up the USB - Connection ??
(...please don't tell me to use a cardreader - this was not questioned!)
thanks!

there is a solution i believe... check out
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1010767

hellraiser-rh said:
I searched similar threads, but i found no proper answer to my question.
Is this a general android-build problem on the HD2?
I tried it with different PC's (XP/W7) and Roms (SD and NAND) and everytime
i get a only a transfer rate between 300 to 500 kbyte/s
(this is really slow! WM 6.5 connection was up to 10 Mbyte/sec)
It's a C10 sdcard and i already installed the SD read forward patch with 2048kb.
So internal reading/writing speed is not the problem.
What can i do to speed up the USB - Connection ??
(...please don't tell me to use a cardreader - this was not questioned!)
thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hate you man i was opening Q&A to post exactly about the same issue!
However i had a very satisfying SDcard read and write speeds, that is when i formatted it with SD formatter tool and WITHOUT any partitioning of it!
Today i wanted to try a sence build with EXT partition so i formatted the SDcard with the internal Partitioning tool of CWR to 1GB EXT. Then i formatted the SDcard (both FAT32 and EXT) with CWR.
I flashed a ROM and went to USB storage mode, and i was shocked!
The SDcard is now muuuuuuccccchhhh slower!!! Why is that?! And what can we do about it?!
kiki_tt said:
there is a solution i believe... check out
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1010767
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man he said that he applied that, besides that only affects internal speeds!

So can I just format my 32gb class 10 stick and run 1 fat32 partition and enjoy better performance or do we need the ext3 partition? Mines only like 200MB or so.

If using windows do you have some sort of Virus Scan going on. Is the USB hub on the computer really at USB 2.0 or more?

yep. It's a external powered 7 port usb 2.0 hub. When I plug the micro sdhc card into my usb card reader which plugs into the hub I get write speeds of 15MB/s+! Then I plug it in the phone and It pulls off 2MB/s barely. This is a CLASS 10 32GB Micro SDHC card. I changed the read_ahead_kb to 2048. No change. I'll test out 3072 and 4096. I think there's some driver issue with windows and the android usb driver or something. It's slow on several machines all operating at usb 2.0 specifications. Do we need to install software for the device? If so let me know! I get an unknown device when i plug the phone in and not usb mass storage, it tries to install the Android internal memory driver with no success. Supposedely google has a special driver for windows where u need the java developtmental sdk and the google java sdk. I'll update later. Any suggestions would be killer awesome!

any idea?
I've got a USB 2.0 connetction and the sdcard is not the Problem.
With my SDHC-reader in the same USB-port i get the normal speeds!
And i don't had this problem with WM6.5!!
With WM6.5 my spped was similar to the USB-reader!
But now ... with Android in NAND.....
The Speed problem occurs at all my PC's (XP,Vista and W7) and
with all the old SD-Build's (i thought that was an SD-Build problem)
and now with the NAND-Build (rafpigna Sense HD 4.02 ext) nothing changed !

So it is a general problem I think, not only me
Well, I was using dual mount SD for mounting the SDCard to the PC and the writing speed on the SD (class 6) was about 900KB ! But after I tried the native android mounting it was risen up to 3.4MB -which is also much slower than the card reader (~7MB)-

Same problem here ...
from the boot loader i get better write speeds ...
i tried ftp transfer too , no diferince in speed (still around 800 kbs).
i tried over wifi , still no difference.
iam using:
Pyramid HTC Europe 1.35.401.1 - Real 3D V2.3

I found out how to fix the problem. It lies within windows disk checker. Automatically fix file system errors, and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. This will take a long time depending on your speed and size of your memory stick. I do this when my speeds slow down. For my 32GB Class 10 card, it could take 2-4 Hours. However I'm getting 12-16MB/s write using windows and CWR. Make sure your device is being detected at USB 2.0 Speeds. Trust me! Doing it once ever couple days your speeds will be faster and faster. Even exceed the class specification of your card. This fixes the slow read/ write speeds!!!!
CYA

1chris89 said:
I found out how to fix the problem. It lies within windows disk checker. Automatically fix file system errors, and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. This will take a long time depending on your speed and size of your memory stick. I do this when my speeds slow down. For my 32GB Class 10 card, it could take 2-4 Hours. However I'm getting 12-16MB/s write using windows and CWR. Make sure your device is being detected at USB 2.0 Speeds. Trust me! Doing it once ever couple days your speeds will be faster and faster. Even exceed the class specification of your card. This fixes the slow read/ write speeds!!!!
CYA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ill try it ... reporting back after trying...
ok not working on the phone... ill set the sd card into a reader and try it out there

dint work at all ... some one else should feel free to confirm this
here is a bug report for this problem:
http://code.google.com/p/cyanogenmo...etwork Owner Summary Stars Priority&start=100

Ok, sorry. I'll start at the beginning and explain every detail on how to get amazingly excellent performance from you sd card. Your going to be required to format it to fat32 64kb cluster for optimum performance. That's #1 and required. If you need your ext3,4 etc partition. I'm sorry. You will have to continue to bare the poor performance. You need a raw fresh sd card. Then I would run a disk check to correct any internal errors that windows uses, with all options checked this should take a while to complete. On my 16gb class 2 it takes atleast 45 minues and 2 hours on my 32gb class 10. Windows disk checker perfects the clusters and the file system integrity. Run it once on a fresh sd card. Then transfer a file 100MB or larger to get good speeds. Transferring a ton of smaller files will always be 50-75% of your class specification. There is no way around this. The card will transfer at it's class when transferring large files. If the card was able to transfer at it's specified class with small files, would require more energy to perform the task and cause the card to overheat since it's performing more operations a second with a lot of small files compared to a few large files. One thing you will always need to keep in mind is the performance is very delicate and will not be maintained for long if you don't take extra special care of safely removing the device from the computer. I've been lucky to just turn off usb mass storage when the transfer is complete and have maintained my speeds this way. However before I dialed in to how to keep it performing excellent I would constantly cause the card to perform way worse after only a day or 2 after the optimization. To keep it running optimum make sure to run windows disk checker once a month or when it slows down. Make sure you format using either Windows format function from my computer or Disk Management. I have found that the windows methods are far superior to maintaining excellent performance since Windows writes the format data to the card in the manner it prefers to use on a daily basis. Third party applications perform the same simple "similar" task in a different manner technically speaking. I have noticed performance loss from tests I have ran comparing 3rd party format compared to windows format. Also the 64Kilobyte cluster size performs the best on all files sizes. Do not use anything smaller than that. Also a 3072KB read ahead in android on average performs better than a 2048kb read ahead. If you have any additional questions. Don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks cya!

Same phone on Mac & Windows
I have tried the same phone Samsung Galaxy S2 doing a 1 GB write to SD on a Windows machine vs a Mac. The Mac transfers in about 5 min the Windows machine takes about 20 min. Both machines are with the External SD mounted and copy and paste a folder with 10,000 files in it.
I then tried it with Motorola Atrix and get the same results.
I need a way to rapidly write 8GB of data every night to 46 phones... No I am not going to take the SD cards out of the phone and use a card reader.
Anyone have any idea what could be causing the slow down on Windows?

Read the above post and it will fix your problem.

1chris89 said:
Ok, sorry. I'll start at the beginning and explain every detail on how to get amazingly excellent performance from you sd card. Your going to be required to format it to fat32 64kb cluster for optimum performance. That's #1 and required. If you need your ext3,4 etc partition. I'm sorry. You will have to continue to bare the poor performance. You need a raw fresh sd card. Then I would run a disk check to correct any internal errors that windows uses, with all options checked this should take a while to complete. On my 16gb class 2 it takes atleast 45 minues and 2 hours on my 32gb class 10. Windows disk checker perfects the clusters and the file system integrity. Run it once on a fresh sd card. Then transfer a file 100MB or larger to get good speeds. Transferring a ton of smaller files will always be 50-75% of your class specification. There is no way around this. The card will transfer at it's class when transferring large files. If the card was able to transfer at it's specified class with small files, would require more energy to perform the task and cause the card to overheat since it's performing more operations a second with a lot of small files compared to a few large files. One thing you will always need to keep in mind is the performance is very delicate and will not be maintained for long if you don't take extra special care of safely removing the device from the computer. I've been lucky to just turn off usb mass storage when the transfer is complete and have maintained my speeds this way. However before I dialed in to how to keep it performing excellent I would constantly cause the card to perform way worse after only a day or 2 after the optimization. To keep it running optimum make sure to run windows disk checker once a month or when it slows down. Make sure you format using either Windows format function from my computer or Disk Management. I have found that the windows methods are far superior to maintaining excellent performance since Windows writes the format data to the card in the manner it prefers to use on a daily basis. Third party applications perform the same simple "similar" task in a different manner technically speaking. I have noticed performance loss from tests I have ran comparing 3rd party format compared to windows format. Also the 64Kilobyte cluster size performs the best on all files sizes. Do not use anything smaller than that. Also a 3072KB read ahead in android on average performs better than a 2048kb read ahead. If you have any additional questions. Don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks cya!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi!
Thank you for this thorough and correct advice. It solved my problem with my SDHC class 4 card used in a Samsung Galaxy Gio. My computer (Win7) could write on the card with only 150 kb/s, now it is around 2200-3000 kb/s.

Galaxy S3 exFAT support removed Build BVALF4

Hi Guys and Girls
Just a bit of info for any of those having problems with 32 or 64GB cards in their S3 post upgrade to
Baseband I9300BVLF2
Build IMM76D.I9300BVALF4
Basically after a week of speaking to Orange and then Samsung (Orange even sent me a new handset as they couldn't explain it) I've found out that Samsung in their Wisdom have removed ExFAT support from the new Firmware.
They are apparently looking into it but for now recomend formatting your card to FAT32 as this is still supported.
At work right now so haven't tried it myself but will as soon as I get in and post results (if anyone else can let us know)

What the hell are they thinking?!
This would be a dealbreaker for me. Its the only reason im not using cm10 yet.
We need to get away for this fat32 nonsense with its useless 4gb file size limit.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium

Is not LF4 rather old now ??
jje

JJEgan said:
Is not LF4 rather old now ??
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That'the one they have just released on Kies.
To be fair i though this issue was down to me rooting so will prob now root again now i know it's not that.
The guy at Samsung support said he couldn't understand why either but they have it as an action point to sort out as they were getting a lot of calls about it.

G3001 said:
That'the one they have just released on Kies.
There are later updates so i would check if the problem is still on later firmware .
You can always join XDA Developers and flash latest firmware .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I'm using LG8 and it's fine on there.

Another accidental removal :silly: exFAT is accepted by pretty much everyone to be validly patented by Microsoft, so to ship it in the first place Samsung obviously had a licence.
Would ext4 work? I know it'd be a pain to format to with Windows or Mac, but gets around 4GB file limit.
When connected in MTP mode the phone should do the "translation" so the desktop OS wouldn't need to handle the filesystem (I think, but I could be wrong). Doubt there's much danger of ext* support disappearing.

I just registered to say this but I'm also in the same boat. I noticed that orange had modified the ICS firmware to remove the update so while I was in London I went into the Samsung store in the Olympic park. I told them the situation and they said they could update the firmware there and then, 2 hours later after I left with a phone that no longer supported my 64GB microSD card and my widgets still popped in on the phone.
I was wondering if I could get an opinion on whether I should roll back the firmware by flashing the phone or try and complain to orange and get a new handset (although it's past their grace period and are unlikely to do so). Just to reiterate stay away from the Samsung store in Olympic park, all but one of the staff where extremely un-organised, dim witted and more interested in looting freebies from the store than actually helping me.
I would also consider using a custom ROM but as this is a relatively new device I'm unsure if this would be best suited to getting the best out of my phone.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Ok, I'm now on the VLG1 official Orange firmware and I re-formatted my 64GB SanDisk SDXC card as exFAT, put all my stuff back on (including a new .mkv over 4GB just to test) and it now works perfectly in my S3 (the 5.5GB mkv files plays fine, but with no audio although since it's a DTS audio codec used in the movie, I suspect this is a different issue).
So it seems they re-enabled exFAT support in VLG1...

Could someone tell me if exfat works in a S3 with I9300UBLG2?

Well, it does "work", but it's nowhere near reliable.
So far, my experience with exfat has been awful with Sandisk's 64GB SDXC card. There were some serious issues with a lot of music files that weren't visible to the phone. The files were copied ok in there when I used my SD card adapter and the total filesize matched perfectly to the original folder that I copied them from. So, when I inserted that card into my phone, I was suddenly unable see more than 70% of the files. I repeated the copying proccess few times and the result was exactly same every time: same files ended up missing in my phone.
I was also quite surprised when I replugged the card into my sdcard adapter: those same files were now missing from the card in my pc too. The card however did report exactly same amount of available space that it did when I first copied the files. When I tried to copy those missing files again on my card, it asked me whether I would like to overwrite those files? But those files can't be there since none of my devices see them!
After doing some research, I found out that this is actually a known problem, at least with Samsung's phones, and that those files weren't actually missing. They are still there, but something on Sammy's firmware is breaking something with a certain filenames/folder structures and makes them seem like they don't exists at all. At this point I just gave up and reformated my sdcard into fat32 with fat32format (the default Windows format program doesn't format cards with that size as fat32), copied my files again and now my phone was also able to see all my files.
So no, I wouldn't recommend using exfat with Samsung's phones since their implementation seems to be somewhat broken and due to the fact that CM10 wouldn't work with it anyway if I would eventually decide to move on it.

I know that after upgrading the firmware, Samsung removes/messed with the exfat support. So I'd like to know which firmwares have support to exfat.
The S3 I have is UBLG2 and I'm intended to buy a micro SD 64gb class 10 (or class 6).
No fat32 'cause I have files bigger than 4gb

coolbastard said:
I know that after upgrading the firmware, Samsung removes/messed with the exfat support. So I'd like to know which firmwares have support to exfat.
The S3 I have is UBLG2 and I'm intended to buy a micro SD 64gb class 10 (or class 6).
No fat32 'cause I have files bigger than 4gb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works with most new firmwares, so don't worry.

Skander1998 said:
It works with most new firmwares, so don't worry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does mean "most" ? does it work on official JB ?

it does

SD card storage will be going away, get used to it

I was listening to Koush Dutta (developer of ClockworkMod, All Cast, etc.) on All About Android podcast and he talked about why external SD cards are bad and why they're going away. Some of the things he brought out are:
- There's no standard API to access the external SD card in Android. He says that each device does it a little differently and it's a nightmare for developers to work with external SD cards.
- The device is certified by Google before being sold. When an SD card is inserted the user is basically taking a certified device and introducing an uncontrolled storage media. People often buy cheap SD cards that aren't capable of performing up to the level of certification for that device.
- When users buy a slow SD card and it doesn't perform well they complain to the app developer and put a bunch of 1-star reviews on their app. The developer is frustrated because it's a situation outside of their control and they're getting slammed for it.
Basically, he said, both the device manufacturers, Google, and app developers dislike the external SD card. Koush predicted that external SD cards will eventually go away completely.

Well why don't we just start a SDCard certification for google and throw a G stamp on the packages to let us know they can be used on devices?
There are solutions to this problem.

SlimJ87D said:
Well why don't we just start a SDCard certification for google and throw a G stamp on the packages to let us know they can be used on devices?
There are solutions to this problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Koush compared the SD card to the DVD/CD drive. People hesitated to buy ultrabook PCs at first because they had optical drive. Many laptops no longer have a optical drive. He said it would just be a matter of time before external SD cards will also go away.

Of course a developer is going to go for the simplest and best solution for them. They aren't being charged $50-100 per move between 16<>32<>64GB the way we are. Nor do they get a monthly bill from their wireless carrier for data when stuff's stored in the cloud. If Google wasn't so hell bent on pushing people toward the(ir) cloud I'd imagine they'd be able to come up with a process and standard to accommodate removable storage. Then, if manufacturers and third party devs followed that standard they wouldn't be getting complaints from users. Those that didn't follow the standard would deserve the complaints they got. Technology is a tough and complex business. Somehow on the PC side Apple and MS have figured out how to manage third party peripherals so if Google had the will I'd assume they'd find the way. Taking something of value away from the consumer in the name of "it's better for them;" especially when the cost and loss of convenience is so great is frankly BS.
P.S. - Removable Android storage has been around since 2010 when the SGS1/i9000 was released. Why is it suddenly a problem? Especially one that can't be addressed by a company with Google's resources?

Barry,
You bring up good points. Here's how'd I'd answer this...
On a PC it's different. Removable storage is generally used for transfer of data. People don't put apps on an external SD card and run them from there. They use an internal disk drive for apps. Why? Because they have a lot of internal disk. Yes, external storage is used for storing movies.
On a phone or tablet people are trying to use an external SD card as an extension of the internal storage. It's not meant to be used as such. It's a transfer medium or video storage medium. And, that's exactly the direction it's going.
I don't think that cloud services are driving this decision. After all, cloud connections are considerably slower than an SD card. And, if one wants to connect external data for file transfers there will still be OTG connections. I think that this will force manufacturers to increase internal memory. Look for 128Gig and 256Gig internal memory in the future. Once that happens people will forget about external SD cards.

TabGuy said:
Koush compared the SD card to the DVD/CD drive. People hesitated to buy ultrabook PCs at first because they had optical drive. Many laptops no longer have a optical drive. He said it would just be a matter of time before external SD cards will also go away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CD and DVD drives are a pain to write to. Our laptops still have USB ports and everyone I know use Flash drives and External HDD to move files around.
Until
1. Internet is extremely fast almost anywhere you go.
2. Internet is unlimited again.
3. Internet is like how it is in Japan
I don't see how we can rely on just our phones and cloud storage. It is something we are moving forward to but not something that should happen anytime soon.
I love the SD card slot as well as many others. If it really is a problem, Google should start making certified SD specs and placing a seal of approval on them to ease for developers and consumers.
If they need to invent some kind of new type of security or partitioning on these SD cards, then feel free to do so also.
I don't think taking away the SD card is a solution for both parties, it's just a solution for a developer and headache for the consumer. If a tiny bit of research is done, it can be a win win for both parties and Android will have something Apple doesn't.
But what do I know? I'm just a ME, not a CE or CS.

We can complain all we want but external card support is going away. Suggestions as to what Google should do are not the reality of the future. Embracing what will be is a better strategy than wishing it would be different.

Well if they wish them to go then start offering higher storage amounts. Tablets and phones shouldn't even have 16gb as an option. Make it 32 and higher... I wish this tablet had 128gb! At least Apple is offering a solution not just SD cards are bad... And the cloud isn't viable for most.
Sent from my LG-LS980 using Tapatalk

TabGuy said:
We can complain all we want but external card support is going away. Suggestions as to what Google should do are not the reality of the future. Embracing what will be is a better strategy than wishing it would be different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We as the consumer have the power to push for what we want.
HTC didn't support SD cards, but guess what, the SGS3 and 4 sold well and a lot of people said that the SD card was the selling factor to them, so now both Samsung and HTC both have SD cards.
If Samsung and HTC recognize it as a selling point, they will implement them one way or the other. I don't actually believe the "We can complain all we want but external card support is going away."
I don't really need to move apps to it anyways, I just need to keep my books, documents and music on there. That does not' affect the system.

TabGuy said:
We can complain all we want but external card support is going away. Suggestions as to what Google should do are not the reality of the future. Embracing what will be is a better strategy than wishing it would be different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not as long as Samsung, the largest purveyor of Android devices, keep including them. HTC caved and added an SD card to the M8 as did LG with their refresh of G Pro. Every Android tablet and the majority of Android phones (by market share) have it. The majority of those that don't are Google influenced (EG: Nexus and Motorola). They'll "go away" when Samsung stops supporting them. And ironically while one faction is trying to kill them another is making them bigger (128GB) and faster.

And it looks like the LG G3 will include an SD option for those outside Korea this time around so the trend continues.
Sent from my LG-LS980 using Tapatalk

BarryH_GEG said:
Not as long as Samsung, the largest purveyor of Android devices, keep including them. HTC caved and added an SD card to the M8 as did LG with their refresh of G Pro. Every Android tablet and the majority of Android phones (by market share) have it. The majority of those that don't are Google influenced (EG: Nexus and Motorola). They'll "go away" when Samsung stops supporting them. And ironically while one faction is trying to kill them another is making them bigger (128GB) and faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Berry, you and I are on the exact same page.
I understand what the OP is trying to say though, but this is something we have to see play out in the long run. There is no definite answer, do you agree?

SlimJ87D said:
Berry, you and I are on the exact same page.
I understand what the OP is trying to say though, but this is something we have to see play out in the long run. There is no definite answer, do you agree?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's who the death of external storage would benefit:
Developers - their lives become simpler
Wireless carriers - they'll sell more data
Device Manufacturers - they'll sell more $50/100 storage step-ups
NAND Manufacturers (of which Samsung's one) - they'll sell bigger more profitable NAND modules
Google - they'll have more data to monetize as it passes to/from the cloud and can analyze and map what's in a user's Google cloud to do even more profiling to generate even more ad revenue
Here's who loses:
Us
SD Memory Card Manufacturers
If Samsung wanted to sell more memory step-ups they could have followed Google's lead with Nexus/Motorola and joined HTC and others that didn't provide external storage. For whatever reason they chose to stick with the(ir) status quo and more of their competitors seem to be adding external storage support than going the other way. The new Tab4 starts at 8GB of storage to keep the price down. With the OS you could probably store five pictures and a 30 minute TV show before storage was maxed out. Skimpy storage with expansion options actually helps lower the average selling price. So unless Samsung has a change of heart about external storage I don't see anything changing in the near future. Even If all other manufacturers abandoned it with Samsung's market share the majority of devices sold would still include it. So, at least to me, it appears the future of external storage depends more on Samsung than Google or a bunch of lazy developers.

The restrictions on the SD card have been in Android for a while. Samsung had made the one line change to get around the restrictions. However, in KitKat, probably with pressure from Google, they've removed that one line change that permits all apps to read/write to anywhere on the SD card. While 90% of consumers won't notice -- they only use external SD cards for movies and music -- this is a step in the direction of eliminating external SD cards by Samsung. Or, at least limiting them to what 90% of consumers use it for. Eventually, I believe, they'll eliminate them just as most others have.

TabGuy said:
The restrictions on the SD card have been in Android for a while. Samsung had made the one line change to get around the restrictions. However, in KitKat, probably with pressure from Google, they've removed that one line change that permits all apps to read/write to anywhere on the SD card. While 90% of consumers won't notice -- they only use external SD cards for movies and music -- this is a step in the direction of eliminating external SD cards by Samsung. Or, at least limiting them to what 90% of consumers use it for. Eventually, I believe, they'll eliminate them just as most others have.
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Nope. It was Google who made the one line change in Android specifically starting with API 19 in 4.4. From Google...
External Storage Technical Information
Android supports devices with external storage, which is defined to be a case-insensitive filesystem with immutable POSIX permission classes and modes. External storage can be provided by physical media (such as an SD card), or by exposing a portion of internal storage through an emulation layer. Devices may contain multiple instances of external storage.
Access to external storage is protected by various Android permissions. Starting in Android 1.0, write access is protected with the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. Starting in Android 4.1, read access is protected with the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission.
Starting in Android 4.4, the owner, group and modes of files on external storage devices are now synthesized based on directory structure. This enables apps to manage their package-specific directories on external storage without requiring they hold the broad WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. For example, the app with package name com.example.foo can now freely access Android/data/com.example.foo/ on external storage devices with no permissions. These synthesized permissions are accomplished by wrapping raw storage devices in a FUSE daemon.
Since external storage offers minimal protection for stored data, system code should not store sensitive data on external storage. Specifically, configuration and log files should only be stored on internal storage where they can be effectively protected.
http://source.android.com/devices/tech/storage/index.html
Here's some other things to ponder...
If external storage was killed tomorrow it'll be years before Android and developers can stop supporting it. What's supposed to happen to existing device owners with low amounts of internal storage and tons stored on their external SD cards? FYI, there were 900M Android devices in service in 2013.
Now that we're all being marketed in to the "must have" status of 4K video, where's it going to be stored? Uploading, downloading, and streaming 1GB+ 4K videos via a cloud will certainly make the wireless companies and DropBox happy.
The bottom line is that no matter where any of us stand if there's a progression away from external storage it will take years.

I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this move to remove external storage - yet I doubt it is security. They are still utilizing EXFat or Fat32 for the file system on these cards it would be simple enough to use ext3, ext4 or a slew of other options.
They really are not considering the user when doing this options. The rural consumers where internet has caps and current cell phone plans where you need to mortgage the house to pay your cell phone bill because you only have one option. It would be nice if there was cable internet access available - would even settle for DSL.
With the use of external storage moving/recovering from a failed device to new device is so much quicker and easier to accomplish. There is no worries if you will hit your caps while trying to recover. Spending more time in locations that do not have service is a bit easier as I can have more movies/music/documents with external storage.
The loss is becoming annoying and will end with the device being rooted to gain back the features that were purchased in the device to begin with.

quite a few of us with windows tablets utilize the option of installing applications on external drives all the time. windows tablets generally come with the same amount of storage as an android tablet and since window full apps are far bigger than mobile apps an external option is almost required. its a pain trying to launch rust from my t100's sdcard, but at least I have the option to do it. and with my 700t I can crack it open a install a larger msata if needed. i think most of the higher end windows tablets have upgradeable drives... at the cost of loosing warranty however.
TabGuy said:
Barry,
You bring up good points. Here's how'd I'd answer this...
On a PC it's different. Removable storage is generally used for transfer of data. People don't put apps on an external SD card and run them from there. They use an internal disk drive for apps. Why? Because they have a lot of internal disk. Yes, external storage is used for storing movies.
On a phone or tablet people are trying to use an external SD card as an extension of the internal storage. It's not meant to be used as such. It's a transfer medium or video storage medium. And, that's exactly the direction it's going.
I don't think that cloud services are driving this decision. After all, cloud connections are considerably slower than an SD card. And, if one wants to connect external data for file transfers there will still be OTG connections. I think that this will force manufacturers to increase internal memory. Look for 128Gig and 256Gig internal memory in the future. Once that happens people will forget about external SD cards.
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TabGuy said:
We can complain all we want but external card support is going away. Suggestions as to what Google should do are not the reality of the future. Embracing what will be is a better strategy than wishing it would be different.
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You are forgetting that the voice of the customer is a powerful business tool. If we avoid the devices that do not have expandable storage (external cards), then the device manufacturers will continue to make devices with expandable storage. I for one will not even consider a device that does not have expandable storage. I will just keep my old devices, and when they die I will be done.
The more people that are not willing to submit, the louder our collective voices. Those telling us to "bend over and enjoy it" are part of the problem.

Here's an idea -- if developers are having such problems supporting external storage with their apps then..uh..don't. Just clearly state that in the description of your app, don't support it, and there isn't a problem. But taking away external storage options from people who want to put large movie files on their devices, or record videos or still pics to an external SD card rather than internal memory is just stupid and going to make a lot of people unhappy. All these new phones are being advertised as camera replacements...how many cameras have you seen that only have internal memory? Oops.
If there's ever a day that all Android phones don't support external storage, then that will be the day that I no longer buy a $400 phone under contract every two years. Instead, I'll be buying the $0.99 special that will do voice/SMS, and then I'll abuse the crap out of the data plan by tethering it to a real device. And if there's ever a day that Android tablets don't have external storage, that will be the day that I go back to a ultrabook or (gasp) a Windows tablet. If the industry wants to shoot themselves in the foot, well, there have been larger companies/industries who have failed because of equally stupid decisions (cough cough...Blackberry...cough...Palm...cough cough).

WJThomas said:
You are forgetting that the voice of the customer is a powerful business tool. If we avoid the devices that do not have expandable storage (external cards), then the device manufacturers will continue to make devices with expandable storage. I for one will not even consider a device that does not have expandable storage. I will just keep my old devices, and when they die I will be done.
The more people that are not willing to submit, the louder our collective voices. Those telling us to "bend over and enjoy it" are part of the problem.
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Click to collapse
I agree with you on every point.
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