Database Users

[Q] Where is all the free space for /data?

I'm wondering where all the free space is for the /data partition on the Speedy/Evo Shift.
On my T-Mobile G2 which I had before the Speedy (which is basically the same hardware, just GSM), it 2GB of ROM and /data was something like 1.2GB (I forget exactly how much, somewhere between 1.1-1.4GB), but on the Speedy, which also has 2GB of ROM, even on CyanogenMod, /data is only ~430MB.
I ran df in the terminal and came up with a total of 1067MB between /system, /data and /cache so i'm wondering where the other nearly 1GB of space is. I know there's a bit for recovery and a bit for the WiMAX keys, but that adds up to less than 100MB.
Any help/idea/thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks
JD

I dunno but I'd love to know the answer myself.
^ Shift Faced

In Terms of Bloat...regarding OS

Anybody know how the three OS versions compare (eclair, froyo, gingerbread) as far as system file size and how much of the internal storage they take? I would hope Gingerbread is the least bloated most optimized, but is the truth different?

I would imagine it increases with each revision as they add more features, although that doesn't mean it's more bloated. Freeing up space on the system partition doesn't really matter anyway. If you don't use it then it's just wasted.

Why would it not matter, isnt the 'system partition' and the internal storage synonymous?

unsivil_audio said:
Why would it not matter, isnt the 'system partition' and the internal storage synonymous?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The internal storage on the phone is divided into several partitions. Each partition is a fixed size.
In specific, the system partition (where the ROM is stored) is 240MB and the data partition (where installed apps are stored) is 185MB. Freeing up space in the system partition won't give you any extra space on the data partition.
However the CM ROMs place the Dalvik cache on the data partition, so naturally you will have less space available for apps. I don't think the Sense "Liberated" ROMs do that but I'm not positive.
If you want more app space though, just use one of the various apps2sd methods.

Yeah I tried dark tremors a2sd before, but even though it freed up an insane amount of space it wasn't worth the performance loss. I may try it again in the future though.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA Premium App

[Q] MTD Memory Handling Question

My epic 4g is running ei22 Legendary v.1 with the samurai 3.3 assassin kernel. I am a bit of an app whore and have loading it up with nearly 260 apps. I have accomplished this with the use of a 2.5gb ext4 partiton on my class10 16gb sd card, the darktremor script and the a2sdgui app. With this setup I am have all the storage I need and then some.
My question is; is it possible to repartition in order for more ram as opposed to storage?
I have excluded a fair amount of apps from starting up at boot, and I aggressively manage my memory with a memory manager, but I still feel I need more ram.

dewayne25 said:
My epic 4g is running ei22 Legendary v.1 with the samurai 3.3 assassin kernel. I am a bit of an app whore and have loading it up with nearly 260 apps. I have accomplished this with the use of a 2.5gb ext4 partiton on my class10 16gb sd card, the darktremor script and the a2sdgui app. With this setup I am have all the storage I need and then some.
My question is; is it possible to repartition in order for more ram as opposed to storage?
I have excluded a fair amount of apps from starting up at boot, and I aggressively manage my memory with a memory manager, but I still feel I need more ram.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe ram is a completely different chip in the phone, opposed to the storage space, because it functions a lot differently. But I may be wrong.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

iatedeadpeople said:
I believe ram is a completely different chip in the phone, opposed to the storage space, because it functions a lot differently. But I may be wrong.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, WHAT?! The ram isn't in our SD cards?! You don't say! Although I was starting to suspect something when I noticed that if I remove the SD card (or mount it as USB storage), the phone keeps functioning, and I know that can't happen with any computer when the ram is removed...
The OP only mentioned partitioning of the SD card, not internal storage. Also, ram isn't partitioned... he is most likely referring to creating a swap partition on his sd card, which the system would then use as additional storage space for temporary data that would normally be held in ram. However, the CPU still needs the data in ram in order to interact with it, so if the required data is actually in the swap partition, then the system would need to free up some room in ram for the required data (often, by swapping places with data in ram that isn't currently needed, hence the name...
@OP - I'm fairly certain the Epic doesn't currently support swap files/partitions, but I recall seeing mention of other android phones with that ability. But it shouldn't be necessary, our phones have enough ram - if you are running out of memory (errors, not simply seeing a low amount of available ram) then you either have something wrong with your phone, or you need to stop trying to keep all of your favorite 3d games loaded at the same time, lol
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Our phone does have the ability to support swap. Some Bonsai releases support swap. First you'd have to make sure the /sdcard was partitioned for swap to have a place to reside. Then, it'd have to be enabled in the kernel and there are tweaks to "swapiness" that sets aggressiveness of swap use - basically swap enable will try to take dormant items in RAM and move them to SWAP to free up RAM. You can run 'free' command from the terminal to see how much swap is available and in use.
All that said - I don't think the OP is referring to SWAP or RAM - as those would only help free up running memory. OP seems to be interested in more room on his OneNAND data partition and SDCard for Apps to be installed.
RE OP: CM7 MTD downsized the /cache partition in OneNAND and gave a sizeable boost to /data space for more apps (see images posted by AproSamurai showing free space). If you run the command 'df -h' from the terminal you'll see the size (total, used, available) of /system, /data, and /cache. On CM7 I have the following sizes, respectively, 268.5M, 676.5M, and 25M. Side note: The 25M cache isn't large enough for all Market apps to download though so noobnl fixed by mounting /cache/download on /data partition (MTDBlock3) to allow for larger apps to cache in download directory before install.
If you're sticking with a GB TW ROM though - I don't understand your setup. Why not just use the built in GB capability to move Apps to SD Card in Settings -> Applications (select app and "move to SD card" for those compatible/capable)? I don't get why you need to create a separate EXT4 partition and use 3rd party tools. Can you elaborate on why they wouldn't work?
Rereading your OP - NO - you can't get more RAM to fit in the phone. It's got what it's got and you can't get more from it. Enabling SWAP may help, terminating resident apps in the background MAY help, but at the end of the day you can't increase the RAM available. You'll need to better manage what you have.
Please don't confuse RAM with storage memory - that got me turned around in your OP.

Sorry for confusing you, if I did. I wasn't interested in partitioning my sd card for more ram on the sd card. My interest is in using the cache space for ram. I don't understand how a phone can be stated as having 512mb's of ram and 1gb of rom and not be. Yet all the epic can muster is 362mb of ram, most of our performance issues are due to that... If there was a way to unlock any more ram in samsung's specs claim I wanted to know.

If you're sticking with a GB TW ROM though - I don't understand your setup. Why not just use the built in GB capability to move Apps to SD Card in Settings -> Applications (select app and "move to SD card" for those compatible/capable)? I don't get why you need to create a separate EXT4 partition and use 3rd party tools. Can you elaborate on why they wouldn't work?
I would have loved to use the .android folder to save my apps but my dalvik cache would fill the internal space and limit me to about 180 apps. With the Darktremor script and a2sdgui I am able to put my Dalvik on the ext4 partition of my SD card.

I would have loved to use the .android folder to save my apps but my dalvik cache would fill the internal space and limit me to about 180 apps. With the Darktremor script and a2sdgui I am able to put my Dalvik on the ext4 partition of my SD card.

[Q] HD2 NAND Memory explanation

I'have flashed a lot of roms already but i'am still wondering how the memory works.
My favorites are the roms with Sense from DungPHP.
Now i'am running Coredroid that gives a load of manual options but also crashed unexpectedly.
Why this questions:
Every rom crashes somewhile. To understand how the memory works can help to find the rootcause. That can be application related, or configuration for the partitions, core etc.. Now only the developers know this (should know )
My Phone:
The Phone HD2 HTC LEO (EU) has 512 Mb memory
EXT4 partition of 2 gb
SWAP 256 mb
SD card of 16 Gb, 4mb speed
[*]What kind of memory's are there?
[*]and where are they used for?
To install the Rom we have to give the correct configuration like:
misc ya 1M
recovery rrecov|ro|nospr filesize recovery-raw.img
boot yboot|ro 5M
system ya 175M
cache ya 5M
userdata ya|asize|hr allsize
So when i have 512mb - 1 - 5 - 175 - 5 = 313 mb left over
[*]Where is the left 313 mb used for?
[*]What is installed on the EXT4 partition?
[*]How much do you need to keep for good performance?
This are a lot of questions and i hope someone can help me to figure it out so we have a usefull tutorial page left over.

[*]Where is the left 313 mb used for?
[*]What is installed on the EXT4 partition?
[*]How much do you need to keep for good performance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 - 313 would be the userdata partition (allsize). This is the only nand partition which counts towards total internal storage.
2 - depends on the rom, some put user installed apps there, some put apps and dalvik cache, some put the whole data partition there.
3 - doesn't matter, you are talking about rom, not ram,, free rom has no effect on performance.( well, perhaps if every tiny scrap of space is full, but you sound like you meant ram)

You are right RAM has effect on performance.
The problem for me is that i understand lots of fragments of the theory but it is not complete.
Like today i have installed a backup, and later a full installation of a rom on my phone. And this rom was working fine in the past and now the battery lacks and streaming video is not working. Why??
I did a cleanup to factory, and cache and dalvic cache, but it looks like something stayes and is not formatted.

Back to runny. Video works fine now. But the sense is stopping very often due to lack of memory.
Is there a way to improve this?
I removed almost all widgets from main screen but after opening an application it is stooped and needs to be reloaded.
Sent from my HTC Runnymede using xda premium

Flash marc 0.1.9 kernel and then add a zram (100mb) script to increase virtual memory size.

I already improved the phone by changing the config from 5/170/5 to 10/180/10. Especially cash was the problem what I think. Till now it worked fine.
Sent from my HTC Runnymede using xda premium

[Q] Resizing /system and /cache to gain space?

Hello everyone and thank you for having me on your wonderful forum. I have learned so much in such a short time by reading everything I could whether I was intending to use it or not.
I got my 16gb Nexus on Monday and immediately prepped it for ROMs, settling on CM10.1 RC2, Prior to that I had an Optimus V running CM7. On my Optimus, after flashing CM7 for the long haul I was able to move all excess /system space back into /data using terminal emulator and the fdisk command, but I followed a guide of some sort that is long lost now.
Everything is fantastic so far except one thing, there seems to be quite a lot of space reserved in the /system and /cache partitions, and I am not sure if I am able to re-partition this space back to /data or how exactly to do this.
right now /system is reading at 395.8 / 827.8 MB used, and /cache is at 68.4 / 551.7 MB. I would like to repartition 200 MB away from /system and 300-400 MB away from /cache, and put it back into /data. This will leave me some space to integrate or convert a few apps to system apps, and enough cache space to be safe (why does it need 550 MB to begin with?) and give back another half gig of storage that I paid so much to have.
I have three issues with this, one being that I can find almost no information on this topic directly mentioning the NExus 4, and any relatable information from other devices talking about device specific toolkits to do the job.
The only thread I found on XDA about this is below, and it only gave me a vague "this is not possible"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2248400
The second issue is I do not recall the command switches/flags that go with the fdisk command, only that I had to use some things to set file permissions or remount the partition or some such (I know, i'm a noob, forgive me).
Lastly, I am rather confused by the multiple partitions of /data and /storage/emulated all showing a partition size of 13231.8 MB. Obviously they are all the same physical space, but I am afraid to mess with the partitions and break what I assume are a ton of symlinks that trick apps into believing there is an external SD card in play. Can any of you shed some light on this for me?

I3ig Al said:
Hello everyone and thank you for having me on your wonderful forum. I have learned so much in such a short time by reading everything I could whether I was intending to use it or not.
I got my 16gb Nexus on Monday and immediately prepped it for ROMs, settling on CM10.1 RC2, Prior to that I had an Optimus V running CM7. On my Optimus, after flashing CM7 for the long haul I was able to move all excess /system space back into /data using terminal emulator and the fdisk command, but I followed a guide of some sort that is long lost now.
Everything is fantastic so far except one thing, there seems to be quite a lot of space reserved in the /system and /cache partitions, and I am not sure if I am able to re-partition this space back to /data or how exactly to do this.
right now /system is reading at 395.8 / 827.8 MB used, and /cache is at 68.4 / 551.7 MB. I would like to repartition 200 MB away from /system and 300-400 MB away from /cache, and put it back into /data. This will leave me some space to integrate or convert a few apps to system apps, and enough cache space to be safe (why does it need 550 MB to begin with?) and give back another half gig of storage that I paid so much to have.
I have three issues with this, one being that I can find almost no information on this topic directly mentioning the NExus 4, and any relatable information from other devices talking about device specific toolkits to do the job.
The only thread I found on XDA about this is below, and it only gave me a vague "this is not possible"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2248400
The second issue is I do not recall the command switches/flags that go with the fdisk command, only that I had to use some things to set file permissions or remount the partition or some such (I know, i'm a noob, forgive me).
Lastly, I am rather confused by the multiple partitions of /data and /storage/emulated all showing a partition size of 13231.8 MB. Obviously they are all the same physical space, but I am afraid to mess with the partitions and break what I assume are a ton of symlinks that trick apps into believing there is an external SD card in play. Can any of you shed some light on this for me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nexus4 doesn´t have a fix size for partitions, you can use the whole memory for everything... no need to re-partition anything

75markus said:
nexus4 doesn´t have a fix size for partitions, you can use the whole memory for everything... no need to re-partition anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if you are misunderstanding or not reading my whole post, or if I am not understanding you or the situation I am posting about, so please don't take offense to this reply.
It appears to me that the /system partition is reserving 827 MB space for the ROM, and CM10.1 is only using 400 MB of it
It also appears that 552 MB is reserved for the /cache partition, and only 70 MB is being currently used.
This is ~900 MB of storage space that is reserved and unused. I would like to know if it is possible to reallocate ~500-600 MB of this back into the /data partition for user space.
Please explain to me how this space is part of the whole memory that can be used for anything.
After posting I have thought some more about it and decided to NOT mess with the partition sizes, mainly because I do not know what effect it would have if I were to flash another ROM in the future, which is almost a given when Key Lime Pie is released. However I would still like to understand what I have asked about in case I do want to do this in the future, and also just for the sake of expanding my knowledge.

I like this. The only "issue" is that if more space were ever to be reallocated to /system or /cache, it'd require wiping /data obviously. Small price to pay. 500MB isn't too small a chunk for 8GB users.

75markus said:
nexus4 doesn´t have a fix size for partitions, you can use the whole memory for everything... no need to re-partition anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it does. System data cache and boot, plus like 30 other ones, same as any other phone with no micro SD card
Sent from my Nexus 7 @1.60 GHz on Stock 4.2.2

I3ig Al said:
I'm not sure if you are misunderstanding or not reading my whole post, or if I am not understanding you or the situation I am posting about, so please don't take offense to this reply.
It appears to me that the /system partition is reserving 827 MB space for the ROM, and CM10.1 is only using 400 MB of it
It also appears that 552 MB is reserved for the /cache partition, and only 70 MB is being currently used.
This is ~900 MB of storage space that is reserved and unused. I would like to know if it is possible to reallocate ~500-600 MB of this back into the /data partition for user space.
Please explain to me how this space is part of the whole memory that can be used for anything.
After posting I have thought some more about it and decided to NOT mess with the partition sizes, mainly because I do not know what effect it would have if I were to flash another ROM in the future, which is almost a given when Key Lime Pie is released. However I would still like to understand what I have asked about in case I do want to do this in the future, and also just for the sake of expanding my knowledge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think N4 uses FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) file system
noobdeagle said:
isnt this what they were saying was the reason for no SD card and use of MTP ?; basically if i recall correctly the nexus devices do not truly assign partitions instead there is a storage 'pool' that anything can use dynamically.
so i guess there is no partitions its just all 1 volume.
source: http://www.androidcentral.com/why-nexus-devices-have-no-sd-card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

That is for the sdcard.
The other partitions such as /system still have fixed amounts of space allocated
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app