Database Users

SD card as internal.

I have a 128 gb class 10 SD card. If I use it as internal can I still copy my 45gb of music through my computer?
Also what happened to the move to SD card option for apps?
I've also notice with Google play music you can't select SD card as storage for offline music.
I was pretty excited about this feature but I'm a little disappointed.
Maybe if I explore it a bit more I'll figure it out.

Spacemonkie4207 said:
I have a 128 gb class 10 SD card. If I use it as internal can I still copy my 45gb of music through my computer?
Also what happened to the move to SD card option for apps?
I've also notice with Google play music you can't select SD card as storage for offline music.
I was pretty excited about this feature but I'm a little disappointed.
Maybe if I explore it a bit more I'll figure it out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you connect your Play (with adaptive storage active) to a computer via usb the computer cannot seem to veiw anything on the phone. So you can't copy anything to the phone. Not very good really.
If you go settings, apps and then select an app you then select storage of that app and you have the option to move the app from there. That said not all apps have the storage option including Google Play Music. I do find that MM manages storage between internal and the sd card very well when adaptive storage is used. It's not perfect though. My next phone will be bigger than 16gb which is silly in this day and age. Relying on cloud storage is all well and good but can be useless in some rural locations (UK) with no data service signal.
I'm a little disappointed but on the whole I've got past the limited storage of a 16gb phone. Note to self - don't EVER buy a 16gb phone again. The music thing I get round by using Google Music and Spotify. You can copy music to your phone via such as Solid Explorer and move music from your cloud service (Drive, dropbox etc) to your phone. Solid Explorer and others can see folders and files on your phone.

You should be able to set the "Storage Location" in the Downloading section of Google Music's settings screen. Perhaps setting your SD card as internal memory removes your ability to select it though.

Spacemonkie4207 said:
I have a 128 gb class 10 SD card. If I use it as internal can I still copy my 45gb of music through my computer?
Also what happened to the move to SD card option for apps?
I've also notice with Google play music you can't select SD card as storage for offline music.
I was pretty excited about this feature but I'm a little disappointed.
Maybe if I explore it a bit more I'll figure it out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Move to SD card option is gone with MM.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

K.khiladi said:
Move to SD card option is gone with MM.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can I use my card as internal but somehow copy my music to it?

Chaotic-Entropy said:
You should be able to set the "Storage Location" in the Downloading section of Google Music's settings screen. Perhaps setting your SD card as internal memory removes your ability to select it though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it does, option is gone with sd card as internal. Hopefully they fix it.

Spacemonkie4207 said:
Can I use my card as internal but somehow copy my music to it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The move to SD card option won't be back now until Google wants that and that doesn't seem happening.
You can't do anything with your card once it's formatted as internal storage. The system will automatically decide what to do.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

K.khiladi said:
The move to SD card option won't be back now until Google wants that and that doesn't seem happening.
You can't do anything with your card once it's formatted as internal storage. The system will automatically decide what to do.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've heard it can kill the SD card very quickly because of cache and number of reads and writes. How much truth is there to this?

Anyone else is having problems formatting his sd card as internal storage in marshmallow? my phone gets stuck at 30% formatting and never finishes, and i tried factory resetting. Formatting as portable storage works just fine.
any ideas?

Just wondering... Which size? I would assume that there could be a max size per partition...

Spacemonkie4207 said:
I've heard it can kill the SD card very quickly because of cache and number of reads and writes. How much truth is there to this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not much, the card might be worn out quicker but your still looking at 3 to 5 years with heavy writes and by that time you will probably have changed phone.

dreinulldrei said:
Just wondering... Which size? I would assume that there could be a max size per partition...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
64 gb, but i've heard people with other devices that managed to make it work with 128gb cards
Enviado desde mi XT1562 mediante Tapatalk

About the adoptable storage in Android M and its work description (basing on analysis of upstream AOSP M code i did some time ago; note that there may be little differences depending on changes done by phone vendors for different devices).
There are 2 possible states of external storage (SD card in particular), the second one being available only if it is enabled in device configuration before build:
- portable - only accessible with Storage Access Framework and file browser in Settings app; most of the media apps won't see media files stored on external storage, as media scanner is disabled for this type of storage
- internal - external storage is wiped and encrypted with the same key as the very device (so factory reset will cause data loss, as then encryption key is changed, and after moving the storage to other device it content will be unavailable); this one has two substates
- - data not migrated: apps data and user data is being kept on internal storage; only internal storage is visible via MTP; if I remember correctly, external storage can be used only for moving apps installation on it in this case
- - data migrated: apps data and user data is moved to external storage and it replaces internal storage for user and app data storing; only external storage is visible via MTP (internal storage is used only for keeping system files and apps installations in this case); I would recommend not formatting SD card this way if it has lower capacity than internal storage.
About the issue of never ending formatting as internal: as the data is fully wiped from the card, new filesystem is created, and there is an overhead for encryption, this operation is time consuming. By default there is quite short timeout set for the operation, and if it is hit, formatting as internal will be aborted (leaving card in broken state). I suggest getting very fast card for this use (especially if it has high capacity), so for 128G the ones that people get to work were most probably ones with around 90+MB/s R/W performance.

Spacemonkie4207 said:
Can I use my card as internal but somehow copy my music to it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. I was wrong earlier in this post. If you plug your phone into computer then from drop down menu on phone select MTP rather than charge only, you can then see all files on sd card. You should be able to copy files across as usual. Seems to work on mine with adaptive storage enabled. You can only see files on the sd card and not internal memory.

I have bought a 64gb sd card with 90MB/s read and 80 MB/s write. I hope it works now.

I formatted my SD card as internal but ran out of space. Although storage showed I had 50+ GB free I couldn't install anything.
Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

You can move some apps to sd card which will free up some space on internal. Not all apps give you the option though. I reverted back from adaptive storage.

Apps like Spotify don't save music data to "adopted" SD card. Google Music seems to have similar issue. I keep my music content on the SD card - do that is a bit of an issue for me that Google "hates" my SD card .
Maybe this issue will be resolved in future android/app updates.

One thing - Change your storage for pictures taken through camera to SD card
Also move songs that you download to SD card as they get stored to internal storage.
Dont format your SD card if you want to see the data in your SD card on pc and file managers.
Let the apps install on internal.
Try to move every other data to SD card periodically.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

habskilla said:
I formatted my SD card as internal but ran out of space. Although storage showed I had 50+ GB free I couldn't install anything.
Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats bonkers, i thought the whole point of adopted storage was you just ended up with one bigger lump of memory.

Apps on SD Card?

So I'm new to this whole SD card thing, I've only owned the s6, which obviously, didn't support expandable storage. So my question is - is it possible to move apps onto the SD card slot? I understand there might be a performance hit, but for a lot of apps, I can careless about the performance of the storage on it.
I saw there was a "move to sd card" option for applications on the galaxy s5 - will there be something similar here?

Nope, don't believe so. If it's anything like past devices though, app data can be saved to SD card. Camera can capture to SD, spotify can download tracks to SD, GPS navigation apps can download maps to SD, etc. Main app files will be on main 32GB memory

mikesnav said:
Nope, don't believe so. If it's anything like past devices though, app data can be saved to SD card. Camera can capture to SD, spotify can download tracks to SD, GPS navigation apps can download maps to SD, etc. Main app files will be on main 32GB memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. That's good news all around. Now if only some games would store their data on the sd cards.

I currently move apps to my sd card on the Galaxy S5;, using a utility called "All in one toolbox". It allows me to move apps so they run off of my micro SD card. Does anyone know if this will work with the Galaxy S7 edge?

mikesnav said:
Nope, don't believe so. If it's anything like past devices though, app data can be saved to SD card. Camera can capture to SD, spotify can download tracks to SD, GPS navigation apps can download maps to SD, etc. Main app files will be on main 32GB memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But, if it is anything like past devices, it could have an option to "move app to SD". Has the removal of this feature been confirmed yet? We all know Adoptable Storage is gone, but what about App to SD? Is it confirmed missing, or are we just speculating?

Running MM on my S5 and the Adoptable Storage works so well, I hope Samsung change the mined about this.

Dr. Fed said:
But, if it is anything like past devices, it could have an option to "move app to SD". Has the removal of this feature been confirmed yet? We all know Adoptable Storage is gone, but what about App to SD? Is it confirmed missing, or are we just speculating?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty sure App2SD has been a mod / specific vendor addition since... a long time now. That hasn't been a part of Android for years. Removed in Jellybean maybe?
I don't know if Samsung has specifically written this in with the S7, sorry.

I'm pretty sure I heard one of the dudes who did a first impressions on it that an upcoming feature in marshmallow will allow to merge SD card storage with internal .... No idea how credible the dude is though

JoshuaFCB said:
I'm pretty sure I heard one of the dudes who did a first impressions on it that an upcoming feature in marshmallow will allow to merge SD card storage with internal .... No idea how credible the dude is though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a Marshmallow feature but Google has encouraged manufacturers to remove that feature. The LG G5 and the Samsung S7 phones do not have it.
David Ruddock from Android Police says.
"Google discourages using adoptable storage if:
Your SD card slot is in an area where it may be regularly ejected (i.e., the SIM slot) and/or your phone has "sufficient" internal storage already, which is probably these days 32GB or more. Adoptable storage is apparently intended as a feature for phones with very limited internal storage and for stationary, IoT types of devices.
LG has done the same, and does not have adoptable storage on the G5."

PDXMatt said:
That is a Marshmallow feature but Google has encouraged manufacturers to remove that feature. The LG G5 and the Samsung S7 phones do not have it.
David Ruddock from Android Police says.
"Google discourages using adoptable storage if:
Your SD card slot is in an area where it may be regularly ejected (i.e., the SIM slot) and/or your phone has "sufficient" internal storage already, which is probably these days 32GB or more. Adoptable storage is apparently intended as a feature for phones with very limited internal storage and for stationary, IoT types of devices.
LG has done the same, and does not have adoptable storage on the G5."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it something that be acquire through rooting?

I've got the option to move apps to SD straight out of the box. Go to the Apps, find the app, go to Storage. It's there. Not every app has it but lots do.

Apps on SD Cards Disappearing from Edge
I was able to move some downloaded apps to the SD card. Then I put a few on the Apps Edge. But I found that, if I reboot or power off/on, the apps (not just the icon, but the apps themselves) disappear from the Edge. Has anyone else seen this?

You can do it through adoptable storage:
https://youtu.be/H31UOrXJKH4

I got my S7 Edge yesterday & love it.
However I'm having trouble transferring apps to the SD card. In my case, I can successfully move the app via the Application | Change Storage Location option BUT when I look at the SD card in a file manager, it has only moved the folder structure & the app files remain in internal storage.
Anyone know what the hell is going on?
Cheers.

runwaypimp said:
I got my S7 Edge yesterday & love it.
However I'm having trouble transferring apps to the SD card. In my case, I can successfully move the app via the Application | Change Storage Location option BUT when I look at the SD card in a file manager, it has only moved the folder structure & the app files remain in internal storage.
Anyone know what the hell is going on?
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am having the exact same issue. Says it moves the apps, but the internal storage and SD card usages do not reflect this; the corresponding directories on the SD are size 0 and empty as well.

go to settings/aplication manager. find the app you want to see if it can go to SD and go to Storage. There you can see if there is Change button .
i mooved many apps to my SD but when i restart my phone i didnt had worked apps.

gpap2004 said:
go to settings/aplication manager. find the app you want to see if it can go to SD and go to Storage. There you can see if there is Change button .
i mooved many apps to my SD but when i restart my phone i didnt had worked apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry but the only thing that happens is a folder is created on the SD to store the app. data. Nobodies apps are moving over to the SD card.

S7/Edge SD card Question

I heard a few days back about being able to move apps onto the sd card but has anyone been able to confirm whether or not app data from moved apps will be stored in the SD card or the phone?
Haven't been lucky enough to get my pre order yet but thank you for the answer.
Ooh, and am wondering are the unstable remounting/unmounting of SD cards just restricted to a few devices or are a more widespread problem due to architecture, if anyone knows :S

shadowloop said:
I heard a few days back about being able to move apps onto the sd card but has anyone been able to confirm whether or not app data from moved apps will be stored in the SD card or the phone?
Haven't been lucky enough to get my pre order yet but thank you for the answer.
Ooh, and am wondering are the unstable remounting/unmounting of SD cards just restricted to a few devices or are a more widespread problem due to architecture, if anyone knows :S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to know the same thing.

I'm not sure why all of a sudden this is news. Are there just a lot of people new to Android? Back when expandable storage was still popular on Android devices you could always do this, albeit there were some restrictions on which app can be moved. It also depended on the developer of the app to make some of the data move to SD. If you're new, the actual app stays on the phone in a partition you can't access unless you have root access. All the other data that would be stored on the phones internal storage (and could be accessible to users) could be moved to SD card.
I also find people complaining about adoptable storage ridiculous.

ekjl said:
I'm not sure why all of a sudden this is news. Are there just a lot of people new to Android? Back when expandable storage was still popular on Android devices you could always do this, albeit there were some restrictions on which app can be moved. It also depended on the developer of the app to make some of the data move to SD. If you're new, the actual app stays on the phone in a partition you can't access unless you have root access. All the other data that would be stored on the phones internal storage (and could be accessible to users) could be moved to SD card.
I also find people complaining about adoptable storage ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right, I am an android user; I am just new to using SD card on android (on an old moto x). Just to clear things up, the question would by no means be related to the adoptable storage media coverage which I too, find pointless. I am simply trying to gauge the size of the SD card I am going to purchase as well as getting a general idea of how conscious I would have to be with my 20ish GB of internal storage when downloading apps with the phone.
EDIT: Ah, okok, it is easier now to just research the SD card app data storage for each individual app that I'm concerned about. Thanks!
Anyways, as a newbie, taking from your post above, when moving the app to SD card, the actual app itself (download size) would stay in a partition in internal storage and, depending on the individual apps, some information would be migrated to SD and some data wouldn't? So it is probable that apps such as Spotify and Amazon Video would store any offline media files in internal storage regardless of moving to SD card, to prevent potential access by users?
Thanks!

Which sd card would be the best for this phone?
Sent from my Xperia Z Ultra using Tapatalk

shadowloop said:
Anyways, as a newbie, taking from your post above, when moving the app to SD card, the actual app itself (download size) would stay in a partition in internal storage and, depending on the individual apps, some information would be migrated to SD and some data wouldn't? So it is probable that apps such as Spotify and Amazon Video would store any offline media files in internal storage regardless of moving to SD card, to prevent potential access by users?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you are absolutely correct.

Move App Data to SD Card?

Anyone had any luck moving whole apps over to their SD card. It's frustrating that for something like Asphalt 8, the data file is over 1Gb and can't be moved over to the SD card. I've tried Link2SD, TitaniumBackup doesn't seem to have the option anymore and I'm not keen on sacrificing performance/stability by going down the adoptoble storage route. Ideas?

Hi, I went with the adoptable storage option (found a tutorial somewhere to enable it via ADB console, partitioned my 64GB card 50%/50%) and it is working great, no real sacrifice neither in stability nor performance (in real use I note no difference whatsoever).
The only drawback is that the storage settings page cannot show the accurate free space anymore. Not a big deal for me.
Regards,
Sandro

sandro.bertini said:
Hi, I went with the adoptable storage option (found a tutorial somewhere to enable it via ADB console, partitioned my 64GB card 50%/50%) and it is working great, no real sacrifice neither in stability nor performance (in real use I note no difference whatsoever).
The only drawback is that the storage settings page cannot show the accurate free space anymore. Not a big deal for me.
Regards,
Sandro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, interesting. I may give adoptable storage another look. Have you noticed any impact on the 'write' performance specifically?

I just I installed asphalt 8 and noticed that Data which is over 1.5gb stays on the internal memory card even after moving app to SD card. That is just so stupid. I thought something is wrong with either my card or the phone until I came across this thread.
What good is the SD card if the biggest part of the game can't be moved to it?

Error moving data to SD card

Hi everyone,
I just bought a Micro SD evo+ (Samsung 64 GB) for my moto G plus. I formatted it as an internal storage. I moved few of my apps. However, I dont know how to move music and photos. There is no option for that. In the SD card menu, when I click on migrate data, it says "There was an error in estimating the data to be moved".
I was wondering if anyone can help me please.
Kind regards

I'm seeing that same error message when I try to migrate data on my G4. Has anyone any idea what's causing this and how to fix?

It's due to the security features of Marshmallow.
There is no permission for direct write access to sd card by default.

I had to format my SD card as a portable storage in order to migrate my photos and music. However, in that case, App data cannot be saved on the sd card. As an internal storage, the Apps can be saved on sd card but I could not migrate my photos and music. It is posdible that it has something to do with the Marshmallow security. I have also heard that such issue exists for 64 FB cards. I d be certain if one could try a 32 GB sd card.
Cheers

Kambiz983 said:
I had to format my SD card as a portable storage in order to migrate my photos and music. However, in that case, App data cannot be saved on the sd card. As an internal storage, the Apps can be saved on sd card but I could not migrate my photos and music. It is posdible that it has something to do with the Marshmallow security. I have also heard that such issue exists for 64 FB cards. I d be certain if one could try a 32 GB sd card.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the same reason Azal3a mentioned above, that's the way it works.
Sent using XDA-Developers Mobile App

I have exactly the same issue with my 128gb Samsung Evo card, but I also tried SanDisk 32gb and this didn't work

AZAL3A said:
It's due to the security features of Marshmallow.
There is no permission for direct write access to sd card by default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But is there a solution? How do you actually make it work?

When you format the SD as "internal storage" you don't have a SD anymore, it's all one big storage space.
If you format the SD normal, then the photo and video app (and other apps like maps) might let you save on the SD - will be inside each app settings. But the apps cannot be moved on SD.

My experience with it is same as above. If you format it as internal it makes it added as virtual drive space. Kinda like adding an external drive to an Xbox. It make it virtual hard drive. Formating at removable makes it slower but an be used as raw storage standalone and removable.

SoNic67 said:
When you format the SD as "internal storage" you don't have a SD anymore, it's all one big storage space.
If you format the SD normal, then the photo and video app (and other apps like maps) might let you save on the SD - will be inside each app settings. But the apps cannot be moved on SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, this has been discussed dozens of times on XDA going back to the Moto G3. Even with it used as internal, there is actually very little space it will save you when you discount system apps and the apps that developers block from installing to the SD.

Actually people don't realize that they need a premium SD to even come close of the speed that internal storage has. They buy crappy SD from eBay and expect to launch apps from that... ridiculous. That's why MM imposed those restrictions.
To be used as adopted storage, the SD needs to be at least "UHS I, class 3", with 90MB/s read and write speeds.

Thanks for the useless reply. While it is true that performance will be better with faster cards there's no definite reason other cards should not be able to be used and your reply does nothing to address the original posters question. Has anyone found a solution or shall I look into wiping my phone and installing ubuntu?

Kambiz983 said:
Hi everyone,
I just bought a Micro SD evo+ (Samsung 64 GB) for my moto G plus. I formatted it as an internal storage. I moved few of my apps. However, I dont know how to move music and photos. There is no option for that. In the SD card menu, when I click on migrate data, it says "There was an error in estimating the data to be moved".
I was wondering if anyone can help me please.
Kind regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try clearing cache and then migrate.