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Save data to MicroSD card?

Hello, since this is my first phone came without MicroSD card. So, I took off the 16gig SD from my Droid X then formatted it on my RAZR M. Took a pictures and video and all those stuff aren't saving to SD... They all automatic saving toward to internal SD like it supposed to do.
Is there anyway I can make it automatic saving stuff to external SDcard instead of internal card?
Thanks

Hell-Intimidator said:
Hello, since this is my first phone came without MicroSD card. So, I took off the 16gig SD from my Droid X then formatted it on my RAZR M. Took a pictures and video and all those stuff aren't saving to SD... They all automatic saving toward to internal SD like it supposed to do.
Is there anyway I can make it automatic saving stuff to external SDcard instead of internal card?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I carried over a folder called DCIM (photo folder for old phone) and when I tested the camera, on this phone, it automatically created a folder called Camera within the DCIM folder and saved the shots there.

The DCIM folder is already created on my SDcard as well as the Camera folder in DCIM... Gonna try restart my phone and see if that help.
EDIT- New picture still saved internal card. Not the external card...
NINJA EDIT- Nevermind! Got it fixed. It's in camera setting. Click the gear and you will see "Storage Location"

[Q] 6.0 portable SD card very slow now

After updating to 6.0 now anytime I access the SD card from any app, it's very slow. Used to be instantaneous now it takes anywhere from a couple to 10 seconds when accessing any files on the card. This happens in any of the Android menus like selecting a file for ringtone or in ES File Explorer or QuickPic.
Also, the SD card got renamed to something weird like D020-8E84 instead of sdcard1. I removed the card, reformatted in the phone and put my files back on and it's the same...slow. I tried to rename the card but I can't.
Anyone else have this issue? I sure hope this isn't Google's way of forcing adaptive storage on us.
Files are mostly media...photos, videos, pdfs, music.
Not rooted yet.

Not having the same issue, try wiping out your phone.
Sent from my Moto X Pure.

Well, the problem has gone away this morning.
My suspicion is that maybe Android was re-indexing the card (not even sure if it does that) since the name of the card changed with the update to 6.0. It's a 128GB card that is mostly full so there are a lot of files and may just have taken a little while for it to all get indexed (for lack of a better term).

shimn said:
Well, the problem has gone away this morning.
My suspicion is that maybe Android was re-indexing the card (not even sure if it does that) since the name of the card changed with the update to 6.0. It's a 128GB card that is mostly full so there are a lot of files and may just have taken a little while for it to all get indexed (for lack of a better term).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any flash storage that is nearly full will have write amplification issues. This will consequently lead to a longer read latency and thus a slower card overall.

alnikki25k said:
Any flash storage that is nearly full will have write amplification issues. This will consequently lead to a longer read latency and thus a slower card overall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That may be so. But before the update to 6.0 the card was lightening fast with no delay at all. It was only after the 6.0 update that the card slowed to a crawl. And now, the next morning after the update the card is back to full speed with no noticeable latency. So, I don't agree with your supposition.

What card are you using? Is it formatted as internal storage?
Sent from my Moto XPE

JoeNeckbone said:
What card are you using? Is it formatted as internal storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Potable storage. It's a Sony 128GB Class 10 UHS-1 Micro SDXC (SRG1UY2A/TQ).

shimn said:
After updating to 6.0 now anytime I access the SD card from any app, it's very slow. Used to be instantaneous now it takes anywhere from a couple to 10 seconds when accessing any files on the card. This happens in any of the Android menus like selecting a file for ringtone or in ES File Explorer or QuickPic.
Also, the SD card got renamed to something weird like D020-8E84 instead of sdcard1. I removed the card, reformatted in the phone and put my files back on and it's the same...slow. I tried to rename the card but I can't.
Anyone else have this issue? I sure hope this isn't Google's way of forcing adaptive storage on us.
Files are mostly media...photos, videos, pdfs, music.
Not rooted yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't noticed any issues with my SD card other than the weird name change. I too have tried to change the name with no luck & am glad to see I'm not the only person. I do not like the name change from sdcard1, sdext, extsd, etc. to this screwed one of 2019-9450 or whatever. Mainly because when in Titanium Backup, if I try to extract from a nandroid, it says no TWRP backup files can be found on the SD card. I haven't tried moving a nandroid backup file to the internal storage yet but, that's my next step.

im stuck at 30% trying to format my 64gb samsung as internal. any ideas on how to fix this?

fix-this! said:
im stuck at 30% trying to format my 64gb samsung as internal. any ideas on how to fix this?
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Click to collapse
You are not the only one buddy. Same boat here.

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...
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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
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Click to collapse
Thats bonkers, i thought the whole point of adopted storage was you just ended up with one bigger lump of memory.

transfering apps to the SD card

Can someone check the ability to transfer apps to the SD card? I have a Verizon S7 Edge, when I transfer an app to the SD card it says it moves but nothing seems to happen. The amount to storage on the card doesn't change and no new files are created. I have tried this with Audible and Strava.

bndfishing said:
Can someone check the ability to transfer apps to the SD card? I have a Verizon S7 Edge, when I transfer an app to the SD card it says it moves but nothing seems to happen. The amount to storage on the card doesn't change and no new files are created. I have tried this with Audible and Strava.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, seems to be broken for me as well, it says to move and also shows it being on the external sd in the application manager afterwards, but the taken storage is the same on internal and external. It did create the subfolder in Android/obb for me on the external sd, but it was empty. I also tried to move the file within the folder by hand into the folder on the external, but the game simply wouldn't load afterwards (tried it with Implosion), just stayed on a black screen after the first starting screen.

Ok, found the problem, when you move the app from internal storage to external sd from within settings - > applications, it moves parts of the app from the internal data folder to the Android folder on the internal sd, what is pretty pointless...
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

You could enable Adoptable Storage so that some of your external SD card will be used for internal memory: http://www.modaco.com/news/android/heres-how-to-configure-adoptable-storage-on-your-s7-s7-edge-r1632/

I know, but even while i have a class 10 card, i don't want the speed impact when putting all on the sd, also I'd like to use the internal storage to its full potential and just put some certain apps to the external sd, but thanks anyways.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Samsung disabled the adaptive storage option. Here is the response I got from Samsung on the app data issue. I looks like they know the data isn't moving.
"I have checked our resources and found that whenever an app is moved to the SD card, only the app and the dependencies of the application for the Operating System to identify the app on the SD card are only moved. Data associated with the app is not moved to the SD card.
Let’s hope that our future updates should allow the user to move the apps data to the SD card along with the app.
I would have surely helped you if there was any other option to move the apps data to the SD card.
I appreciate your time in writing to us. "

Argh, how annoying is this? My s7 is doing exactly the same. Nothing is actually being transferred to the sd card with their move to sd tool! I'm glad I bought a 64gb card especially (not) grrr!

Just had a thought. Has anyone tried this with an encrypted SD card? Maybe that's why....

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.