Database Users

Do you prefer Adopted Storage (MM) or Portable Storage formats?

MM brought the adopted internal storage option for SD cards, which combines your SD space with your device space. It still has a few bugs with certain apps but for the most part is pretty fluid. The traditional portable storage works as usually expected but also encounters some bugs in MM.
Personally I'm having a hard time choosing between the two and some people seem to dislike the adopted storage.
Which do you use and which do you prefer?

Now that twrp works adopted is almost mandatory for 16gb model.

I found Adoptable Storage poorly thought out and implemented. Google should've pushed devs to support it. It doesn't combine storage either. There are just two internal drives (one embedded, one SD).
Moving apps to the SD card now takes quite a few more steps. There's no overview of apps able to move or installed on the SD card, and no way to multi-select apps for moving.
On top of that, system apps completely ignore the adopted storage drive and you can't select what drive to store files on. It's supposed to be automatic, but it's not. Once you fill the eMMC, apps that don't support SD cards will start to fail as they can't store data.

Portable storage, I keep my music, movies, pictures, ROMs, and nandroids on my microsd card. Every once in a while I pop out the card and either move new media to it or move backups from my PC. I also sometimes wipe internal and accidentally wipe my roms and flashable zips, so in that case I pop out the memory card put it in my PC and download whatever I need from there and pop it back in. The option to manage media from a PC far outweighs having extra (half-baked) internal storage for me.

I haven't tried using adoptable storage yet with updated TWRP, but I find keeping the SD card as portable is more convenient if you're into flashing custom ROMs every few weeks/months. You can keep all your backups and other files on it and wipe everything else including the internal storage during clean flashes. I might look to see how well adoptable storage works now later.

nv2k said:
I haven't tried using adoptable storage yet with updated TWRP, but I find keeping the SD card as portable is more convenient if you're into flashing custom ROMs every few weeks/months. You can keep all your backups and other files on it and wipe everything else including the internal storage during clean flashes. I might look to see how well adoptable storage works now later.
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Say you don't flash ROMs very often, and usually have backups uploaded to the cloud. I'd there a dire need for a portal SD? Also, if adopted storage is used and you flash a ROM, does that essentially wipe all the apps/data?

In your case, portable storage wouldn't be necessary. As I haven't tested it, I can't say for sure how flashing new roms would work with adoptable storage. My guess is that you would only wipe the system if you want to keep your data, but I'd do some research before going through with that.

They both suck with the 16GB model which I stupidly bought because I figured I could throw a 64GB SD card in it and be good. Unfortunately it doesn't work as advertised and I didn't find out the SD card is basically useless until after Best Buy's 2 week return window was up.
First I tried setting it up as portable. I could set Google Music to cache and download music to the SD card, but when I went to install Star Wars KOTR I was out of space. So then I formatted it as internal. It doesn't really work as expected. I was able to install all my apps including KOTR, but then Google Play Music will only cache music to the internal storage and my device was full after downloading just a few albums.

Nothing stopping you from using a different method to store music on your device.

lafester said:
Nothing stopping you from using a different method to store music on your device.
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True, I could just download it all and copy it to the SD, but I've had issues doing that in the past. Google Play shows 2 copies of every song, one local and one cloud. Plus I subscribe to Google Play Music, there is no way to use another method to store songs that are part of the subscription that I don't own.

I've had at least one app (Geometry Dash) fail when using adopted storage. I'm using portable storage right now.
And won't adopted storage become unrecognized if you wipe /data (ex after installing a new ROM)? Seems like a pain to copy the contents of SD-Card before and after switching ROMs or restoring nandroids. I'm considering using TWRP to partition my SD-Card instead and doing a more traditional apps2sd.

Application storage problem

I have added a 32gb SD Card but I can't even update applications as the rom is too low 8GB I believe. And it's occupied by os mostly. I moved all the apps to sd card but still the apps don't get moved completely from internal storage. And after update the apps get back to internal storage.
How do I get rid of this annoying problem!!?

Try factory resetting, maybe its a bug

Adromedemon said:
Try factory resetting, maybe its a bug
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So this doesn't happen to anyone else?
Also I noticed when I move app to sd card it doesn't completely move it. say a 222mb app after moving to sd card, it shows 167mb on device storage and 2xx on sd card!

I had that problem.. I partitioned my sd card, I downloaded link2sd plus and I was able to move the whole app to sd card, it's better to use the option link to sd card rather then the option move to sd card, your apps run properly when you link instead of move.. I also installed a custom rom , Igot memory for days

Star.Dust said:
So this doesn't happen to anyone else?
Also I noticed when I move app to sd card it doesn't completely move it. say a 222mb app after moving to sd card, it shows 167mb on device storage and 2xx on sd card!
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Click to collapse
Yes, you cant completely move all app data on sd card. Try link2sd if it works

Storage problem solved for galaxy grand prime plus or other low storages devices
Hi,
This tutorial for those who want to increase storge.
After marshmallow update samsung stops adoptable storage.
But there is one way to enable adoptable storage again.
Guide:
Root your device.
Install Twrp recivery.
Download root essential from playstore
Open the app and select storage.
Now click on adoptable storage and the click on adopt.
Now download ASPlugin.zip from google.
Now flash the zip file from the Flasher given in root essential.
All Done.
Now you can use sd card as adoptable storage in settings.

Installing apps direct to the SD card.

I'm on a Redmi 3S with 16 GB internal storage which runs on unofficial version of LineageOS by Fedosis. I was not using an SD card, hence everything was in the internal memory itself.
As the app and app data is getting huge, I wanted to move this to an external storage. So I got a 32 gig SD card. While setting up the card, I used the option "as internal memory". After installation I could not access my phone memory. And when I rebooted to recovery via TWRP, I cannot see this SD card. Only thing I could see was phone memory. So it's kind of a complication to flash apps.
So I again formatted the SD card and set it up "as portable memory". Now I can access the phone memory normally and in TWRP also. But when I try to move the apps, [eg: Hearthstone, Flamingo, etc] it says, it's not possible.
So, how should I set up my new SD card, so that I can move the existing apps into it and also install new apps to the same SD card?

format as internal storage and then go to appsettings and manually move them to external memory. but this isnt supported by all apps.
to flash something with twrp than, you have to put the file you want to flash into /data/media/0/TWRP

merlin.berlin said:
format as internal storage and then go to appsettings and manually move them to external memory. but this isnt supported by all apps.
to flash something with twrp than, you have to put the file you want to flash into /data/media/0/TWRP
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Click to collapse
Thank you.

Possible to install programs to sd card ?

Samsung Galaxy Tab A SM -T550, 8 inch, 16 GB storage, Android Marshmallow.
Any way I can install programs to a sd card instead ?
Thank you.

I have found a partial solution.
I cannot directly install apps to my sd card, but I can move the installed apps to my sd card.
The method to move/transfer installed apps to sd card is from this link :
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00050601/

In these boards there is a patch to enable adoptable storage for Marshmallow, on the other hand if you are rooted and you partition your SD card to have two primary partitions (fat&ext2/4) than you can use an app similar to Apps2sd for those needs as well, which I do on my tablet, that is not Marshmallow, otherwise I would use the adoptable storage patch. Just look around in the boards.
Edit; here's the link for the adoptable storage patch
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-a/how-to/patch-adoptable-storage-enabler-t3507387

zenful said:
In these boards there is a patch to enable adoptable storage for Marshmallow, on the other hand if you are rooted and you partition your SD card to have two primary partitions (fat&ext2/4) than you can use an app similar to Apps2sd for those needs as well, which I do on my tablet, that is not Marshmallow, otherwise I would use the adoptable storage patch. Just look around in the boards.
Edit; here's the link for the adoptable storage patch
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-a/how-to/patch-adoptable-storage-enabler-t3507387
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The adaptable storage method works on rooted, stock Nougat as well. Just got my tablet with 7.0 already on it and was able to get it done.

Quick Question Would a Custom Rom allow me to FULLY utilize the SD cards as internal?

Hi, I'm currently on the Stock Unrooted G5 Plus Android 7.0, the device is only a 16GB but only 10gb usable space.
I have a 64gb SD card mounted, I formatted it as internal and I thought that would allow all the apps that are/get installed to the SD card. but it doesn't work for every app and well I end running out of space.
Would a custom rom fully utilize the SD as internal space?

Not directly... But rooting may allow things like App2SD or Link2SD to work and move apps to the SD card (may require formatting/partitioning of the SD card).

Under developer options there is a setting to ignore the application manifest and allow moving apps to the SD card anyway (Settings > Developer Options > Force allow apps on external). That may allow you to move a few more apps, however system apps will still be stuck on the device's storage. I feel your pain - my G5+ is 16GB too...

I didn't know the G5+ came with 16GB too

M1810 said:
I didn't know the G5+ came with 16GB too
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Click to collapse
Same here,
Whn i was born i saw G5 Plus in 4/32gb n bought it..
2/3 gb ram on oreo+ devices doesnt perform as it is meant to.
:fingers-crossed:
The devs hv made our device a "mini oneplus":good::highfive:

Don't make you SD function as internal. The commercial SDs are not meant to function as internal memories, thus get easily corrupted. I myself got 3 cards corrupted after turning them into internal SDs. Just stick to the external formatting option. In any case, the apps would operate more slowly as soon as you install them on the SD, even when formatted as internal.