Database Users

'convert' to adaptive storage

I feel like such a noob. I have a 16 GB model with a 128 micro SD card. I was expecting MM to come out much earlier than this (I'm on Verizon) but some time ago I had to not only point my music to the SD card but I also had to move a bunch of apps to the SD card in Lollipop because I was running out of space.
What is the most direct and foolproof way to backup my phone (not rooted), convert to adaptive storage and then get back to where I was with the least amount of work?
Thanks for any suggestions

Root it and use titanium backup

stevevetter said:
I feel like such a noob. I have a 16 GB model with a 128 micro SD card. I was expecting MM to come out much earlier than this (I'm on Verizon) but some time ago I had to not only point my music to the SD card but I also had to move a bunch of apps to the SD card in Lollipop because I was running out of space.
What is the most direct and foolproof way to backup my phone (not rooted), convert to adaptive storage and then get back to where I was with the least amount of work?
Thanks for any suggestions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Move apps back to internal storage, but free up space if you don't have it; you can copy the entirety of user-facing internal storage via MTP to a temporary directory on a PC, if you absolutely need the space for apps. Then, copy the entirety of the SD card to a temporary directory on a computer using either a microSD USB reader or via MTP through the phone itself. This will take an hour or so (maybe much longer) depending on how much data needs copying. If you don't need to free up space from internal storage, deal only with the SD card data.
You can then format the SD card as internal, and copy everything back to it via MTP. Moving apps to the SD card in MM is a bit more clumsy, and hopefully Google will fix that. But, as it stands, you have to individually move supported apps to the SD card by tapping on the app within Apps, and selecting Storage. Total step backwards, IMO.
Keep in mind that MM defaults to USB charging when connecting your phone to a computer, so pull the notification shade down, select USB for charging, then use the File Transfer (MTP) option.

so I think I followed Jason.Droid's suggestion right
I didn't feel like rooting to go about this so I did the move & copy thing. With minimal usage all things seem to work fine.
I am surprised by one thing though. I had thought that integrating the SD card via adaptive storage was supposed to just 'abosorb' it into what is shown as internal storage. Instead what I see is a summary at the top of 18.66 GB used of 133 , then a line item for Android OS, a line item for internal storage (7.11 GB used of 9.50 GB) and line item for the SanDisk SD card (5.04 GB used of 117 GB).
Is this how it is supposed to look? Does MM just handle where to put apps and data from now on so I don't get the internal storage full errors? Do I have to flip a setting to indicate to install apps on the SD card (like it was @ android 2.2)?
I'm expecting MM to just handle it. I also noticed the SD card option in Camera settings is now gone, so that to me is another indicator I'm in good shape.
Thanks again for any comments/confirmation.

Features of Marshmallow - Episode 1 : Using microSD card as internal storage

New android version Marshmallow has a feature to use microSD card as internal storage.
When Marshmallow detects a microSD card for the first time it asks to chose Portable or Internal storage mode.
If you choose "Use as portable storage" you will use it as before. You can save your photos, videos, some applications or their data,
backup/restore your phone, etc. and you can see your files if you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, as usual.
But if you choose "Use as internal storage" and click "ERASE&FORMAT" button at next screen,
then your microSD card will be formatted as ext4 and encrypted. You will loose everything in your microSD card and it will
become your only internal storage. Now, If you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, it will not possible to see your files
since it is encrypted. Your microSD is usable only with your phone.
Than, what is the advantage of using microSD card as internal storage?
If your phone's real internal storage very small (ex: 4gb) and you have trouble installing new apps then you may put a 32 GB microSD card and use it as internal storage. Then your internal storage will be 32 GB (Not total of 36GB).
It will act as your phone's internal storage.
Disadvantages?
microSD card used as internal storage is useless out of your phone since it is encrypted. You can not use it taking out of your phone and putting into another device to transfer your photos, music files, zipped ROM files etc.
It will not be visible as external storage anymore.
Phone's real internal storage is not visible.
So,
If your phone's real internal storage is not too small and especially if you want to use your external storage as usual, there is no need to use a microSD card as internal storage.

darkRd said:
New android version Marshmallow has a feature to use microSD card as internal storage.
When Marshmallow detects a microSD card for the first time it asks to chose Portable or Internal storage mode.
If you choose "Use as portable storage" you will use it as before. You can save your photos, videos, some applications or their data,
backup/restore your phone, etc. and you can see your files if you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, as usual.
But if you choose "Use as internal storage" and click "ERASE&FORMAT" button at next screen,
then your microSD card will be formatted as ext4 and encrypted. You will loose everything in your microSD card and it will
become your only internal storage. Now, If you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, it will not possible to see your files
since it is encrypted. Your microSD is usable only with your phone.
Than, what is the advantage of using microSD card as internal storage?
If your phone's real internal storage very small (ex: 4gb) and you have trouble installing new apps then you may put a 32 GB microSD card and use it as internal storage. Then your internal storage will be 32 GB (Not total of 36GB).
It will act as your phone's internal storage.
Disadvantages?
microSD card used as internal storage is useless out of your phone since it is encrypted. You can not use it taking out of your phone and putting into another device to transfer your photos, music files, zipped ROM files etc.
It will not be visible as external storage anymore.
Phone's real internal storage is not visible.
So,
If your phone's real internal storage is not too small and especially if you want to use your external storage as usual, there is no need to use a microSD card as internal storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No way to read or write in ext4 in pc???

jaswinprakash said:
No way to read or write in ext4 in pc???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possible, on Linux

Ranpe said:
Possible, on Linux
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But its still encrypted, so that won't help I guess. Also once you flash your phone or something, the contents won't be available anymore I think. It's just a guess though, I don't know how it is decrypted and all.
Sent from my MotoG3-TE using XDA Forums

jaswinprakash said:
No way to read or write in ext4 in pc???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to be not possible out of your phone by anyway since it is encrypted.
I don't not know whether it is possible to extract encryption key from phone and decrypt the files using this key but this shouldn't be possible because of security reasons.
No one desires access to the important files in the sd card if it is captured by any one else.

darkRd said:
It seems to be not possible out of your phone by anyway since it is encrypted.
I don't not know whether it is possible to extract encryption key from phone and decrypt the files using this key but this shouldn't be possible because of security reasons.
No one desires access to the important files in the sd card if it is captured by any one else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is possible done it in my Lenovo A328. Courtesy of this mod:
http : / / forum.xda-developers.com / android / development / rom-flight-a328-custom-rom-based-150429-t3137708

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Adoptable Storage & TWRP

Hi guys,
I've done a lot of research into this and have read multiple posts about it, but can't seem to find a decent solution....
Basically, adoptable storage on 6.0 will format the SD card in such a way that only your phone can recognize it. TWRP and your PC won't be able to read the SD card at all. In that case, what's the best way to bypass this?
I'm assuming that you just format 50% of the card as adoptable storage, so the rest can be used by TWRP/PC? It just seems kind of annoying because if you need to flash a new ROM, or if your ROM has issues etc, you'd have to constantly move the data to your SD card's normal storage, otherwise it's unreadable. I'm talking about stuff like Titanium Backups, which I believe can't be saved onto the normal SD card storage, etc.

Looks like I found the answer myself.
Don't bother using that script from Modaco (unless you're on stock 6.0 ROMs). Just format the card as adoptable SD in the ROM itself (I'm using Resurrection Remix), then reboot. Your PC will pick up the SD card via MTP no problem. If that doesn't work, boot into TWRP (make sure you're using 3.0.2.2-test as of this current writing) and select micro-SD (adoptable storage). It should show up via MTP as well.
Looks like nothing is affected as TWRP and my PC can still read the card despite being formatted as adoptable. Problem solved.
Update 2:
If you are using stock official ROM, then adoptable storage won't be visible via MTP. You can use TWRP to access it though, but make sure you're using the latest TWRP. On the phone itself, you can use something like Root Explorer and browse to the following path to access the adoptable storage contents:
/mnt/expand/xyzblahblah/media/0
the xyzblahblah part is a long random string. It might look different on your phone.
Note that Titanium Backup can't recognize this path. You can browse to it, but it can't access it. Best to format your card as 50/50 adoptable/portable storage.

Some different issues with the phone, possibly related to the storage access

Hi all,
I'm writing here hoping someone could help me with what's happening with my phone.
I've had this Moto G5 Plus (with a 16 gb MicroSD on) for about a year and I never had any problem until yesterday.
Yesterday morning, after I backed up Whatsapp using Google Drive for the first time (and I mention it because it's the only thing I did before starting to notice the issues, I don't know if it's related) I noticed that I couldn't download images and voice notes on Whatsapp - when I try to do it I get a "Download Failed, The download was unable o complete. Please try again later" message - nor send them - trying to do so I get a "camera failed" message.
When connecting the phone to my PC I can't copy anything on it, when I try to do it it seems like Windows is starting to copy stuff, but then the progress bar doesn't move and nothing happens.
Yesterday I took a couple of photos, but I later found out that they weren't saved anywhere on the phone.
I'm also having issues loading videos on Instagram - they keep loading but won't stream - and trying to clean the phone with Google Files Go I'm getting a "Can't delete file. Error Unknown".
I honestly have no idea what could be causing it (but it looks like something's up with the storage) or how to solve it, so I'm hoping anyone could shed some light on this.
Many thanks in advance
EDIT: forgot to say, the phone is completely stock and not rooted

Does the storage default to SD card or onboard storage?

Kilo__ said:
Does the storage default to SD card or onboard storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not entirely sure what you mean with that, can you elaborate?

I've had the same problem with both my moto g 2014 and my moto g5 plus. I've set my SD to operate as internal storage. The SD is not designed to operate as an internal storage and in both phones, the 2 SDs soon became corrupted. I've never used the SD as internal storage since and I advise you not to do it anymore. Your problem is that your sd became corrupted. You'd better check if the SD is still under warranty and claim a replacement.

Jimisballjohn said:
I've had the same problem with both my moto g 2014 and my moto g5 plus. I've set my SD to operate as internal storage. The SD is not designed to operate as an internal storage and in both phones, the 2 SDs soon became corrupted. I've never used the SD as internal storage since and I advise you not to do it anymore. Your problem is that your sd became corrupted. You'd better check if the SD is still under warranty and claim a replacement.
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Click to collapse
The weird thing is that I checked with a different SD (which I also formatted as internal for the test) and I had the same problem.

You'd better stop using any SD as internal on Android. It's just not meant to be. Trust me, I've lost 3 SD cards because they were formatted as internal storage. Your other SD probably became corrupted as well. Try operating the card as external storage. Besides, moto g5 plus houses 32gb of internal rom, which is enough to keep a handful of applications installed on it. Keep the SD as external storage, internal storage is not a real option IMHO.

Jimisballjohn said:
You'd better stop using any SD as internal on Android. It's just not meant to be. Trust me, I've lost 3 SD cards because they were formatted as internal storage. Your other SD probably became corrupted as well. Try operating the card as external storage. Besides, moto g5 plus houses 32gb of internal rom, which is enough to keep a handful of applications installed on it. Keep the SD as external storage, internal storage is not a real option IMHO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give it a try and let you know if it works alright when I get home later on, but it seemed weird that the first SD worked fine for a year before becoming corrupt and the second one was corrupted from the first attempt of using it...I'll see what happens with it as external storage tho

Jimisballjohn said:
You'd better stop using any SD as internal on Android. It's just not meant to be. Trust me, I've lost 3 SD cards because they were formatted as internal storage. Your other SD probably became corrupted as well. Try operating the card as external storage. Besides, moto g5 plus houses 32gb of internal rom, which is enough to keep a handful of applications installed on it. Keep the SD as external storage, internal storage is not a real option IMHO.
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Click to collapse
I tried just removing the SD to use the phone with just the internal storage.
I've got 7GB of free space and when trying to shoot a photo I'm getting an "Your internal storage is running out of space" error.
Have you got any idea what could b the issue?

Have you tried wiping cache through recovery? Have you rebooted after removing the sd? Have you set the internal storage as default storage of camera app?

Jimisballjohn said:
Have you tried wiping cache through recovery? Have you rebooted after removing the sd? Have you set the internal storage as default storage of camera app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That wont "uncorrupt" your sdcard because the sdcards "identity" (so your device can identify one sdcard from another) is stored elsewhere instead of just cache/dalvik cache. Also, what do you mean you went through 3 sdcards? You do realize those flagged corrupted sdcards were only flagged for that particular session (meaning, for that particular install) so you could have simply reinstalled the firmware and it would have reset the sd. I paid over $50 for a high end sdcard, which has also been flagged as corrupt on several occasions but never "perma"-flagged..

fuzzydorito said:
That wont "uncorrupt" your sdcard because the sdcards "identity" (so your device can identify one sdcard from another) is stored elsewhere instead of just cache/dalvik cache. Also, what do you mean you went through 3 sdcards? You do realize those flagged corrupted sdcards were only flagged for that particular session (meaning, for that particular install) so you could have simply reinstalled the firmware and it would have reset the sd. I paid over $50 for a high end sdcard, which has also been flagged as corrupt on several occasions but never "perma"-flagged..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I told him to wipe cache because the internal storage was flagged as full by the camera app. I know that this won't fix the corrupted ad cards. What I mean by saying that I lost 3 SD cards is that although I even used gparted to try to fix them, I was unable to do so because of errors I currently can't recall. I had to return them to the retailer I bought them and he returned them to Samsung (evo 32 gb) and after that I was told that I can have replacements for all 3 of them.

Jimisballjohn said:
Have you tried wiping cache through recovery? Have you rebooted after removing the sd? Have you set the internal storage as default storage of camera app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried all that and it didn't work.
I ended up calling Amazon and using the warranty to have it replaced, I don't have much time to play with the phone trying to fix it and I needed a fully working phone quickly.
Thanks anyway everyone for the help

Best thing to do, you are welcome neigbour (I live in Greece).