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Changing SD card in Marshmallow?

So, Marshmallow for Pure should be right around the corner, and it's nice to be able to use SD card as internal memory. My question is, when I need to upgrade the SD card (say, from a 32GB to 128GB in the future), what is the process? The thing is I have a 32GB card lying around, and I don't need a storage at the moment, so I plan to just start using that for now. But then later, may need to upgrade it to a larger/faster card.

namartlu said:
So, Marshmallow for Pure should be right around the corner, and it's nice to be able to use SD card as internal memory. My question is, when I need to upgrade the SD card (say, from a 32GB to 128GB in the future), what is the process? The thing is I have a 32GB card lying around, and I don't need a storage at the moment, so I plan to just start using that for now. But then later, may need to upgrade it to a larger/faster card.
Click to expand...
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This is from the Styles update notes: https://motorola-mobility-en-in.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod_answer_detail/a_id/108821
Expandable Storage
Android Marshmallow enables your SD card to fully extend device internal storage rather than just being used for media files.
After inserting a new SD card to your phone, you will see a notification to set it up. You can choose to use your new SD card as a portable storage or as internal storage:
Portable storage: use your SD card to store your pictures, videos, audio and other media files. You can remove the SD card at any time and transfer it to other device.
Internal storage: in addition to media, you can store downloaded apps and games, all their media and data. The SD card acts as an extension of the internal storage of your phone.
If you have an SD card inserted in your phone when you upgrade it to Android Marshmallow, the card will be defaulted to portable storage. Any existing application stored in your SD card before the upgrade will run as expected (in portable storage). In order to move any new application to the SD card, you have to adopt it as internal storage first. To set your SD card as internal storage:
Back up and preserve any data you have on the card, as formatting for internal storage will erase it.
Swipe the status bar down with two fingers and tap the gear icon at the top right corner of your screen.
Once in the Settings menu, scroll down and tap Storage & USB, then select your portable SD card from the list.
Tap the menu icon (3 vertical dots) at the top right corner of the SD card screen and select Settings.
Select Format as internal and follow the steps in the tutorial.
Important: when the SD card is adopted as internal storage, it is formatted and encrypted to protect your information. It cannot be removed and transferred to other device. If you want to use the SD card as portable storage or in another device after adopted as internal storage, then you need to format it. When doing so, please remember that formatting erases all the data stored in your SD card.

thanks, I have read that but doesn't seem to answer my question... I suppose someone could write an app to do it... migrating from one SD card to another...

Dump the smaller card's data on to a pc, then transfer that to the larger card. But if you choose to designate it as internal storage I think you'd have to dump it into the cloud first.
Sent from my SM-T230NU using XDA Free mobile app

namartlu said:
So, Marshmallow for Pure should be right around the corner, and it's nice to be able to use SD card as internal memory. My question is, when I need to upgrade the SD card (say, from a 32GB to 128GB in the future), what is the process? The thing is I have a 32GB card lying around, and I don't need a storage at the moment, so I plan to just start using that for now. But then later, may need to upgrade it to a larger/faster card.
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My assumption is that since this is a formatting to internal storage extension, then you will later (when ready to upgrade to the larger storage card) dump the current data either into a cloud, or usb into a desktop by copying/moving the files (app, media, system etc) onto the desktop into a new folder with just those files, (maybe name it moto x files) then copy/move them from the desktop folder onto the device with the new larger memory card via usb after it's been formatted as the new internal extended memory.

If we change the SD card to internal storage will it mean that sdcard read/write operations will be slower??

So, if adopting the SD card as internal encrypts the card what happens if you try to download music to it from a streaming service like Rhapsody? Will it successfully download? Will it successfully play back in the Rhapsody app on the phone? I have the feeling Rhapsody support won't even have a clue what I am asking. ?

opti1 said:
So, if adopting the SD card as internal encrypts the card what happens if you try to download music to it from a streaming service like Rhapsody? Will it successfully download? Will it successfully play back in the Rhapsody app on the phone? I have the feeling Rhapsody support won't even have a clue what I am asking. ?
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I believe as long as it is in the phone it will work as normal. If it is removed from the phone you won't be able to read it.
Sent from my Moto XPE

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???
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Possible, on Linux

Ranpe said:
Possible, on Linux
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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???
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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

migrating to new SD card with adoptable storage enabled

Hello,
Just wondering if anybody has any knowledge on how to install a new SD card when you already have adoptable storage enabled. I'm assuming I could power down the phone and copy everything over, but my new SD card is 200gb vs 128gb installed. I'm worried the partition table wouldn't be set properly.
Any advice would be great!
Thanks,
Jaime

I haven't tried but perhaps unmounting the SD card would help?

deepfriedbutter said:
Hello,
Just wondering if anybody has any knowledge on how to install a new SD card when you already have adoptable storage enabled. I'm assuming I could power down the phone and copy everything over, but my new SD card is 200gb vs 128gb installed. I'm worried the partition table wouldn't be set properly.
Any advice would be great!
Thanks,
Jaime
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Click to collapse
The data stored on your card must be moved back to the internal storage in order to avoid breaking your apps. You can do that from the internal storage menu. If you can't fit everything, you'll have to delete things until you're under the limit. At that point, you can go back into the SD card storage menu and format it as "portable", meaning it will work in other devices. If there's any data still on it, you will lose it. Then put in the new card and set it up for "adoptable" as the previous card was.

Setting default storage location to SD card AND encrypting SD card

Hi all,
This problem is not specific to the P9 Lite but rather to Nougat in general, but htis is what I have, here I will ask.
Problem:
1) I want to set the default storage location to SD card, so that chrome and all other apps will save downloads to the SD card by default
2) I ABSOLUTELY want the SD card encrypted
3) These 2 options: set default storage location: SD card, and set SD Card passwords seem mutually exclusive. I can either enable one or the other (or, more plainly, encrypting the SD card makes the set default storage location go away from Memory&storage)
Is there a way to set the default storage location manually (using shell, adb, whatever? Is there any pertinent reason why the default storage location cannot be on an encrypted drive? Will doing this dissolve reality as we know it?
PS. Yes, I'd much rather actually use the SD card as adopted storage, unfortunately I read that:
Warning: File-based encryption cannot currently be used together with adoptable storage. On devices using file-based encryption, new storage media (such as an SD card) must be used as traditional storage.
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Click to collapse
At https://source.android.com/devices/storage/adoptable

SD card for app storage

I'm using a 400GB SD card. I saw a comment about creating 2 different partitions on it as I want to use part of it for app storage and the other part for file storage, The second partition would be exFAT so I can remove the card and transfer my books, music, etc. to it by attaching the SD card to my laptop as I understand that Windows would not be able to recognize the partition that would be formatted as internal storage. I did format the SD card using my laptop as two separate partitions. My Samsung Galaxy Tab A saw both partitions. I selected the 96GB partition as I wanted to use that for app storage and selected the option to use it as internal storage. Unfortunately when I did that, it appears that the system set the whole CD card up for internal storage. Does anyone have any insight on how to accomplish this - use part of the SD card for internal storage and part of it for storage that would be recognizable by Windows? Thank you very much.

I have not tried, so take the advice as a suggestion, perhaps android can be "fooled", which I doubt.
After creating a bulk partition in android, move the SD to Windows and resize that partition, and create a second partition on the remaining capacity and hide it.
Now move the SD back to android and see what happens.
If android will reformat the partitions again then I can't advise anything else.
However, if android accepts the memory, then the next step is to discover the partition in Windows and recheck the SD in android.

ze7zez said:
I have not tried, so take the advice as a suggestion, perhaps android can be "fooled", which I doubt.
After creating a bulk partition in android, move the SD to Windows and resize that partition, and create a second partition on the remaining capacity and hide it.
Now move the SD back to android and see what happens.
If android will reformat the partitions again then I can't advise anything else.
However, if android accepts the memory, then the next step is to discover the partition in Windows and recheck the SD in android.
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Well, I was trying to work on that and now the Android Storage module (in Settings) keeps crashing when I open it. IDK what happened here. I've reformatted the SD card, I've removed the SD card, I've rebooted the table multiple times. I'm almost to the point of having to restore the tablet from scratch ... again.

Try this:
Link2SD - Apps on Google Play
Complete app management, move to SD, clear cache, remove bloatware and more
play.google.com

JR1979 said:
I'm using a 400GB SD card. I saw a comment about creating 2 different partitions on it as I want to use part of it for app storage and the other part for file storage, The second partition would be exFAT so I can remove the card and transfer my books, music, etc. to it by attaching the SD card to my laptop as I understand that Windows would not be able to recognize the partition that would be formatted as internal storage. I did format the SD card using my laptop as two separate partitions. My Samsung Galaxy Tab A saw both partitions. I selected the 96GB partition as I wanted to use that for app storage and selected the option to use it as internal storage. Unfortunately when I did that, it appears that the system set the whole CD card up for internal storage. Does anyone have any insight on how to accomplish this - use part of the SD card for internal storage and part of it for storage that would be recognizable by Windows? Thank you very much.
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Click to collapse
You're trying to convert a partition in sd card as internal storage and leave the rest as an external storage. Not possible as far as I know.

TheMystic said:
You're trying to convert a partition in sd card as internal storage and leave the rest as an external storage. Not possible as far as I know.
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Thats a bummer but that is what I was feeling was going to be the outcome. I guess I'll just go with it as internal storage then and be rlefated to wireless transfer of my books, etc. To the tablet. Any thoughts on why my Storage module keeps crashing now? Something definitely went nuts somewhere along the way here. It was running fine.. until I start poking around with this. I'll probably just do a rebuild again tonight.. if I can find my steps notes.

I also don't think it's possible to do what you have in mind. It's also important to remember that Windows will only mount the first partition of an SD card. It won't see any other partitions without 3rd party software installed.

JR1979 said:
Thats a bummer but that is what I was feeling was going to be the outcome. I guess I'll just go with it as internal storage then and be rlefated to wireless transfer of my books, etc. To the tablet. Any thoughts on why my Storage module keeps crashing now? Something definitely went nuts somewhere along the way here. It was running fine.. until I start poking around with this. I'll probably just do a rebuild again tonight.. if I can find my steps notes.
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The reason people want a micro SD card is to be able to move it around between devices, so it is not a good idea to convert it into 'internal storage' for two reasons:
1. You can no longer move the card around (not without reformatting it again).
2. This process would significantly slow down the system if the OS starts saving apps, data and files on the micro SD card because it sees this space as internal storage.
Because of how you partitioned the SD card and tried converting only a part of it as internal storage, my guess is the process caused corruption somewhere, and the system is crashing because of that. I'm afraid you'll have to do a factory reset and start from scratch. I hope your files are safe.

JR1979 said:
I'm using a 400GB SD card. I saw a comment about creating 2 different partitions on it as I want to use part of it for app storage and the other part for file storage, The second partition would be exFAT so I can remove the card and transfer my books, music, etc. to it by attaching the SD card to my laptop as I understand that Windows would not be able to recognize the partition that would be formatted as internal storage. I did format the SD card using my laptop as two separate partitions. My Samsung Galaxy Tab A saw both partitions. I selected the 96GB partition as I wanted to use that for app storage and selected the option to use it as internal storage. Unfortunately when I did that, it appears that the system set the whole CD card up for internal storage. Does anyone have any insight on how to accomplish this - use part of the SD card for internal storage and part of it for storage that would be recognizable by Windows? Thank you very much.
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Click to collapse
You should NEVER use an SD card for internal storage. They are MUCH to slow for that purpose. Today's SoC have RAM chips mounted directly on top and are several times faster than the fastest SD card bus. And low end tablets, which includes ALL Tab A devices, use a USB bus with limited bandwidth. So using faster SD cards is pointless as they will still only be as fast as the bus. SD cards are fine for storing video, audio, text and downloaded files, but NOT for running apps. Doing so will cause the device to be laggy at best, and cause crashes at worst.

blaacksheep said:
I also don't think it's possible to do what you have in mind. It's also important to remember that Windows will only mount the first partition of an SD card. It won't see any other partitions without 3rd party software installed.
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The two partitions on the USB flash drive can be seen* in Windows without third-party software.
*I don't have an English Windows interface.

ze7zez said:
The two partitions on the USB flash drive can be seen* in Windows without third-party software.
*I don't have an English Windows interface.
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I meant that it won't mount the second partition, although you can see it in Disk Manager.

blaacksheep said:
I meant that it won't mount the second partition, although you can see it in Disk Manager.
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Windows 10 mounts both of these partitions, assigns them letters and you can use them (read and write).

ze7zez said:
Windows 10 mounts both of these partitions, assigns them letters and you can use them (read and write).
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I stand corrected! Previous versions of Windows could not do that.

ze7zez said:
The two partitions on the USB flash drive can be seen* in Windows without third-party software.
*I don't have an English Windows interface.
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Click to collapse
Something strange in that attachment. Since when do Android SD cards have NTFS partitions? As far as I know, the internal storage partitions that Windows couldn't read were formated as Ext3 or Ext4 and the external as either FAT32 or exFAT.

lewmur said:
Something strange in that attachment. Since when do Android SD cards have NTFS partitions? As far as I know, the internal storage partitions that Windows couldn't read were formated as Ext3 or Ext4 and the external as either FAT32 or exFAT.
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Don't suggest the volume label. Partition K: is FAT. The example shows that Windows can show two partitions on a USB stick.

ze7zez said:
Don't suggest the volume label. Partition K: is FAT. The example shows that Windows can show two partitions on a USB stick.
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Click to collapse
Of course it can. It can show several. But NOT the two partitions created on an Android SD card because one of then is formated in a file system Windows doesn't recognize and that is what the poster was talking about.
edit: Disk Manager will actually show the partition but it won't be assigned a drive letter because Windows can't mount it.