In short:
Is there a thread somewhere stating the pro's and con's of running Android from different types of "media" (SD, NAND, EXT2)?
If there is, please provide a link, I can't seem to find anything that isn't an unanswered question or small comments.
If there isn't, let this be a starting point for those looking for the answer to this question.
Longer:
I've seen this question pop up once and again but it might be that the topic is totally exhausted and people have stopped commenting on it. I can't seem to find an answer though; What are the pro's and con's of using NAND, EXT2, FAT32 or any combination of it?
I see a couple of installation alternatives and some I have been able to conclude myself but others not.
* Running from SD-card using HaRET
This option is the slowest in terms of Android performance. It has the added value of easily getting back to Windows Mobile by rebooting the phone, gaining easy access to the SD card and manipulation options.
* Running the system AND data on NAND
This option has in my view the fastest Android experience. Access to files on the SD card is a bit more cumbersome (there is the SD card split widget APK available but I have yet to see it working) and access to files for manipulation I can't comment on (haven't gotten to that yet).
* Running the system from NAND and data on EXT2
The performance seems almost as fast as the system+data on NAND. I have no idea about the added value of running anything from an EXT2-partition in the SD card but I'm guessing it will be slower. I have no idea if file access for manipulation is easier or not compared to the other options.
* Running the system AND data from EXT2
I have not tried this yet and cannot comment on it. Something tells me it will be slower than NAND because of SD card overhead.
* Running the system from EXT2 and data on NAND
I have not tried this yet and cannot comment on it.
Now, I've missed out on several of the installation options but I'll edit this post as soon as I get to investigating it further.
Any comments/experience/knowledge in this is greatly appreciated, as it can make things clearer as to what options to choose.
Well these are very good question and wanted to start a thread on this matter as well. I also could not find a strait answer anywhere.
I also want to know if there is an advantage using ext2 over fat32.
So, people out there having knowledge about this matter please share it.
Ext2 and Fat32 are both types of filesystem used on various different types of media, including SD card, Hard drives etc.
EXT2 is (one) of the native linux filesystems, and is fully supported in kernel, and is usually faster and more stable in that OS
FAT32 is the 32bit version of the old MSdos filesystem, used up to Windows 98, and still supported by windows machines, but slower and less stable than the native NTFS filesystem used by XP and above.
Nand is actually the type of flash ROM used by our devices, and not a filesystem as such, and running Android in Nand refers to where the information is stored, rather than the filesystem used to store it.
It's equally valid to say that we run WM in Nand also.
I think that in the case of Android EXT2 should be faster and more stable than fat32 since it's designed for Linux, and works better in that OS.
Zenity ik would like to thank you very much as this answers mij questions.
And i think this would many others aswell.
Don't forget - if you format your MicroSD to just EXT2 then you will make it very awkward to transfer files to/from the card on a Microsoft Windows based system.
This may, or may not be a problem for you.
Ultimately, the current ideal situation (IMHO) is to run your OS from NAND, and to store your data (music / movies / documents) on a FAT32 format MicroSD - as this enables you to swap the MicroSD card without turning off the device, and provides best cross-platform usability of the MicroSD for the purposes of transferring data to/from it.
Thank you all!
Thank you all for commenting! I will add your comments to the Android-wiki I'm building as this question could come back repeatedly from newcomers (and old ones who forgot )!
boli99 said:
Don't forget - if you format your MicroSD to just EXT2 then you will make it very awkward to transfer files to/from the card on a Microsoft Windows based system.
This may, or may not be a problem for you.
Ultimately, the current ideal situation (IMHO) is to run your OS from NAND, and to store your data (music / movies / documents) on a FAT32 format MicroSD - as this enables you to swap the MicroSD card without turning off the device, and provides best cross-platform usability of the MicroSD for the purposes of transferring data to/from it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a program for allowing the mounting of EXT2 file systems on windows, however they are not signed. This is more problematic in Windows that are 64bit. The program is called 'ext2fsd' and you can get it from source forge. EXT2 is a better file system, and does not have the 4GB file size limit, and does not fragment (although on a SD card, this should not be an issue). EXT2 also has file permissions that Linux understands. Fat32 has no Access control file permissions.
I have just recently got polymod's eclair running with both system and data on ext2 partitions.
my question is...
I am just wondering what the boot order is...
and where(if possible) can it be changed?
system.img in the andboot folder VS system on partition.
I know it can be set in the installer. but lets say I had installed system on ext2 partition. and then later placed a system.img in the andboot folder.
can I swap between the two?
OK...
I figured it out myself,
You can use the installer to select boot options (Not just options to install)
so I have a system and data on partitons. (currently using)
and I also have a second build installed to .img files in the andboot folder. (for failsafe backup)
if I want to swap from one into the other
I enter installer and change the settings for the system and data to
their respective locations and then just QUIT.
I also still have a donut build in the android folder. as well as still running winmo.
quad boot system on my phone...LOL
Now thats a neat use of the installer, I think this find deserves it's own thread in fact, I'm certain others will find it useful
Tanks !
binlabin said:
* Running the system from NAND and data on EXT2
The performance seems almost as fast as the system+data on NAND. I have no idea about the added value of running anything from an EXT2-partition in the SD card but I'm guessing it will be slower. I have no idea if file access for manipulation is easier or not compared to the other options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've done some tries with this doing the partitioning from within android and then formatting the FAT32 partition from Windows 7 but the FAT32 partition doesn't work very well afterward. Really slow and sometimes crashes the explorer. Propably something to do with my SD-card. May try doing the partitioning and formatting from Linux to see if it works better.
Seems to me the main advantage of this option is to increase the size of available data storage which i suspect can become a limitation sooner or later in a pure NAND install.
EDIT: Now I've done it and gone NAND-System + EXT2-Data... Partitioned the SD-card from Ubuntu with gparted. Resized the FAT32 partition and created 3 primary EXT2 partitions. only the second (partition 3) should be used though with the setup I am using. It's charging right now so I haven't tried it out much yet but I will later on. However I noticed that I now have 171Mb free phone storage instead of 30-something that I had before (same apps installed).
EDIT2: Ran gparted again and shrinked the unused partition (partition 2) and expanded the data partition (partition 3) so I now have 369Mb free "Internal phone storage". Haven't noticed any speed differences between this and when I had data on NAND.
nand
By then one question:
If im install android in the NAND is more fast ready? But this process erase WM6?
Because now android work good in my HTC TYNT II but the camera and bluetooth not work and have one or two performance problems and for this dont like delete WM6 of my phone, and for this im use Android from my SD.
But look the NAND option because have a problems with the time live of my battery only lasts 5hours with android and SD.
Thanks for your help and cooperation
excellent thread which answers some questions that I had. Thanks to everyone who contributed. The only question remaining though and I have posted this elsewhere without getting an answer:
I partitioned a 2 gb sdcard with ~1.6gb Fat32 and the rest as a single Ext2. I selected system on nand and data on ext2 in the installer. After installation, it does show alot more memory for data as compared to data on nand, BUT I also have a data.img in andboot which is in the Fat32 partition, with a size around 250mb. The question is, is the data in that file or on ext2? If I backup data from installer, it creates a databackup.img in andboot with the same size as data.img. Seems to me the ext2 partition is just taking up space and not being used. Can anyone more knowledgeable shed some light on this? Thanks.
Not quite sure what is going on there, seems very counter-intuitive, I would have assumed that system on Nand, data on EXT2 would have installed the data partition to EXT2 on SD. This would seem not to be the case in this instance.
There are a few experiments you could try, if you are brave enough, since you may cause problems by trying any of these suggestions, which could mean a reinstall, I leave it to your judgement how to proceed
Ok firstly I assume you have a card reader, since you managed to partition and format the SD card in the first place. Remove the SD card, insert in card reader, delete the andboot folder, or the contents of the folder, ( may be wise to have a spare SD with either a winmo or android install handy at this point, just in case things go horribly wrong ).
Now with the cleaned SD, put it in the phone and boot, it should boot fine, IF the data is truly on the EXT2 partition.
That at least will answer one question, namely, where the heck is my data?
If this works fine, then I'd just put it down to some inner weirdness of android on non-native devices, if it fails then I'm wondering if your EXT2 partition may have problems, forcing the phone to dump it on the first available good partition, namely the FAT32 one.
Oh and if it does fail, you will have to reinstall, since your data will be toast.
Finally, good luck, I await with interest
As I recall, the install has the FAT32/Ext2 options incorrectly swapped. It has been this way for a while.
zenity said:
Not quite sure what is going on there, seems very counter-intuitive, I would have assumed that system on Nand, data on EXT2 would have installed the data partition to EXT2 on SD. This would seem not to be the case in this instance.
There are a few experiments you could try, if you are brave enough, since you may cause problems by trying any of these suggestions, which could mean a reinstall, I leave it to your judgement how to proceed
Ok firstly I assume you have a card reader, since you managed to partition and format the SD card in the first place. Remove the SD card, insert in card reader, delete the andboot folder, or the contents of the folder, ( may be wise to have a spare SD with either a winmo or android install handy at this point, just in case things go horribly wrong ).
Now with the cleaned SD, put it in the phone and boot, it should boot fine, IF the data is truly on the EXT2 partition.
That at least will answer one question, namely, where the heck is my data?
If this works fine, then I'd just put it down to some inner weirdness of android on non-native devices, if it fails then I'm wondering if your EXT2 partition may have problems, forcing the phone to dump it on the first available good partition, namely the FAT32 one.
Oh and if it does fail, you will have to reinstall, since your data will be toast.
Finally, good luck, I await with interest
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great idea, I'll try this on the weekend. I wont delete data though, I'll just rename andboot and backup data for good measure, because I want to be able to go back to the data by renaming it back if it doesn't work. I was also thinking if there is any way to get to the ext2 partition and read it... I'm on xp so I cant do it on my pc, and on the phone, I've looked around in astro n other file managers but cant see anything. But if the case is as golfnz34me points out, then I should just backup the data, and change the option to Fat32 in install and restore data. That should do the trick.
golfnz34me said:
As I recall, the install has the FAT32/Ext2 options incorrectly swapped. It has been this way for a while.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, will check this out. If its true, then great, more speed for my /data! I wonder how I missed this, been going through these forums regularly...
Ok I checked it out, and golfnz34me is correct it seems.
But now I found a new problem. I backed up data, and in the installer, set the data to SDCard, and tried to restore data. It gives various errors like
Code:
cannot determine filesystem size
failed
failed to format
...some other lines...
losetup: /dev/block/loop2: no such device or address
I created the partition with Paragon partition manager, and after getting this error I rechecked in PPM. I reformated the partition, but still get the error. In PPM the partition drive letter isnt assigned. Or, the partition isnt the active partition. Can one of those be the problem? The volume name is Ext2. Im not very experienced in partitioning etc, apart from normal ntfs partition for new hds in windows, so I didnt play with any options. I dont have a linux system either. Any got any ideas? Any help would be appreciated alot!
Not sure about using partition managers other than gparted, afaik most people are using the Gparted live cd if they don't have a linux install handy.
The errors all point to some sort of problem with the EXT2 partition, or it's formatting.
Also EXT2 partitions do not have drive letters, nor do they have to be active partitions.
Apps and data on SD card.
I cant seem to figure out how to make all the apps and other stuff install to the SD card. Do I have to partition the card into two partitions? or is there a way to install the system to Nand and make all the apps and data go to the SD card? Ive tried setting it to System on nand and data on SD partition but it says no partitions to install to or something.
I have an Incredible, rooted (and I have issues)... I appear to have repartitioned my internal memory area. Thankfully, the phone is useable, but it's not quite right as some programs don't work properly, the video recorder hangs hard, and I have either corrupt data or areas stomped on by other areas due to incorrect partition information. If certain files get touched, then the phone immediately protects itself by flagging the internal memory as read only. I did find a workaround to the phone automatically going into ReadOnly at boot by simply adding a ".nomedia" file in the root of MP3 (where some corrupt files happen to reside). As long as the system doesn't touch the files, the file system remains R/W.
I stupidly did this to myeself. I did it while using a Partitioning tool (specifically Acronis, making a "secure zone") on my PC while my incredible was charging in the USB port and I accidentally used the wrong drive. It was one of those "oh crap" moments. If I connect the phone to my PC, the internal drive comes up as being unformatted and windows asks if I want to format. Another disk utility (EASEUS) sees the drive, can show how its partitioned, and I can explore within the partitions to see that files exist.
I've been searching for a long while to find someone somewhere who might have info on how to fix the Internal SD partition information, but have yet to find anything. Reflashing the factory ROM, "factory reset", etc. appear to just repopulate the already partitioned areas. The closest thing I have found to my problem is a post called "Challenge to members... Help me fix internal partitions without recovery" on the Incredibleforums elsewhere (can't post external links yet). Unfortunately, trying those solutions doesn't fix the issue. That post deals with /dev/mount/mmcblk0p1 and /dev/mount/mmcblk0p2. My issue appears to be in /dev/mount/mmcblk0p3. Parted doesn't like that one much. I have attached a couple of files that show parted output for all of the drives that get mounted, per /etc/fstab & /etc/recovery.fstab. This was done in ADB while the phone was booted into recovery.
If anyone can point me in the right direction how to properly (and safely) repartition the *internal* areas back to how they should be, I'd really appreciate the help!
Thanks,
Blue
I ran across this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=15746
.... hope it helps send you in the right direction anyway. Good luck!
Formating instructions i think it would be a better idea to try using the ruu.exe tool to reflash your phone and it should format that partition back and put all the old apps it came with back in proper order. Since the phone is use able right now you could also try a factory reset first if you don't want to try the ruu.exe.
Thanks for the link and tip for RUU.
sfdisk does not appear to be a useable command on my DInc. Is there an Android version/port? Also, that link suggests that the partition should be msdos, but isn't the boot sector type supposed to be ext2/3 or yaffs2 (?) on the DInc?
I have already tried the factory reset as well as reformatting the phone areas using CWM Recovery (3.0.0.8). I also reflashed a factory stock ROM found in the lastest RUU. I also flashed the 2nd to latest ROM from that RUU (2.1). All of these only reformatted and re-installed stock ROM. Unfortunately, doing so only reformats the existing partitions, but does not fix the screwed up partition sizing. As far as I can determine, setting my phone back to S-ON and running the RUU will do nothing different than what I did by placing the stock PB31IMG.zip in the root of my (external) SD card and flashing it from HBOOT.
If the RUU truly repartitions the internal memory, then I'm game to set S-ON and try that. However, all indications are that doing so will be no different than flashing PB31IMG.zip. Is that correct?
Thanks again,
Blue
Galaxy s3 T999 tmobile phone.
Liquid Smooth ROM. - Amazing rom btw. I cant thank those folks enough for their brilliant work
TWRP for recovery
Ive done numerous dalvic/system/cache/data wipes through twrp in preparation for new roms. But my INTERNAL 16 gb SD card always shows that i have around 12GB USED. thats with no personal apps installed
Heres my question. How do i remove all unnecessary data thats hogging up space. I want a CLEAN space to work with!
I do have 4 twrp recovery files (4gb worth of data?) stored in there. Im assuming the system uses about 3 gb's. plus the gapps and liquid rom are only 194 mb combined. So that accounts for maybe 7 or 8 gb
So how do i do a totally clean wipe without losing twrp, recovery files AND root!
the only wipe option ive never used is USB-OTG. (USB On The Go?) No idea what it is or what it does. so i never messed with it. Ive read that it acts like a driver of some sort to allow usb devices to communicate with each other..
Ive also never gone into the Format data section of twrp out of fear that i might wipe the wrong things and render my phone useless
One article i read said that i might have to revert back to stock? im hoping thats not so. And do a factory wipe. Is that different from TWRP's functions? Im assuming that i would lose root.
they said din flash to stock
Odin master clear (or wipe SD from settings)
*2767*3855# on the phones keypad ...(i think codes in general only work on stock TW)
Do i have to format the sd card? would i lose important partitions that would delete the recovery system?
any ideas? i considered opening a partition wizard app to see the different partions on the internal sd card.
I'm no expert on this, but I think that Liquid Smooth has a place in Settings to let you view the space allocation of the storage in your phone and external SD card.
Go to Settings > Storage (or something similar) and take a look at how much space is being allocated of each of the different types of data. It might give you a better idea on what might be taking up that additional ~4GB of space.
If you can, provide us with a screenshot of the Storage screen. If not, you can just type them here so we can better understand what might be going on.
Back up internal sdcard to your computer.
Wipe data/factory reset.
Wipe /data/media.
You can do this through TWRP. Won't lose anything except contents of your internal sdcard. Which is why you back it up first.
Don't forget the formatting of the filesystem does this. Just like windows a 100gig hard drive formats to a smaller amount.
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