Related
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.
Hello to all.
I have a question:what is the differences between the two file system in object of this thread?
I read that some Roms support ext4 and now I have ext3.
I need to change this?is better for performance?
Thanks
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=ext3+vs+ext4&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=ext3+vs+&gs_rfai=&fp=f4657a9573528472
I would like to know this also
Ext4 is the newer Linux file system. Much like Windows 95 moved to Fat32, Vista moved to the NT file system. Linux is now moving to version 4 of their file system. The new file system is more efficient, has journaling and is more secure. It really will not have any noticeable affect on operation.
It must be noted though that native Linux file systems are a lot faster than Fat Windows file systems, however they are not accessible when you put your SD card into a Windows computer. This is why only part of the card is partitioned to Ext3/4 along with the benefit of not having to unmount a file system with your apps on it.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I ve read a post with a very good explanation a week ago .
I will search !
Edit : hum sorry its about a2sd+ , but a little about ext3 and ext4
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=7458565&postcount=8
So it's not really important to make the upgrade to ext4 for me?it's only a problem about security and not affect the performance?
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
i think it doesnt matter on a sd card which ext you use
sdcards are too slow
Check out this article for extensive info.
It is increased journalisation, and better handling of bigger volumes/files.
All the above is absolutely right, but totally wrong. The technical aspects are not important here. For the HTC Desire user the main difference between those filesystems is simple: stock kernel and recovery does not support ext4. That's it.
If you never plan to use stock kernel and/or recovery or skiled enough to enable ext4 support for them, then go ahead and read all those technical articles and do (or do not) change the FS type. If the words "stock kernel" and "stock recovery" mean nothing to you at the moment, you better stick to ext3.
P.S. in theory, ext4 gives you better write performance (and slightly longer SD card life) only if you frequently write the data to the ext partition. But this is not the case for A2SD partition, where the apps are installed occasionally. Unless you plan to give the Desire or the SD card to your grandchildren after many-many years.
Ok lets start this discussion
Some reports:
- Fresh install, Wiped Data. Startup Manager throws a dozen of NOT RESPONDING errors before having my finger tip read
- Ok after a pain taking process of going to home, I see everything quick (entering/exiting from Drawer, switching homes, widgets etc)
- The native web browser hangs up after every GO to entered web address. (same is the case with xScope and Opera Mini
- Frequent incomplete downloads and failures
- tTorrent randomly PAUSES and goes to SCHEDULE when phone goes to sleep.
- Download speed is like 12KB/sec (my wifi router broadcasts an 8Mbps connection)
When I installed on NAND (SYS + DATA)
- Speed is just a dream, Menu transitions, Settings APIs etc open really fast (competing my friend's experia x10i )
- Browser seldom stalls on webpage " GO "s
- Download never fails and speed is decent (from 50KB/s to 120KB/s)
- tTorrent doesnt crash the download
- All application I install dont show black screen for too long.
So whats the remedy?
Obviously no one would want a space of only 90MB for a heap of software. Are there any suggestions?
My SD Card is partitioned as:
1.1GB FAT32 Primary
180MB Ext2 Primary (dont know whats that for)
Remaining space to Ext 2 Primary (for Data since Android installs DATA on LAST ext2 Partition)
Please propose some working solutions. My phone has like 2MB of system memory left (shown in settings) and I have to clear cache and end all tasks after like every 20 minutes of web browsing.
As a start, you'll have to realise that probably ANY sdcard, is slower that your NAND drive. To make matters WORSE, the sdcard drive on the kaiser, is kind of slow.
So, your apps not responding are a direct cause of this whole slowness. What can you do ?
Use another SD. Class 4 or 6 should do the trick.
If you can't, try formating your SD card with those special tools to fix FAT32 errors. I remember a HP tool...
Also, are you using DATA on SD Card Partition, or data on SD card imagefile ??
daedric said:
As a start, you'll have to realise that probably ANY sdcard, is slower that your NAND drive. To make matters WORSE, the sdcard drive on the kaiser, is kind of slow.
So, your apps not responding are a direct cause of this whole slowness. What can you do ?
Use another SD. Class 4 or 6 should do the trick.
If you can't, try formating your SD card with those special tools to fix FAT32 errors. I remember a HP tool...
Also, are you using DATA on SD Card Partition, or data on SD card imagefile ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The img file is made on FAT32 and the Data on Partition uses the last Ext2 Partition available.
I'm still figuring out which one's better of the two file systems. I suspect that the .img loop file doesnt get fatter with more income :| (Tried with the regular Slackware Live distros which make a specific sized .img file and store data in there and its un-expandable)
dark_prince said:
The img file is made on FAT32 and the Data on Partition uses the last Ext2 Partition available.
I'm still figuring out which one's better of the two file systems. I suspect that the .img loop file doesnt get fatter with more income :| (Tried with the regular Slackware Live distros which make a specific sized .img file and store data in there and its un-expandable)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ext 2 for running off an sd card is better for 1 or 2 reasons
1. since its on a separate partition from your user data the system doesnt have to sort through your user data when trying to run the system
2. ext2 and 3 are both native linux formats, so its just a little more efficient at reading them. like somebody who's native language is english but knows how to speak spanish, its always going to be easier to speak english
Actually, i belive even linux reads/writes FAT32 faster than EXT2/3.
It simply doesn't have to write/read as much, there's no ACL, no owner for the files, you simply get a creation date, last modification date, and 3 or 4 attributes (read only, system, hidden, archive)
Either way, i don't belive its possible to expand a filesystem mounted through loop. you probably would need LVM (i thin its LVM) for this, which would be overkill for this matter.
As for... data on imagefile or on partition, i belive a partition is always better. First, although as of yet impossible, you can not mount the sd card via USB if the DATA is on a imagefile in it. Android cannot access /sdcard if its mounted.
Second, FAT32 is subject for fragmentation. A SD card does not suffer as much as a normal harddrive from it, but due to the major slowness of our sdreader, it would be noticable. Worse, you risk more data lost, as even if you don't get errors on the EXT2 filesystem, you might get them on the FAT32 filesystem.
IMHO of course
daedric said:
Actually, i belive even linux reads/writes FAT32 faster than EXT2/3.
It simply doesn't have to write/read as much, there's no ACL, no owner for the files, you simply get a creation date, last modification date, and 3 or 4 attributes (read only, system, hidden, archive)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats what I believe
Either way, i don't belive its possible to expand a filesystem mounted through loop. you probably would need LVM (i thin its LVM) for this, which would be overkill for this matter.
As for... data on imagefile or on partition, i belive a partition is always better. First, although as of yet impossible, you can not mount the sd card via USB if the DATA is on a imagefile in it. Android cannot access /sdcard if its mounted.
Second, FAT32 is subject for fragmentation. A SD card does not suffer as much as a normal harddrive from it, but due to the major slowness of our sdreader, it would be noticable. Worse, you risk more data lost, as even if you don't get errors on the EXT2 filesystem, you might get them on the FAT32 filesystem.
IMHO of course
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. I wish Kaiser had slightly bigger native storage tsk tsk
So my question is 2 fold. 1, I have no internet whatsoever so Tether is very important to me and having the fastest speeds possible would be ideal.
Upon my quest to get a decent speed with tethering I've noticed this Journaling situation. What is it and can someone explain what it entails?
Journaling has no effect on internet speed (unless the phone is pulling somthing from the disk like a bookmark),will not affect "information on the fly",like the internet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system
Wikipedia said:
A journaling file system is a file system that keeps track of the changes that will be made in a journal (usually a circular log in a dedicated area of the file system) before committing them to the main file system. In the event of a system crash or power failure, such file systems are quicker to bring back online and less likely to become corrupted.[1]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the no journal mod on my phone and it makes it a little more snappier.
musclehead84 said:
I have the no journal mod on my phone and it makes it a little more snappier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you dont wish to use journaling why are you not using ext 2?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
You silly goose. We don't have ext2 for are phones yet
Sent From Da Hood.
That's some subtle trolling.
Just in case wiki isn't being clear. Here is what the difference between journaling and no journaling.
scenario 1 w/ no journaling:
you surf the web, pull down image > data written to cache > save to disk
if your phone crash and reboot then you lost the image that's being pull down
scenario 1 w/ journaling:
you surf the web, pull down image > data written to disk as image loaded
if your phone crash and reboot then you have the image save as much as it was downloaded.
Final point: it's no big deal whether you have journaling or not.
scenario 2 w/ no journaling:
You work on a very important spreadsheet as you hit save > data written to cache > save to disk
if the software have recovery feature, and the phone crash before you hit save, then you lost all changes prior to the last saved because the temp file that the software use wasn't written to the disk.
scenario 2 w/ journaling:
You work on a very important spreadsheet as you hit save > data written to disk.
if the software have recovery feature, and the phone crash before you hit save, then you get to choose the recovery file which is the temp file that constantly being written to the disk.
The difference: hours of work.
Isn't the ext system just the file system for Linux based systems? Like FAT and NFTS is for Windows? And isn't ext2 the precursor to ext3, and ext the precursor to ext4? Like FAT, then FAT16, FAT32, etc? If that's correct, why would we want ext2 in the first place if we have ext4?
running_the_dream said:
Isn't the ext system just the file system for Linux based systems? Like FAT and NFTS is for Windows? And isn't ext2 the precursor to ext3, and ext the precursor to ext4? Like FAT, then FAT16, FAT32, etc? If that's correct, why would we want ext2 in the first place if we have ext4?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The benefit of ext 4 over ext 2 is journaling or stability on a cellphone. If your not worried about error correction or saving files before a crash then ext2 should be used as it is way faster. You think your ext4 scores improved, ext 2 would blow that away. When I was on the moment ext2 was used but people were concerned about the reliability. doesn't make much since if you turn the journaling off to use a slower fs.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
dreamsforgotten said:
The benefit of ext 4 over ext 2 is journaling or stability on a cellphone. If your not worried about error correction or saving files before a crash then ext2 should be used as it is way faster. You think your ext4 scores improved, ext 2 would blow that away. When I was on the moment ext2 was used but people were concerned about the reliability. doesn't make much since if you turn the journaling off to use a slower fs.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. So what's the limitation of ext2? Meaning, if it's so much faster than the newer file system, ext4, why would the devs even bother making ext4? Does it allocate blocks of info better or hold more info? I haven't been able to find much useful info online concerning ext4.
ext2 was created before there is journaling option. In a way, journaling is kinda like after thought for ext2. But if you look at ext file systems, they are written for linux and mostly for PC. so, power requirement isn't a big issue. So, it's inherently by design that ext2 which have less feature and build back in the older system would use less power. I think ext4 is basically ext2 on steroid. Better journaling and larger file/partition size limitation. So, the size limitation is a non issue for such small platform like smartphone.
running_the_dream said:
Thanks for the info. So what's the limitation of ext2? Meaning, if it's so much faster than the newer file system, ext4, why would the devs even bother making ext4? Does it allocate blocks of info better or hold more info? I haven't been able to find much useful info online concerning ext4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im not that advanced with the two myself I just vaguely remember the back and fourth when this came out for the moment on sdx. there's nothing wrong with ext4 but for a speed junky with no concern for the safety net ext2 boast faster speeds. That being said, wer dont need yet another fs to have to support with themes/roms. now as fast as your pc, you will definetly benefit using the ext4 system. In that case ext2 is obsolete to a point.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Thanks for the helpful info guys. I have yet another question. When flashing another Rom, do you always have to re-flash the no journaling even if you've done so with the previous Rom?
imwillzillla said:
Thanks for the helpful info guys. I have yet another question. When flashing another Rom, do you always have to re-flash the no journaling even if you've done so with the previous Rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You better be very careful when you flash "another ROM". First not all ROM support ext4, and not all support no-journaling. I'm not well verse in the XDA myself either but from what I understand, at-least in the linux space, you can format w/ or w/o journaling, and then there is option disable on boot also, but the kernel has to support it. So, it's all depend the kernel you use support it or not. I don't think ATM, there are many/any tools in Android development space that support conversion between journaling/non-journaling, and especially when going back to RFS. There may not need to be a conversion between journaling and non-journaling since those are technically just how data being handle upon written to the disk, so data structure on the disc should be the same. But, I'm not entirely positive about it. So, I would avoid switching between ROM which doesn't support the same format as it was originally format.
I could be wrong this but the op's question regarded tehtering speed. Now I can see the advantages/disadvantages of journeling while using the phone directly to surf the web but if you are just using the data sevice through the phone on another computer/laptop would you really see any of the advs/disadvs?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
helchez said:
I could be wrong this but the op's question regarded tehtering speed. Now I can see the advantages/disadvantages of journeling while using the phone directly to surf the web but if you are just using the data sevice through the phone on another computer/laptop would you really see any of the advs/disadvs?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The answer is yes
I mean, because the data only passing through, and your phone is acting not much difference than a router, so there should no any difference in speed. or maybe at best how the tether app load, unless of course the tether app is busy writing log file or something.
running_the_dream said:
Thanks for the info. So what's the limitation of ext2? Meaning, if it's so much faster than the newer file system, ext4, why would the devs even bother making ext4? Does it allocate blocks of info better or hold more info? I haven't been able to find much useful info online concerning ext4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ext3 and ext4 were continuations of development of ext2.
Wikipedia said:
The ext3 file system adds, over its predecessor:
* A Journaling file system.
* Online file system growth.
* Htree indexing for larger directories.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wikipedia said:
* Large file system //now up to 16TB instead of 16 GB
* Extents //replaces traditional block mapping with the ability to allocate multiple blocks in a group
* Persistent pre-allocation //for when it is necessary to allocate a contiguous block before you are ready to write to disk
* Delayed allocation //aka allocate memory and write when the cache is flushed
* Break 32,000 subdirectory limit
* Journal checksumming //to more quickly check the integrity of the journal over ext3
* Faster file system checking
* Multiblock allocator
* Improved timestamps //which require more writes to disk
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Are there any roms or other easy ways to increase the size of the partition /data/data on the Droid Incredible? To this day, all I really find are ways to save space in there. That's been covered - everything from Cachemate to not using certain apps. I want to know if there are any roms out there that use space from internal or other areas and reroute them so that /data/data shows more space. Any help would be appreciated.
+1
I've run into this a lot lately. Even my Eris never had this problem.
enigmatl said:
Are there any roms or other easy ways to increase the size of the partition /data/data on the Droid Incredible? To this day, all I really find are ways to save space in there. That's been covered - everything from Cachemate to not using certain apps. I want to know if there are any roms out there that use space from internal or other areas and reroute them so that /data/data shows more space. Any help would be appreciated.
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No roms do it currently. But its probably doable.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
There is an app on the market called Notenoughspace. I have never used it, but it is supposed to take stuff out of your data/data, and insert it somewhere else. I here it is tricky, so be careful if you use it. I really don't know much about it. The first couple of times I ran into this problem it drove me crazy. Have you read all of the threads for what causes this? Stay away from Facebook. If you sync contacts in Facebook it can cause this. I am a crackflasher, so I rarely run into the problem. I don't think that a Rom can fix this, but I am a newb myself. Really just wanted TP help since I saw your disgruntled post in the developers section....good luck
Thanks for the reply. But here's the thing. Please let's not go into the likes of notenoughspace and cachemate and whiping out facebook. This is what people say in EVERY thread on this from the beginning of the droid incredible.
I'm not looking for a solution that at best can let an extra app or 2 get installed on the droid incredible. I'm looking for a way to INCREASE the size of the /data/data partition by way of taking some unused space from other areas like system or cache or better yet, from that pointless internal storage (for all the SD card users).
There is a lot of extra space on these phones. Thus it is nonsensical to have a measly 150mb to use in that area.
AS this phone is for a friend (and I generally do the upgrading or fixing), I do not experience this on my photon nor do I experience it on my Iconia tab. There was a limit for /data/data on my evo but it was about twice the Droid Incredible I believe.
So this most likely has to be a partition issue. Is there really no fix for it? Since it's not a hardware limit, I'm surprised as I've seen some out of this world ROMs for the device (like Skyraider's which I hoped would make it to the Evo when I had that).
enigmatl said:
Thanks for the reply. But here's the thing. Please let's not go into the likes of notenoughspace and cachemate and whiping out facebook. This is what people say in EVERY thread on this from the beginning of the droid incredible.
I'm not looking for a solution that at best can let an extra app or 2 get installed on the droid incredible. I'm looking for a way to INCREASE the size of the /data/data partition by way of taking some unused space from other areas like system or cache or better yet, from that pointless internal storage (for all the SD card users).
There is a lot of extra space on these phones. Thus it is nonsensical to have a measly 150mb to use in that area.
AS this phone is for a friend (and I generally do the upgrading or fixing), I do not experience this on my photon nor do I experience it on my Iconia tab. There was a limit for /data/data on my evo but it was about twice the Droid Incredible I believe.
So this most likely has to be a partition issue. Is there really no fix for it? Since it's not a hardware limit, I'm surprised as I've seen some out of this world ROMs for the device (like Skyraider's which I hoped would make it to the Evo when I had that).
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I have had the same problem, and I haven't seen any roms that come close to solving it. And there is no quick and easy solution.
The best work around I could find was to mod the stock rom and add Dark Tremor's APP2SD, and use notenoughspace.
With dtapps2sd you have to partiton the SD card so that you have a ext3 partition on it that can be mounted and apps can be ran from it. It does this for /data/app and a couple of other folders.
Notenoughspace will let you move folders in /data/data to the sd partition that dtapps2sd has mounted, and that survive through a reboot. The extra partition option is what you would use, not the NES partition.
Using this work around I have about 300 apps on my phone, and about 70mb free in /data/data.
My Android version is GB 2.3.4 (build 4.06.605.3).
enigmatl said:
Are there any roms or other easy ways to increase the size of the partition /data/data on the Droid Incredible? To this day, all I really find are ways to save space in there. That's been covered - everything from Cachemate to not using certain apps. I want to know if there are any roms out there that use space from internal or other areas and reroute them so that /data/data shows more space. Any help would be appreciated.
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Click to collapse
Bootmanager will install the whole rom on /sdcard or emmc storage and as an added bonus, /data and /data/data are all in one image so you have shared space. By default you have 950 MB to share for apps and app data. As an added bonus you have the ability to boot multiple roms and have them all loaded at once. It's available on the market and the devs who made it are awesome. However it costs a few dollars.
If you don't want to go that route then it's possible to create an image on the sdcard or emmc and symlink it to /data/data and you could set the size of the file. Then the ramdisk would need to be modified and maybe a couple of things done on the rom. You asked for an easy way and this is one but not easy though. Bootmanager is pretty easy though and no coding changes need to be done to the roms and it will leave your original rom intact.
I've been wondering about this as well.
I've tried a couple different approaches, and ended up sticking with one: it takes some setup overhead for every ROM I install, but it helps a lot.
I ended up deleting the datadata mount from init.inc.rc in boot.img (get ROM, unpack, edit init.inc.rc, repack, flash), and booting in recovery mode to move the data from ([email protected])/ over to (mmcblk0p1)/data (which is now just a subdir on the 768MB /data partition.)
Initial tests repartitioning mmcblk0 (houses /data, /cache, and /emmc) to make /data larger for this purpose didn't work out well: the bootloader rewrites the MBR/partition table when it finds that they don't match metrics it likes. /emmc can not really be reformatted because the bootloader updates some bits that it expects to be FAT32 on boot time as well, corrupting other filesystems.
Why on earth HTC would ship a phone in this day and age with such a crippled storage layout is beyond me.
DHowett said:
I've been wondering about this as well.
I've tried a couple different approaches, and ended up sticking with one: it takes some setup overhead for every ROM I install, but it helps a lot.
I ended up deleting the datadata mount from init.inc.rc in boot.img (get ROM, unpack, edit init.inc.rc, repack, flash), and booting in recovery mode to move the data from ([email protected])/ over to (mmcblk0p1)/data (which is now just a subdir on the 768MB /data partition.)
Initial tests repartitioning mmcblk0 (houses /data, /cache, and /emmc) to make /data larger for this purpose didn't work out well: the bootloader rewrites the MBR/partition table when it finds that they don't match metrics it likes. /emmc can not really be reformatted because the bootloader updates some bits that it expects to be FAT32 on boot time as well, corrupting other filesystems.
Why on earth HTC would ship a phone in this day and age with such a crippled storage layout is beyond me.
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That doesn't sound too difficult (i moved CM7 from emmc img to the actual phone partitions so that should be pretty simple). The only downside is you do lose space for apps (easily solved with apps2sd). I haven't seen you around since you posted your idea for multiboot. Been busy?
Well, the emmc method would be a loopback image which would not touch the fat32 filesystem.
Or if you're doing nightlies for instance once you mod the boot.img just add it to each new nightly.
Would Conap's dual boot work the same way? I am comfortable with this, and all the coding is intimidating for this newb. Would one of you smarter members put out a small guide as to exactly how to do this. I know it is time consuming, but it would really be worth it to us low lifes. Thanks
How can you do this?
DHowett said:
I've been wondering about this as well.
I've tried a couple different approaches, and ended up sticking with one: it takes some setup overhead for every ROM I install, but it helps a lot.
I ended up deleting the datadata mount from init.inc.rc in boot.img (get ROM, unpack, edit init.inc.rc, repack, flash), and booting in recovery mode to move the data from ([email protected])/ over to (mmcblk0p1)/data (which is now just a subdir on the 768MB /data partition.)
Initial tests repartitioning mmcblk0 (houses /data, /cache, and /emmc) to make /data larger for this purpose didn't work out well: the bootloader rewrites the MBR/partition table when it finds that they don't match metrics it likes. /emmc can not really be reformatted because the bootloader updates some bits that it expects to be FAT32 on boot time as well, corrupting other filesystems.
Why on earth HTC would ship a phone in this day and age with such a crippled storage layout is beyond me.
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Wow, that sounds like a great idea. Like the above poster, can I also ask if someone who knows how would write up some instructions on how to to this? It certainly would be appreciated by many! With Gingerbread, there's not much Incredible users can do about the tiny /data size. Thanks!
I'm encountering this issue with 384MB of phone storage free and nearly 4GB of SD free. When I checked, I only had 14.5MB free in /data/data. 150MB for this is ridiculous! I would appreciate any fix, preferably one I can set and forget (don't want to have to constantly move or create symlinks for ever new app I install).
possible fix
You should check out jermaine151's Stock+ version 2.1. http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1260994. I can't personally vouch for it as he just released it and it's a little late to start reinstalling everything, but it looks promising.