Quick question.
I am running CM7 ggingerbread6, I have a 16GB SD card, a 512mb partition, and apps2sd installed. I have, I believe, moved the apps I want from my internal storage to my SD card. When I use root explorer, however, no files are on my partition.
Why is this?
Where does apps2sd save moved apps?
How can I transfer apps from my sd to my sd-ext?
Thanks in advance!
Apps2sd uses a file structure to store apps on the sd card. IIRC not the entire app, only a portion.
A2sd (darktremor) places the entire app on the sdcard, in the ext partition.
Here is a starting point for your search.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_169478586398411&ap=1
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=708474&highlight=darktremor
I scanned thru the links you gave but can you tell me the main advantage of putting your apps on the SDcard? Is there something other than just having more free memory on internal storage? thanks
While on the topic of apps2sd, what's the consensus of having /data on the sd too (dt a2sd).
hi,
I have just installed my first custom ROM - PyramidMod007_v10... thanks to all the great resources on these forums that helped me get away from the Official Gingerbread.
I have a question about the APPS2SD feature... I don't really understand how it works. I created a 512mb ext3 partition on my SD Card and installed the new ROM.
My question is... Do the apps automatically get installed to the Ext partition now... therefore do I not need to move to SD Card? It seems when i do move to SD card as an experiment - sometime the APPS2SD storage goes up and sometimes the Internal Storage goes up??
I'm confused - owing mainly to the fact that I have no idea how this all works!
This is the data from Quick System Info:
SD Storage - 6.92GB Free: 6.19GB
A2SD - Total: 504MB Free: 213MB
Internal - Total 148MB Free 122MB
System Storage - Total 250MB Free: 13.12MB
System Cache - Total 220MB Free: 202MB
Thanks
Its a script that runs at start up (/system/etc/init.d/)
The a2sd script symbolically links /data/app (where your apps are installed) to /sd-ext/app. This means any app in /data/app is "moved" by the script to /sd-ext/app.
However an app is more than the apk in data/app. It also has /data/data/ and in there are libs, preferences and data for each app. Also there is /data/dalvik-cache. This is usally also symlinked (to /sd-ext/dalvik-cache/)
Using "move to SD" uses googles own implementation. Historically, this literally moved the apk to /sdcard/.android_secure/ however now in Gingerbread it also moves the libs (if an app has libs).
"move to SD" moves more in GB than in Froyo but still not more than a2sd+ (if dalvik is moved) however, you will find as it moves the libs, if you combine both, even more space is spared but to me this is far too reliant on the SD card
app2sd
Hello XDA!!
i am just giving the some information here for my fellow android mates!!
here's all u need to know about Ext2,Ext3,Ext4 app2sd
Ok, so here's the deal, in a very longwinded way that should hopefully explain everything and answer ALL questions.
You have an SD card in your phone and, a bit like normal PC Hard Drives, you can "partition" them (split them into two or more sections of different filesystems). Normally, your SD card is just one big FAT32 partition, which is fine for storing your pics, messages, emails, etc.
Now, other then your Phone's SD card, your phone will have its own internal flash memory (or "NAND") storage. Tradditionally with Android, you could only install applications to this NAND storage, you cannot install them onto your SD card. So if you have an empty 32GB SD card, but only 5Mb of internal phone storage, you still wont be able to install many apps, if any at all.
This was done to protect the apps from things like piracy - it's not easy to access the location where apps are installed on your phone's internal storage (normally impossible without root), so you can't for example buy an app, copy it, refund it, then install it again.
Still, this is no good for those of us who like to install lots and lots of apps, legitimately, as we run out of internal storage very quickly.
So Google came up with a way to install apps to the SD card. A folder is created called something like .android_secure and this stores (I believe) encrypted versions of applications, but there's a few catches:
1) Apps aren't automatically stored here, you have to manually "move" them
2) Not all apps are capable of being moved, in fact most apps aren't, the developer needs to update their app and allow it. Some apps aren't and wont be updated and some developers may not want to allow it for whatever reason.
3) Not all app data is moved, most of it is but some data is left on your phone so many people still run out of internal storage quickly.
4) You can force ALL apps to be moved to this area by default, but it breaks incompatible ones - such as Widgets, which are unable to load due to the SD card not being "prepared".
So that's Froyo's version. Before Froyo existed, some very clever people came up with a thing called "Apps2SD". Remember I said that your SD card normally is one big FAT32 partition? Well, Apps2SD works by having your SD card patitioned into TWO filesystems. A normal FAT32 partition for your usual stuff and a secondary "EXT" partition. EXT is just a filesystem, like FAT32 or NTFS, but it's the filesystem used by Android internally. The SD card is normally FAT32 because it's a "universal" filesystem, that just about any machine will be able to read, whereas EXT filesystems are generally Linux only, but I digress.
EXT has several different versions. The most common one you'll see is ext3. The main difference between ext2 and ext3 is "journaling", which is just a fancy way of saying that should an operation (such as copying, writing or reading) be interrupted unexpectedly (say, by you turning your phone off), then no data should be lost or corrupted. You know how when you turn your phone on, it says "preparing SD card"? It takes a few minutes, but what it's actually doing is checking that the FAT32 partition hasn't been damaged, because FAT does NOT have journaling. If you used a computer back in the Windows 98 days, you may remember that lovely blue "Scandisk" screen that had to run every time you didn't shut your computer down correctly - that's the same thing. But then Windows 2000/XP came along with NTFS, which also has journaling, meaning you had less chance of loosing data. But I digress once more.
So you have your SD card partitioned into EXT and FAT32. Generally it doesn't matter if it's ext3 or ext4, but you don't get any real advantage with ext4 over ext3 in this instance. Apps2SD then runs a special script on your phone which "symbolically links" the folder from your phone's internal storage where your apps are normally stored, to the ext partition on your SD card. A symbolic link is a bit like a shortcut for folders, except it's transparent to the OS: In other words, Android doesn't know that when it's installing it's apps to the internal phone storage, it's actually being stored on the SD card. This effectively boosts your internal phone memory from the previous 5mb that you had in my example above, up to whatever size you made the ext partition on your SD card (often 512Mb or 1Gb, but it depends on how many apps you install).
Plus, because it's "journaled", it doesn't need to be "prepared", meaning it's ready to go as soon as the phone starts - so your widgets and apps work immediately (unlike "forced" Froyo Apps2SD, where widgets disappear).
The catch with Apps2SD is that whatever space the ext partition takes up is taken away from the SD card. So if you have a 4Gb card (with something like 3.5Gb of actual storage) and you make a 512Mb ext partition, your SD card will "shrink" to 3Gb. The space isn't actually lost, it's just being used by the ext partition. If you reformat your card, you'll get it back.
Finally, there's a difference between "Apps2SD" and "Apps2SD+". Remember I said that your apps are stored on a special folder inside your Phone's NAND storage? Well, that was a bit of a lie. It's actually stored in TWO places. There's a second area which is called the Davlik Cache. You don't really need to worry about what this is for (Hint: IT's to do with the Java runetime your phone uses to run apps), all you need to know is that apps use it to store data, which also eats up internal phone memory. Apps2SD+ moves davlik cache to the ext partition on your SD card as well, freeing up even more space. Some people believe that this may come at the cost of performance, as the internal NAND memory should be faster than your SD card (Which is why you also get people arguing over which "class" SD card is better for Apps2SD - the logic being that a faster SD card means less impact from this move), but the truth of the matter is that your applications will be running from your Phone's RAM anyway, so performance isn't really impacted at all. Since most apps are only a few hundred Kb's in size, or a couple of MB at the most, it's a non-issue.
Finally, any recent version of Apps2SD/Apps2SD+ should work with an SD card that is or isn't formatted with an ext partition. It'll check for this partition when your phone first boots and if it's not there, just use internal phone storage.
Having an ext partition WITHOUT Apps2SD+ shouldn't cause any issues, either, so you can format your SD card whenever you're ready.
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning"
Hello AlAxe
Thanks for great discription of How A2SD works. I have a question:
AlAxe said:
Hello XDA!!
i am just giving the some information here for my fellow android mates!!
here's all u need to know about Ext2,Ext3,Ext4 app2sd
....
.....
So in summary:
Apps2SD "fakes" your phone's internal memory and puts it all on a hidden section of your SD card.
Apps2SD+ pushes even more content to the SD card, freeing up even more space on the phone itself.
"Froyo" Apps2SD has various limitations that "old" apps2SD does not, but is much easier to handle as it doesn't involve any kind of "partitioning"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this www.beginnerstech.co.uk/apps2sd-for-rooted-androids APP2SD+ you mention above? or there are another link you have?
Also, between above app and this one [Script] App2sd which one do you prefer? thanks again...
Regards
That script you posted is very old, a lot of custom Roms have their own scripts built in so you don't have to worry about this any more
If you really want to use that one, read the differences in that post to find out which you prefer. Depends on how many apps you have and how fast your sdcard is.
Personally I think there are better / easier methods, some use apps or flashable zips to make installation much easier and don't require a full wipe. Search for mount2sd, or cronmod int2ext for instance. Whichever one you choose, it doesn't matter too much in the end, whatever 'name' they give it, they all do similar things in slightly different ways, but ultimately the objective is so you can install more apps.
Oh and if you're partitioning for Desire, use 4EXT recovery or gparted, not clockworkmod recovery
They are looking into my internal sd card (ie Go contacts looking for my vcard) instead of my external sd card where it is located. Is there a way to fix where my apps look for their files? Coming from my bravo, which has little internal memory most of my apps and all my heavy data (music) was on my external sd card?
Hello All,
on CWM and TW we have the option format SD/ext.SD,ca I do that without problems? on Ext I did it and all is fine but intern, what will exactly deleted? Can I format intern and reboot or is my system also gone?
Sorry for the stupid question But I have only 2 GB free on intern and I don´ t know why, because I have no music, photos or videos or download files there...
Internal memory means everything you find in my files and external memory means everything in external memory card.
this is XXXDDDAAA
Hi everyone, I'm new to these forums so please go easy. I'm not even sure if this is the right place to post about the n7102 because there's no section for this phone.
Basically, my problem is that I've recently run out of space on n7102. I cannot download more apps from the Google Play Store. I have tried using Lucky Patcher to remove bug fixes and also tried deleting dalvik-cache, but I think that fixes an entirely different problem.
My device has the following storage spaces:
Phone storage: 500mb
Internal storage: 2gb
External SD card: 16gb
For some reason, the phone writes to the external sd card where I store my media files. However, the internal storage is not even used at the moment. Right now, some apps are saved to the external sd card so my widgets take a while to load on startup. I think this might be because I wiped reformatted my internal memory card after i reformatted my external sd card through Settings > Apps.
I want to know if it is possible to:
1. repartition the phone storage (500mb) to include the unused 2 gb internal storage (total 2.5gb); or
2. swap these two partitions (phone storage 2 gb, internal storage 2.5gb)
I do not want to make a partition on my external sd card to extend my phone storage to use as data
I've looked on the web and this is what I have found:
- MT6577 2GB data repartition with int2ext: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1914184
- Swapping internal and external sd card: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1716166
- Mounting /data partition onto the internal storage space: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1648411
I've looked at a lot more pages concerning issues similar to this, but a lot of the time they use phone storage/internal storage/external sd storage, etc., interchangably. It can get quite confusing. I understand that android sees its internal storage and external storage space the same.
I've also read about the file "Mt657xRepartition_EN.rar" and wonder if it can be used on the n7102 without any problems.
Anyhow, thanks for reading this. If you can help, please do. I appreciate it. I only recently got this phone and have been tinkering with it the past few days. Before, I had been using an Xperia U that had 2 GB of phone storage vs the n7102's 500mb of phone storage so I have not run into this problem before.
Cheers.
[UPDATE] I am not sure but the two internal storage spaces may not be merged. I might have to try to use link2sd between these two for apps and save the external sd card for personal storage use.