Develop Bugs

[Q] System storage, USB storage, SD card?

Hi all, I feel like I'm completely lost at how Android or Samsung designed this.
First to clarify, I have the SGH-T989 with a 16GB microSD plugged in.
Under "Settings" - "Storage", I can see three categories: "SD card", "USB storage", and "System storage". It reports the size of my microSD card under "SD card", then it seems to divide what I understand is the internal memory into two parts: "USB storage" and "System storage". So "USB storage" has a total space of 11.25GB, and "System storage" has a space of 1.9GB.
What does it mean by "USB storage"?
And also, under "Applications" - "Manage applications" - "On SD card" tab, it is reporting the size of the "USB storage" on this tab. It seems to think the "USB storage" (which from what I understand is actually part of the internal memory) is the "SD card", and not treat my real microSD card as the "SD card". More importantly, if I move some app from system storage to SD card by clicking on "Move to SD card", it will be moved to the "USB storage" instead of my real microSD card. What is going on here? Does it mean that I'll never be able to really move an app to my real microSD card? Then what's the use of an external SD card?

System storage is simply where your apps are installed. usb storage is technically just your onboard storage. so if you move the app to USB storage it is technically no longer in the system storage. To me it's a good thing. I like to keep my actual external sd card for movies and pictures and music. Also those apps should still be pretty fast as they not on the slower sd card. ...
This is just how I would explain it to a friend.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

Well for me it is actually different....if i'm moving app to SD then it is going to external SD and not the USB storage. Is there some setting which i need to change so that it move the apps to USB storage and not external SD.

edited post I thought i could trick the system into letting move and app to internal sd by unmounting the external sd card but it didnt work.

Edit:
Actually the "Move to SD card" will move the app from system storage to external SD card, not the USB storage.

android4sunny said:
Well for me it is actually different....if i'm moving app to SD then it is going to external SD and not the USB storage. Is there some setting which i need to change so that it move the apps to USB storage and not external SD.
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Click to collapse
You are right. I was wrong.

I'm curious why the storege is so very low. Isn't the phone 16GB? 11.25 of which 8.9 open is low.

the rest of the space has been partitioned for the internal apps

But I can only use the 1.9G to store my apps out of the 16G internal storage? If I move apps to SD card they get moved to the external SD card. Is there a way to move them to the rest of the internal storage (which is called "USB storage" on the phone)?

513263337 said:
But I can only use the 1.9G to store my apps out of the 16G internal storage? If I move apps to SD card they get moved to the external SD card. Is there a way to move them to the rest of the internal storage (which is called "USB storage" on the phone)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean when you move to SD card it actually gets moved to the USB drive, right? I don't like the way Samsung did this. We should have be able to move app or anything else to either internal, USB, or SD card. If we root will be able to do this?

I have the AT&T SGS2 and I'm wondering the same thing. I don't have an external SD card and my system storage is about to get full. I still have 9GB free in my USB storage but there doesn't seem to be a way to move my apps from system storage to USB storage. What do I do? Why is it partitioned this way?

Firepac said:
I have the AT&T SGS2 and I'm wondering the same thing. I don't have an external SD card and my system storage is about to get full. I still have 9GB free in my USB storage but there doesn't seem to be a way to move my apps from system storage to USB storage. What do I do? Why is it partitioned this way?
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Click to collapse
I'm actually wondering about the same thing. Although it claims it has 16GB internal storage the actual size that we can install apps is just 1.9G, rest of it is partitioned as some kind of USB storage that can't be used to install apps, very annoying...

Also I only have about 20 apps installed on my system storage and they're all about a few MBs each. I only have about 400MBs of system storage is free. What could be taking up so much space?
Edit: Okay just found that a few games were storing their data on the system storage even though the system says it's installed on USB...

USB = System Internal Storage
try to move as much stuff as you can to the External SD card
\sdcard\external_sd\
that's how it looks like when you install stuff

^typical XDA...ask simple question, get incorrect answer, LOVE IT. By the way this is a thread i SEARCHED GOOGLE FOR, while being told by another XDA member to USE THE SEARCH FEATURE in a different thread.....sweet
so let me rephrase the goddamn question(s)
WHY WHEN WE MOVE APP TO SD CARD DOES THE PHONE MOVE THE APP TO THE REMOVABLE microSD CARD AND NOT INSTEAD USE THE INTERNAL STORAGE (11.2GB) WHICH IS MORE PLENTIFUL THAN THE 1.9GB SUPPLIED?
when running some apps/games from a microSD card they cause force closes, data loss, and other wacky things to occur. <- is WHY we dont want them stored there...
IS THERE A WAY TO SELECT TO USE THE INTERNAL SD CARD (11.2GB INSTEAD?
...not as far as i can tell, ive tried it all includng removng the microSD card and attempting to install an app, the phone says not enough space even though i had 1.9GBs remaining in the "USB Storage" partition
The T989 SHOULD fil the INTERNAL CARD FIRST in my opinion....
i have over 200 apps/games on my device and ive only had it for ~2 months no media, only apps/games and i have 200mb remaining in the partition allocated for apps and 1.9GB remaining in the "USB Storage" partiton,....I DONT want apps/games stored on my 64GB microSD card, i remove it often, thats where my media is stored....
heres another kicker, the T989 reports a low memory warning and inabilty to store apps in the Intenal (1.9GB) partition at ~200mb, even though most apps are FAR smaller than anything that would impact that remaining space

HATe410 said:
WHY WHEN WE MOVE APP TO SD CARD DOES THE PHONE MOVE THE APP TO THE REMOVABLE microSD CARD AND NOT INSTEAD USE THE INTERNAL STORAGE (11.2GB) WHICH IS MORE PLENTIFUL THAN THE 1.9GB SUPPLIED?
IS THERE A WAY TO SELECT TO USE THE INTERNAL SD CARD (11.2GB INSTEAD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That 'why' is a bad question and you should feel bad for asking it. It was designed that way in the phone. As to your second question, a proper one, try this https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.app2sd&hl=en. It lists in the description what you asked for but seems ambiguous from the pictures.

HATe410 said:
^typical XDA...ask simple question, get incorrect answer, LOVE IT. By the way this is a thread i SEARCHED GOOGLE FOR, while being told by another XDA member to USE THE SEARCH FEATURE in a different thread.....sweet
so let me rephrase the goddamn question(s)
WHY WHEN WE MOVE APP TO SD CARD DOES THE PHONE MOVE THE APP TO THE REMOVABLE microSD CARD AND NOT INSTEAD USE THE INTERNAL STORAGE (11.2GB) WHICH IS MORE PLENTIFUL THAN THE 1.9GB SUPPLIED?
when running some apps/games from a microSD card they cause force closes, data loss, and other wacky things to occur. <- is WHY we dont want them stored there...
IS THERE A WAY TO SELECT TO USE THE INTERNAL SD CARD (11.2GB INSTEAD?
...not as far as i can tell, ive tried it all includng removng the microSD card and attempting to install an app, the phone says not enough space even though i had 1.9GBs remaining in the "USB Storage" partition
The T989 SHOULD fil the INTERNAL CARD FIRST in my opinion....
i have over 200 apps/games on my device and ive only had it for ~2 months no media, only apps/games and i have 200mb remaining in the partition allocated for apps and 1.9GB remaining in the "USB Storage" partiton,....I DONT want apps/games stored on my 64GB microSD card, i remove it often, thats where my media is stored....
heres another kicker, the T989 reports a low memory warning and inabilty to store apps in the Intenal (1.9GB) partition at ~200mb, even though most apps are FAR smaller than anything that would impact that remaining space
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just the way the partitions are designed in the phone.. It's not necessary for it to be that way but that's the way this phone is designed and there isn't much you can do about it either..Other than moving apps to you external sd card which you apparently don't want to do there isn't really any other options

[Q] RE: Ext SD CARD

I realised that Galaxy W got 3 layers of memory which is phone storage, USB storage and ext sd card, and I found out that most of the apps are saved in internal storage (USB storage), but it has very limited spaces, so I would like to move all the apps to my ext sd card.
Anyone can guide me that how to do so???

Flash the ROMs here
Sent from my GT-I8150 using xda premium

There are 3 storage options on this phone...
ROM aka Device Memory = 1GB = Where apps install to.
Internal SD aka USB Storage = 2GB = Extra space
External SD aka SD Card = upto 32gb microSD card.
So you dont need to use an external SD card until you've used up nearly 3gb of space!
Have you used 3GB already?

Vyker said:
There are 3 storage options on this phone...
ROM aka Device Memory = 1GB = Where apps install to.
Internal SD aka USB Storage = 2GB = Extra space
External SD aka SD Card = upto 32gb microSD card.
So you dont need to use an external SD card until you've used up nearly 3gb of space!
Have you used 3GB already?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no installation of apps on the so-called USB Storage/Internal Storage......This is intended for data associated with apps, and storage for stuff like pics/photos/music.
There is built-in App2SD support in all Androids since Froyo, but it is not automatically invoked....you need to go to Settings/Manage Applications.
Look under Downloaded, where all the d/l Apps are listed, and tap on any app you wish to install on your SD Card, your external SD card, this is not internal so-called SD/USB Storage.
Any App that can be moved, will have a Move to SD card option.....those which are not written to enable movement, will be greyed out.
You could also get App2SD from market, which will give you a notification when an App is downloaded that it can be moved, and allows you to do this when you select the notification. It works well......IMHO. I use it and cannot fault it.
There is also another App 2 SD, which does a similar job, but has a Pro paid-for version......reports on Market that it does not support External SD, which is what we have, so avoid....IMHO

Right so still abit confused over this. Before i installed Kerza'a rom onto the phone.
Under the settings and storage and where is shows sd card, usb storage and Device memory.
On sd card it use to show my 8gb card and in the usb storage it use to show the 1.7gb that came on the phone.
After i installed kerza's rom it switched. But no matter what i do my apps still save to the smaller 1.7gb space.
Is there anything that can be done?

This means that KP's ROM switches mount points for SD's, and your Large SD Card is now considered as Internal SD.......
and no Apps can be moved to Internal, by Samsung design, they move to external SD.
arco says this will change with ICS, when and if we get it......
On the good side, your apps are now on probably faster Internal Storage (now mapped as External SD)......and you have more than enough to cater for apps IMHO. And you can probably force move other apps, maybe with Titanium Backup, or other ways, just be careful, some Apps should not be moved, so trial and error.
Even when I used DT's A2SD, on my previous, the biggest sd-sxt I used was 1GB.

[Q] n7102 Low Phone Storage Space

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.

Enhance internal storage with SD card

Is there any chance that I can upgrade the internal storage with SD card by e.g. mouting it in a specific way?
My internal space is full and it askes me always deleting apps, but moving apps with FireTV or AppMgr to SD is not always an option.
Thank you for your hints or ideas!

If you use Kodi (which can be very big & hog loads of your internal data) use this to move it to a external sd card or USB stick - http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-partially-or-entirely-move-kodi-data-to-external-usb-storage/

Transferring SD adoptable storage to a different SD card

Hello,
i have been using adoptable storage for a while and i like it.
My adopted card however is getting close to full so i would like to switch to a larger one.
Has anyone done this? Is there anyway to transfer the data from the old to the new adopted card?
I dont have enough space on the phone memory itself to move everything back to the internal storage.
i can move pics and music to an hdd but not sure about apps and associated data that is on the card.
Thanks in advance!

You can send all files in sd card with a secondary app like zapya to computer and resend them to sd card when you adopted new sd card in your phone

Have you looked at HTC SyncManager?

I wasnt aware of these options i will look into them and report.
Thank you

Shouldn't it work if you just copy everything on your SD card to a PC, place the new SD card, format it as internal storage, copy everything back and restart?
I'm not sure if this works, but your apps are still installed on internal storage, only app data is placed on SD card.
Check settings > storage
If you tap on your internal storage, there should be some GB at apps and just a few MB on your SD card.

Maik268 said:
Shouldn't it work if you just copy everything on your SD card to a PC, place the new SD card, format it as internal storage, copy everything back and restart?
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Click to collapse
Except that pulling the adopted storage eviscerates the file system...
The only strategy I could fathom would be to duplicate the image onto the new SD card plugged in USB-OTG. If that were even possible, a concern would be changes during copy, making it inconsistent.

converted to adoptable storage but no data import option in the SD Card in storage
I am using a Samsung galaxy S5 and i converted my SD card to adoptable storage using adb shell process. after that there are two options showing in storage settings, internal storage and SD card.
Is it converted to Adoptable storage? If yes then why is there no option of importing data in the menu of 'SD card' storage option.
and how can i transfer from internal to SD card. or can make use of adoptable storage properly?