Am a newbie to the whole G1 scene, but got some questions regarding partioning.
What is the whole purpose of partioning your SD card?
What are the benefits of doing this?
What is EXT2, EXT3 and whichever you choose what does that give you?
Thanks.
On a normal SD card, there is a FAT32 partition for storing your music, photos etc.
If you are using a custom rom, you can add either or both of these partitions to your sdcard:
-SWAP this lets the phone use part of the sdcard as ram when the phone ram runs out.
-EXT2/3/4 this lets you install apps on the sdcard instead of installing it on the meager memory of the phone.
That has cleared a few things up for me - Cheers.
Related
Hi,
I was not able to find the reason behind partitioning the sdcard for nexus one.
I have just installed the CM 5.0.6 but I do not know whether I should parition the sd card or not.
Thanks.
You should just partition the SD card if you want apps2sd, or debian.
Why? Because it's formated as a single FAT32 volume by default, basically to store all your stuff (media, pics, data, etc...), but if you want Android to use it (linux, basically) you have to partition it and format your new partition as extX.
Hope it helped.
you don't have to partition. but, it allows you to do things like install apps to your sd card since the n1 doesn't have much available space to begin with.
I thought I was at least a little savvy about this stuff but I'm feeling a bit noobish. I have a SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 running Cognition 3.04 with the default Cog kernel and modem. This evening I was messing around with Clockworkmod and did the "Partition SD Card" option (512M ext, 32M swap) thinking this was going to partition my external (4 gig) sdcard. Instead, it appears that CWM actually partitioned the internal (16 gig) sdcard. Best I can tell it created a root partition using ext3 or similar fs and then formatted the remainder of the card as vfat. So, this leaves me with two questions?
1. What is the value of this? Obviously I'm not gaining any storage just by splitting up the internal card, and I would assume the downside is this limits the amount of apps I can install to the space on the root partition?
2) What's the easiest way to get back to single partition? I have CWM and TBU backups prior to formatting and run linux on my home desktop.
Thanks.
bump.. anyone?
I believe this is if you wanted to have APPS2SD if your internal ROM is full for apps. This way you could install apps on your internal SD card by fooling the OS into thinking the ext partition on your sd card part of your ROM.
At least this is what formatting the SD card with an ext partition was for on my previous android.
Ive personally never used APPS2SD because it just seemed more trouble if anything but this is an option for those who fill up the 2GB of ROM space that i believe android alots.
Hopefully that helped you out.
Hey guys. I'm a noob to the nook. Got mine yesterday and flashed nookie froyo 0.6.8. Flashed auto nooter 3.0 before that (not sure that was necessary, but I did it anyway - Was it necessary?)
I digress... I'm confused about the sd card and from what I've read in the forum, it's still not clear to me. So here are my questions and I apologize if they were answered elsewhere. If someone could link a post that might be helpful that would be great!
1. Which roms run off the external sd card?
2. Is it better to run off the external sd card?
3. I'm using an 8 gig class 10 card, but only 1.78 is accessible and and less than 500 mb of open space is left.
4. NookcolorUMS is confusing. I've tried mounting all partitions and cant access the extra space. And yes I did format it after flashing so it's allocated using FAT32.
Any help or direction to helpful posts would be really greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
treylemkn said:
Hey guys. I'm a noob to the nook. Got mine yesterday and flashed nookie froyo 0.6.8. Flashed auto nooter 3.0 before that (not sure that was necessary, but I did it anyway - Was it necessary?)
I digress... I'm confused about the sd card and from what I've read in the forum, it's still not clear to me. So here are my questions and I apologize if they were answered elsewhere. If someone could link a post that might be helpful that would be great!
1. Which roms run off the external sd card?
2. Is it better to run off the external sd card?
3. I'm using an 8 gig class 10 card, but only 1.78 is accessible and and less than 500 mb of open space is left.
4. NookcolorUMS is confusing. I've tried mounting all partitions and cant access the extra space. And yes I did format it after flashing so it's allocated using FAT32.
Any help or direction to helpful posts would be really greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. I think CM7, NookieFroyo, and the HC build have all been made to run off the SD.
2. I don't think so; it does give you the nice "sandbox" feel that you can't screw anything up though. It is MUCH faster to run off the internal memory; and with the multi boot ability in my opinion there really is no reason to run off an SD card.
3. I'd look at the card in some type of partition manager; there may be some partitions that can not be seen otherwise. Have you already flashed a rom to the card?
4. Not sure.
themoe said:
1. I think CM7, NookieFroyo, and the HC build have all been made to run off the SD.
2. I don't think so; it does give you the nice "sandbox" feel that you can't screw anything up though. It is MUCH faster to run off the internal memory; and with the multi boot ability in my opinion there really is no reason to run off an SD card.
3. I'd look at the card in some type of partition manager; there may be some partitions that can not be seen otherwise. Have you already flashed a rom to the card?
4. Not sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I flashed the image to the external sd card. It put the boot image after flashing on the card. I just reformatted the card and can now see it in the nook.
New questions.
1. Is there a way to create a nandroid back up?
2. How do I get to clockwork recovery without using the image on the sd card?
Maybe more questions later.
Thanks!
themoe said:
1. I think CM7, NookieFroyo, and the HC build have all been made to run off the SD.
2. I don't think so; it does give you the nice "sandbox" feel that you can't screw anything up though. It is MUCH faster to run off the internal memory; and with the multi boot ability in my opinion there really is no reason to run off an SD card.
3. I'd look at the card in some type of partition manager; there may be some partitions that can not be seen otherwise. Have you already flashed a rom to the card?
4. Not sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Multi-boot ability? I still have so much to learn. Is it basically a matter of rearranging the partitions on the internal storage? Would the best link be http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=959461
?
Can the primary partition continue to boot stock unrooted Nook ROM?
* Go to the parallel Development Forum to find threads on:
- Multi-boot (very simple to install)
and
- SD card booting versions of CM7, Honeycomb and Froyo
* Within the thread of each of those three, you will find instructions for adjusting things (installing missing capabilities, partitions, etc).
* Download Free Easeus Partition Manager (sp?) to extend 4th partition while looking at SD card in Windows, this will give Android's /sdcard folder the rest of your card. Then Download Free Notepad++ (linux file format text editor) to edit a file as described in those threads. See threads for more details.
* Download Free Win 32 Disk Imager to backup SD card in Windows ("read" backs up card, "write" burns an image to card, the latter is how you create bootable ROM on SD card).
I am running CM7.1.0 on my nook color off the SD card. I used the YouTube tutorial by the Crash Tech Dummies. Now I notice that I am only allowed only 1GB of storage on the SD card. I used partition wizard to increase the space on the 4th partition like I was instructed. I would prefer to install the apps to the SD card so I have already burned through the space provided. Bellow I have listed what I see in partition magic. Should I move the free space in the 4th partition into the first? Or should I load the cm7 onto the HD of the nook? I am a bit of a noob but I have gotten this far.
My 16 GB card partitions read:
G:boot 30.32mb used 118.69mb unused
*: 179.55mb used 283.25mb unused
*: 367.34mb used 597.50mb unused
*: 6.68 gb used 6.61gb unused
Any suggestions would be great…I don’t know what else to do.
Help me XDA Developers you my only hope…
Steve da Noob
First of all, what is "1GB of storage on the SD card" you're talking about?
Secondly, the 4th partition has nothing to do with holding installed apps.
votinh said:
First of all, what is "1GB of storage on the SD card" you're talking about?
Secondly, the 4th partition has nothing to do with holding installed apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when i go into settings, apps, storage use, sd card it says 1.0 gb used 0.00 free...i was assuming this was referring to a section of the sd card. I also assumed that the 4th partition was being used by something do the fact that half of it has been used by something...
Steve
Quoting from VeryGreen's instructions
Partition layout for the SD cards depends on size:
Less than 600M - unsupported.
up to 1G cards gets: system of ~300M and data of the rest of space. No FAT partition
2G cards (more than 1G up to 1800M) gets: 300M system, 612M data, rest is FAT sdcard
more than 2G cards gets: 460M system, 975M data, rest is FAT for sdcard.
Your first partition is the boot, nothing else should go on here.
Your second partition is the system partition containing the OS and system applications
Your 3rd partition is the data partition used for downloaded apps. The space allocated is adequate for a decent number of downloaded apps but may get tight if you load lots of games. You can move apps to "SD" which is the 4th partition if you get tight on space.
Your 4th partition is the "SD" user data area. This can be used by apps for their working folders and is also where you put stuff like media (pictures, music, video). It is the partition that will normally get mounted as a drive on a PC when the USB is connected and USB disk storage is turned on via the notification panel.
You say the 4th partition has got 6.68GB data on already? That should start off fairly empty until you put stuff on there.
I do have music and pictures on the device that i uploaded so that's where the items on partition #4 came from.
When i try and move the applications to the sd card it tells me that there is not enough room on the card. Also when i plug in the nook to my computer without the sd card in it shows the applications on the internal hard drive. Should i try and move space from the 4th partition to the 3 and see if that helps?
Thanks,
Steve
WileECoyote79 said:
When i try and move the applications to the sd card it tells me that there is not enough room on the card. Also when i plug in the nook to my computer without the sd card in it shows the applications on the internal hard drive. Should i try and move space from the 4th partition to the 3 and see if that helps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm a little surprised it says there is no room available to move an app if the partition still shows 6GB free. Have you tried using Apps2SD app. This will show space available and is a convenient way to move stuff around. Another possibility is that you are trying to do this whilst USB connected to the PC. That won't work as the Nook software can't access the SD partition while it is PC mounted.
Currently you said there was nearly 600MB free in your 3rd partition where new downloads go. If so I wouldn't bother with trying to move stuff until you get tight on space there.
If that happens and you just need to create some more app space in the 3rd partition then you can use a partition tool on the PC like minitools to reallocate some of the space from 4 to 3 to give yourself more app space.
I tried the apps2sd and i get the same error. It sends me to the same place as i discussed above and when i tell it to send it to the sd card i get the same error. "failed to move application, there is not enough storage space".
I am not trying to move anything while i have the nook attached to my computer. the only time i really used that function was to add music and some pictures.
This is really starting to get frustrating. I do appreciate all your help.
Is another option loading CM7 to the nook instead of the SD card?
I only used the SD CM7 method for a short while and I don't think I ever tried to move apps to the "SD" so maybe there is an issue trying to do this.
I think you have two choices.
If you stick with SD then increase the data partition to give yourself more room for apps.
If you never want to use the B&N OS then the internal memory is the best option. The SD card then becomes a single partition user space card and you can certainly move apps to it. If you do this then also consider using the zip that increases the internal data partition to 2GB to give yourself more internal room for apps anyway.
bobtidey said:
I only used the SD CM7 method for a short while and I don't think I ever tried to move apps to the "SD" so maybe there is an issue trying to do this.
I think you have two choices.
If you stick with SD then increase the data partition to give yourself more room for apps.
If you never want to use the B&N OS then the internal memory is the best option. The SD card then becomes a single partition user space card and you can certainly move apps to it. If you do this then also consider using the zip that increases the internal data partition to 2GB to give yourself more internal room for apps anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think ill try adjusting the partition and see if that helps. Like you said if it doesn't ill look into loading onto the internal memory. I am not to impressed with the B&N software and i use the kindle software for my e-reading.
Is there a method you could recommend for loading it onto the internal memory? A step by step tutorial would help out lots. I am not familiar with the zip you are referring to.
Thanks,
Steve
WileECoyote79 said:
I think ill try adjusting the partition and see if that helps. Like you said if it doesn't ill look into loading onto the internal memory. I am not to impressed with the B&N software and i use the kindle software for my e-reading.
Is there a method you could recommend for loading it onto the internal memory? A step by step tutorial would help out lots. I am not familiar with the zip you are referring to.
Thanks,
Steve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. If you don't think you'll use the B&N then internal is the way to go. Especially if you use Amazon Kindle for your books.
The easiest method in my view is to use the Eyeballer Clockwork boot SD and use that then to flash the main ROM and gapps zips.
You can find the most straightforward instructions here but I would use the KANG MiRaGe ROM as the main OS.
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/8208-guide-install-cm71-clockworkmod-to-emmc-all-nooks-updated101111/
The 2GB partition zip can be found here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1094371
This can actually be applied at same time as installing the OS and gapps. Put the repartition zip, the ROM zip and the gapps zip on the Eyeballer SD card then use the menus to flash repartition, ROM and then gapps.
If you also follow the advice to put ROM manager and flash clockwork to the internal as well then future updates become very easy and do not even involve removing the SD card.
Ive decided that the best solution is to install on the internal rather than the sd card. i think this will be less of a pain in the butt in the long run.
being new to android and coming over from apple (booooo) is there anyway to easy re-install the apps that i have already downloaded? I do have one that i did pay for.
Steve
easy way to re-install? hmmm, maybe not but I would suggest you make the backup for all of your apps first (meaning save all .apk files to somewhere else)
ok here goes nothing lol
Titanium backup would allow you to back up all your apps. If you save the Titanium back up folder (say onto a PC via USB) then after you have done the internal install then put the Titanium back up folder back onto the fresh SD card and you can restore the apps back from there.
everything seems to be working just fine...thank you all for the help and advice...
Steve
Hello, I'm hoping someone can answer a few questions I have regarding the format of the SD Card for the Android system. - Apologies if this has already been explained on this forum, I did a search but didn't find anything too useful that answered my questions.
(I have knowledge of the linux file-system and swap drives, just unsure of the benifits of this for android).
Currently using a 16GB SanDisk Class4 SD Card.
I'm aware that you can format the SD Card to use as a swap-drive and for use of ext2 file-system.
While searching for info on this I found the following xda link which simply explains how to do this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/SD_card_partitioning
My questions are:
1. What are the benifits of having the ext2 file-system? (Would apps stored on SD Card run faster etc?)
2. Do I need to keep a FAT32 partition (as opposed to just having a swap and ext2 partitions without any FAT partition).
3. Does the swap drive greatly improve performance. And is this worth doing on a Class4 SD Card?
Thanks in advance!
Hi.
at the first I must say swat will decrease SD card life.
i recommond you to create EXT3 or EXT4 partition.
1)one of the benefit of EXT partition is your phone storage will not full and its help your phone performance.
2)yes.of course you should have fat32 partition for eg:music-movies...and other files.
3)yes.swap is a very good.and it helps your phone ram.eg:when you play plants vs zombie at the first screen game will exit because of ram and swap will use like ram and its good for gaming.
Thanks for the reply, much apprecaited.
Are you sure I need a FAT32 partition though? Videos, music etc etc can all be saved to ext2/3/4 on a linux OS so I just assumed I could just do away with FAT32 all together?
Is the following just not the same as using an App2SD app?
"1)one of the benefit of EXT partition is your phone storage will not full and its help your phone performance."
Sorry for being a bit fussy but I'd like to fully understand what the Ext/2/3/4 partition is actually used for. Is it just used purely for storage?
Thanks again!
In a short summary (and assuming you are using a Kernel and ROM supporting the features) ...
- "Swap" on a swap partition has its own own "filesystem". The data structures are actually created by "mkswap" and the partition is not directly accessible by the user. If your phone runs low on physical memory unused parts of the memory will be swapped out into the virtual memory to make room for other apps.
Note that this is no "magically increase your RAM" solution. Once swapping occurs it actually slows down the system as the swapped out memory regions need to be copied back into physical memory, sooner or later. It may only help to run "RAM hungry" applications.
- "SD-Ext" is a, most likely, ext2 formatted partition to where Apps you move to the SD (either by Android or App2SD) will go. This increases the amount of apps you can possibly install, but doesn't resolve the problem that apps having widgets or apps that are started during Android boot-up need to reside in the internal phone memory.
- The /sdcard partition where all your user data is being stored should be kept FAT32 (for the simple reason of making a backup of your data by slapping the card into card reader easier - Windows can't read Linux filesystems by default). Some ROMs will allow you to format /sdcard ext3 or ext4 ... the advantage is that ext3/4 (if the mount options are correctly set) may perform a lot better than FAT32, though your mileage may vary.
Roger? ...or do is something still unclear?
Many thanks B.Jay - I'll hit the thanks button after I post this reply! You cleared up all my questions, but just going back to the FAT32 partition;
I use linux as my main OS, so accessing the EXT format partition wouldn't be a problem; Do you know if all ROMs would work without a FAT32 partition and replace it with EXT2/3/4 partition? If you're unsure I can always find out by formatting and loading a rom.
Thanks again, you've been most helpful!
Agenty1609 said:
going back to the FAT32 partition;
I use linux as my main OS, so accessing the EXT format partition wouldn't be a problem; Do you know if all ROMs would work without a FAT32 partition and replace it with EXT2/3/4 partition? If you're unsure I can always find out by formatting and loading a rom.
Thanks again, you've been most helpful!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Linux would, of course, be able to mount a ext partition (even on a SD card put into a card reader).
As for the ROM ... it depends.
The Stock Kernel Modules AddOn of GingerDX introduces ext3 and ext4 modules for the SEMC Stock Kernel, so in theory (I didn't test it!) you should be able to access /sdcard when being formatted ext3/4 - though it could be that you might need to adjust the vold script to properly mount the partition. The modules are mainly for supporting the sd-ext partition for "Apps-to-ext3/4-partition-on-mSD".
There's also alfsamsung's Alfs Kernel which is compatible with GingerDX and some other ROMs. That would be something you could try as well.
Simply look through the ROM threads ... I think MiniCM7 (+nAa's Kernel) should be able to support it, though this could involve some tinkering.
Personally speaking, I only have a ~2GB sd-ext on the SD in my X8 and the rest is a normal FAT32 partition (/sdcard).
yes you need a FAT32 partition.
when you partition your SD card you can move moveable app and games to ext partition.
please dont move app wich they cant move to ext partition.
cause after restart app that you moved to ext will corrupted.
good luck.
Thanks again! I think I'll follow your trend and try the 2GB SD-ext and the rest FAT32.
sd-ext missing!!
hey guys!! I've a small prob, would appreciate some tips. I normally move apps to sd card, if the app is movable by default. if the app is not movable by default, i use this app2sd by droidsail (available in the market) which force moves parts of the app 2 sd card. When I make back ups using xrecovery, i have no problem.
but when I use cwm for back ups, it gives an error saying sd-ext not found and it skips that part of the back up!! so any app I've moved by default or forced moved to sd card doesn't get backed up!! So I presume I have to create a sd-ext partition manually? How do I do it? I do have an sd-ext folder. but its not in sd card. it's in the root. (never had this prob with xrecovery though)
thanks in advance!!
neo_na said:
hey guys!! I've a small prob, would appreciate some tips. I normally move apps to sd card, if the app is movable by default. if the app is not movable by default, i use this app2sd by droidsail (available in the market) which force moves parts of the app 2 sd card. When I make back ups using xrecovery, i have no problem.
but when I use cwm for back ups, it gives an error saying sd-ext not found and it skips that part of the back up!! so any app I've moved by default or forced moved to sd card doesn't get backed up!! So I presume I have to create a sd-ext partition manually? How do I do it? I do have an sd-ext folder. but its not in sd card. it's in the root. (never had this prob with xrecovery though)
thanks in advance!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which version of CWM would that be?
Saipro said:
Which version of CWM would that be?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's cwm 4.0.1.5