Database Develop

Why does the Link2SD application not link /data/data too?

From the Link2SD FAQ:
Link2SD does not link application's private data files that are located in /data/data directory, they remain in the internal storage. Thus each app you install will still have some data on the internal storage so you can still potentially fill up your internal storage even if you are moving all of your apps over.
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Why is this the case? There are other Linking apps which do move /data/data files. Why would Link2SD not do this?
I wish to ask this before I go bothering the application author. I figure there is some well-known issue here which I am not aware of.
I may have to switch linking apps because my /data part is getting too full, mostly due to Google's crappy maps and browser apps, which are horrifically fat.

Data Linking ?
jmomo said:
From the Link2SD FAQ:
Why is this the case? There are other Linking apps which do move /data/data files. Why would Link2SD not do this?
I wish to ask this before I go bothering the application author. I figure there is some well-known issue here which I am not aware of.
I may have to switch linking apps because my /data part is getting too full, mostly due to Google's crappy maps and browser apps, which are horrifically fat.
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Click to collapse
I too have this issue, and am now running low on internal space (mainly due to the huge data\data folder) ...
Can you tell me the name(s) of the other apps that provide linking the data folder ?

I believe app data isn't moved, because it will make your phone laggy as hell. Guess the dev chose for finding more space, but not at the cost of speed.

tommert38 said:
I believe app data isn't moved, because it will make your phone laggy as hell. Guess the dev chose for finding more space, but not at the cost of speed.
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This makes no sense at all. In many cases, newer SD cards are FASTER than the internal flash on older phones.
Please don't guess wildly about stuff you don't understand.

d_bizzzz said:
I too have this issue, and am now running low on internal space (mainly due to the huge data\data folder) ...
Can you tell me the name(s) of the other apps that provide linking the data folder ?
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S2E does it, but from what I've seen, it's only for Cyanogen.

jmomo said:
This makes no sense at all. In many cases, newer SD cards are FASTER than the internal flash on older phones.
Please don't guess wildly about stuff you don't understand.
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Sustained write/read speeds don't tell the whole story, as you may know (probably not). You probably believe the more megapixels a camera sensor has, the better? Also, the phone must support those faster µSD cards. Seeing you've only been here for half a year and you've only contributed with a dozen posts, I can say for certain that you've never read any warnings for not moving app-data. It's not your fault.
Unfortunately, I noticed that all the new people coming here have no respect or decency and think they know everything already. Guess what: you don't know **** . So, like I already said before, drop the attitude.

Respectfully, you are simply wrong.
Modern SD cards are faster than the internal flash on older phones, which are the phones that need apps like Link2SD. I don't know about more modern phones.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=934087
Bonnie++ is the best way, that I know of, to benchmark a flash storage devices, but it's not for noobs
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1169910
I remember running bonnie++ against my Nexus One and a cheap 16GB card about a year ago when that above post was made and my SD card was faster than the internal flash in almost every way, and that was then.
Yes, my post count is low. XDA Devs is full of loud noobs who think writing a java app or rooting a phone makes them a leet technical resource. I've been writing software and managing unix systems for over a decade.

Well, sir, you go ahead and put your app-data on your µSD . Benchmarks are for [random word].
Did I also mention that somehow some new members are bragging about what they have achieved and are capable of, while they haven't made themselves useful in any way? If not, now I did.

Is there still no possibility to move also the data folder (e.g of games)? Most of my applications are rather small and most space is taken by the game data folders.

tommert38 is correct here.
Because there is no guarantee, that if your sdcard is fast, it'a also faster than your internal flash. There are more dependies than only the speed of the card. What are the specs of the nexus one sd-reader? This could be an popotentially barrier.
At least: Which size supports the nexus one for sd-cards?

I agree with the OP about this. If it is a worry about the speed, i'm sure mr. bulent akpinar can at least provide an option in the app to enable/disable saving /data/data to the link2sd partition. everybody happy!
here's a link to the original link2sd thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=919326 maybe the app author can take note of it as a suggestion for future updates

One other benefit of not placing /data/data on the SD card is for the case if your sd-ext partition fails to mount for some reason (e.g. failing a file system check). If /data/data was on the SD card, then most of your application settings will be gone, including for builtin apps like the launcher. It will look very similar to a factory reset.
With /data/data on internal storage, your settings will be still be visible in this scenario and it will only be the downloaded apps that disappear. This should be somewhat easier to recover from.

RealCrogge said:
Is there still no possibility to move also the data folder (e.g of games)? Most of my applications are rather small and most space is taken by the game data folders.
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Consider all the risks and if you are willing to take them you might find this thread usefull. Just be sure you know what you are doing

LINK2SD v3.4.1 - No links data/data
apologies for posting to an aged thread, but just today LINK2SD has been updated to include linking of the /data/data
I'm already enjoying the new found space made available, it seems to work very well so far ...

d_bizzzz said:
apologies for posting to an aged thread, but just today LINK2SD has been updated to include linking of the /data/data
I'm already enjoying the new found space made available, it seems to work very well so far ...
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May I ask you if you noticed a lag or performance slow down? I also love link2sd but I fear to upgrade to the latest version cause I don't want to compromise the reliability of my system, which so far, has been excellent.
I have read that moving the /data files could slow down the phone or cause overheating of the sd card. Actually I have a class 10 ultra II Sandisk.
Thanks for any report and opinion.

ik8vwa said:
May I ask you if you noticed a lag or performance slow down? I also love link2sd but I fear to upgrade to the latest version cause I don't want to compromise the reliability of my system, which so far, has been excellent.
I have read that moving the /data files could slow down the phone or cause overheating of the sd card. Actually I have a class 10 ultra II Sandisk.
Thanks for any report and opinion.
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I haven't done any benchtesting or anything but haven't noticed any slowdown or battery drain what-so-ever.
My phone runs just as good as before.
I only link my game apps to SD because I expect one day the SD card will fail (like most media storage devices) and most of my essential apps are un-linked and stored on the internal phone mem.

d_bizzzz said:
I haven't done any benchtesting or anything but haven't noticed any slowdown or battery drain what-so-ever.
My phone runs just as good as before.
I only link my game apps to SD because I expect one day the SD card will fail (like most media storage devices) and most of my essential apps are un-linked and stored on the internal phone mem.
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Thanks, I have linked all my apps and it is now almost an year. I was very curious about the possibility to move the data too but was a bit on the standby, because if you check on the play store, there are some complaints. Now, I don't know what to do, maybe I'll give it a try.
Thanks for your kind reply.

ik8vwa said:
Thanks, I have linked all my apps and it is now almost an year. I was very curious about the possibility to move the data too but was a bit on the standby, because if you check on the play store, there are some complaints. Now, I don't know what to do, maybe I'll give it a try.
Thanks for your kind reply.
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I guess some reviews may be on different phone models.
All I can advise is check the gppd & bad reviews and the phone model. Also to have a titanium backup of your older link2SD so you can roll back if needbe.
Worth just linking a few & see how it goes.
No complaints on my Galaxy S3, works fine & has done for the past 2 years

d_bizzzz said:
I guess some reviews may be on different phone models.
All I can advise is check the gppd & bad reviews and the phone model. Also to have a titanium backup of your older link2SD so you can roll back if needbe.
Worth just linking a few & see how it goes.
No complaints on my Galaxy S3, works fine & has done for the past 2 years
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Well I downloaded the new version (I have the plus option) but I don't understand how to move the data to sd since in the options it is specified that only future installs will be moved (if I flag the option).

Back to the original question. I use Mounts2SD for my Nexus One. I check to move Apps, Data, Dalvik, and Libraries. The rest I leave alone. I have no problems with space with this set-up. Speed is decent, I think the issues I have are probably related to the various custom ROMs I've been using but I can't be 100% sure.

'Miscellaneous Files' in system storage.........

Hello fellow Earthlings,
I have a curious query that I hope you can shed some light on
Last week I flashed stock ROM on my S3 mini, thus resetting the phone to its original state. There was no data on the phone, such as applications, music and photos. However, I realised that my internal storage was rather clogged, 4GB/4.75GB was being used. I acknowledged that the system itself and bloatware uses this memory, but surely not over 90% of my internal storage. Closer inspection of the storage settings allowed me to discover 'miscellaneous files', which showed to be using near enough 4GB. Like an idiot (without considering the consequences) I deleted these files because it allowed me to, and now I have 3GB of free internal data(horaaay). I thought I might have deleted something important, however, my phone's running smoothly and all applications appear to be working.
Any idea what could've been using all that storage? I'd like to point out that I had no nandroid back-ups on my device.

Temporary files perhaps. Google & XDA search bar are your friends too

mauam said:
Temporary files perhaps. Google & XDA search bar are your friends too
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I did have a look on Google, but those that have been in a similar predicament were unable to delete the files, whereas I was.
It just seems puzzling, what do you mean by temp files, like cache?
Seems a bit excessive considering it was dictating 4GB.

Pinda007 said:
I did have a look on Google, but those that have been in a similar predicament were unable to delete the files, whereas I was.
It just seems puzzling, what do you mean by temp files, like cache?
Seems a bit excessive considering it was dictating 4GB.
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Temp files from your previous installed ROM. Search better & you'll realize that some people deleted also 4 or 6gb, without problems, so don't worry about that

"Storage limitations" affecting the Mi 9 Lite? And how is it VS Poco F1?

Howdy people-who-already-have the Mi 9 Lite. I don't want to bore you with the details, so I'll try to keep it short. I bought a Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite for my wife and, in the meantime, managed to bork my OnePlus One. Now, I, too, I'm in the market for a new phone.
From the little I played with her new phone, I love the device, and I'm thinking of picking one up too, as a replacement for my OnePlus One. I have two problems, though:
1. Everything on the screen is too small for my failing eyesight. I enabled the developer settings and tried increasing the DPI, but that ended up screwing how some of her apps look. Is there any other way, apart from the provided one in the "official" settings, to increase the text size? By "official settings" I mean "not the developer options", but the setting for text size somewhere in the Display group of options, that offers three possible steps for the text size. All of them too small for me. And by all of this, I mean only the text size since the DPI option in the developer settings affects everything.
2. Since I am "a more demanding user" (compared to my wife), I am torn between this and the Poco F1. Although the Mi 9 Lite is a newer device, the Poco F1 seems to have a vastly better processor, GPU, as well as lots of love and support over here. I don't really care if the screen is somewhat worse, nor use the camera too much, so I was ready to buy this instead of the Mi 9 lite. Mere minutes before taking the plunge, I saw a video by Linus Tech Tips, where he was talking about how you can install gCam, root it, etc. And he suggested "using the nano version of open Google apps". This started ringing alarm bells: the reason for upgrading my wife's phone was its restricted internal storage. We had reached a point where I was removing system apps to be able to update Gmail and Facebook from the Play Store. Is this also a problem in newer phones like the Poco F1 and the Mi 9 lite? I mean, if you already have to use the nano version of open Google apps in a one-year-old smartphone, then what will we be using one or two years from now, when android itself will have grown a lot bigger?
I am sorry if those questions have already been answered, I did a quick search but I didn't run into anything relevant.

You can find display size option in settings/additional settings/accessibility
Sent from my MI 9 Lite using Tapatalk

The problem with space for app updates is in devices with 8gb of flash. The cheapest mi 9 lite has it 8 times more. Do you believe , it will be not enough during next 10 years? Remember about card slot. You can keep all pictures and recordings on external memory.

Tomek0000 said:
The problem with space for app updates is in devices with 8gb of flash. The cheapest mi 9 lite has it 8 times more. Do you believe , it will be not enough during next 10 years? Remember about card slot. You can keep all pictures and recordings on external memory.
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I believe what's relevant to the OP is the system partition and not the user storage. When using stock GApps, you need to have a large enough partition for the apps installed on that partition to update correctly. Before the Mi 9 Lite I owned a OnePlus X which had 16gb of total storage. I had no problems installing stock GApps over LOS 15, but after around a year of updates I started to get the "low storage" error even though I had more than 6 gb available (which was fixed with a reboot after every system app update, presumably due to the cache being cleared). I doubt that the Mi 9 Lite would have the same problem any time soon though, as the system partition is probably much larger than that of the OPX.

I used galaxy tab 4 with 8GB of flash with 1.7GB of free flash and 80GB of applications installed on second partition. There was not problem to have hundreds applications installed in device with 8GB flash. The only to do was take care to not let start not needed apps on boot and let them to be in ram. I replaced it with mi pad 4 because of a7 core in galaxy.
If you have 64 or 128 GB build in , you are able to install thousands applications. The only limitation will be card size.

Tomek0000 said:
I used galaxy tab 4 with 8GB of flash with 1.7GB of free flash and 80GB of applications installed on second partition. There was not problem to have hundreds applications installed in device with 8GB flash. The only to do was take care to not let start not needed apps on boot and let them to be in ram. I replaced it with mi pad 4 because of a7 core in galaxy.
If you have 64 or 128 GB build in , you are able to install thousands applications. The only limitation will be card size.
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Click to collapse
You're conflating the system partition (where the android framework resides, including the system apps such as GApps) and userdata partition (where apps are installed after the fact, like from the Play Store). You could theoretically have, say, a 512gb device with a 1 TB sdcard installed in which you can install all the apps you'd ever want but the system partition will always be limited to just a few GB.
There are ways to increase the storage allocated to the system partition (this is Android after all), but it requires a bit of tinkering.
In short, yes, a device with 8gb of storage is enough to download plenty of apps, but will not be enough to hold Android 10 (~1.5gb for the OS + ~700mb for stock OpenGapps + storage reserved for any updates) if the system partition on that device is 2 gb.

SpaceDye said:
In short, yes, a device with 8gb of storage is enough to download plenty of apps, but will not be enough to hold Android 10 (~1.5gb for the OS + ~700mb for stock OpenGapps + storage reserved for any updates) if the system partition on that device is 2 gb.
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Theoretical yes. I thought about it with galaxy and decrease system partition for make data partition larger. It was not possible because of not existing custom kernel for galaxy. Do we have custom kernel for mi 9 ? If yes, resizing partition will be possible. But I do not think we need it anytime. Custom rom creator is able to modify partitions in flashing time or use other partitions size for own needs. The gapps will never be problem. Much better is to install nano or pico and add needed other google apps from play store to data partition.

deleting unnecessary stuff out of system folder - Android 11

greetings community,
i have tried to search it, but being pro newbie, I found nothing. Is it possible to make this folder little bit lighter it takes 22gb of space, and my poor phone has only 64gb
I have rooted devices
thank you in advance

You can delete some apps using root file manager. I've use root explorer and have for years but nowadays there are times where it will not allow me to delete some apps (YouTube, chrome are a few this has happened to me on..) that my phone will NOT allow me to. And yes I have magisk and root explorer pro has root permission when this has happened. One way to get these apps off when this has happened to me is use another root file manager. Amaze file manager did the trick. I was able to delete apps I could not with root explorer. I'm BIG on not having useless bloatware on my phone so disabling apps is NOT my style. I usually save a copy by making backup and throw the backed up apks on my laptop or a USB thumb drive and delete whatever in case I end up deleting something that messes with my phone...Far as what can be deleted and what can't you can just discover for yourself. That's what I've done. I'm currently on a custom rom and I normally don't do much deleting unless I'm using the Google stock rom. If and when I do wipe more off stock I'll return and give you a list of what I did clear out. Just look in /system/app, /system/priv-app, product/app, /vendor/app with a root app and go to town. That's what I've always done. I believe TWRP for Android 11, the test build that bigbiff dropped about a month ago works now to make backups so that would be something to maybe do before hand in case you end up needing to restore your rom. On a few other devices I've owned people would sometimes make a thread on here for apps that can be removed and all and then list what they took off and what not to. I believe this Is what you are talking about.. If so hopefully it helps
Far as making system folder smaller and not meaning apps I believe it's possible but I think maybe you would have to repartition your device to do that and although it's possible it's dangerous. One wrong move and you have a paper weight doing that. I messed up my original Pixel XL because power went out while I was doing it before I was done and it was a goner. If anything I say here isn't right or there is more information about this please someone share who has more knowledge of this sort of thing. I would love to know as well. Good day/night to all. Cheers.

100kaa said:
greetings community,
i have tried to search it, but being pro newbie, I found nothing. Is it possible to make this folder little bit lighter it takes 22gb of space, and my poor phone has only 64gb
I have rooted devices
thank you in advance
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Click to collapse
@100kaa
You would be better off deleting excess files, trash, and photos that are already backed up. The system partition can be mounted and some files removed, but for the most part it is a minefield. Google has a fantastic new tool (since changing Photos retention rules) called "Takeout" that allows you to back up the contents of many parts of your phone and allows you do d/l it in compressed format directly to your PC. Check it out. OTHERWISE- If you simply must carry large files like movies, music database, pictures etc. then consider getting a USB-C OTG drive.
https://takeout.google.com/

This is why you get a phone with an SD card slot.
You then use the SD card as your data drive.
Only the apps and temporary folders go on the internal memory.
Next best thing is a flash stick or use cloud based storage which has downsides to it. Even if your internal storage is huge you don't want to store critical data there. I use about 64 of my 500gb of internal vs 340 of 500gb on the data drive.
If a large data base is on a large internal memory a data restore takes... forever. Most times the SD card is spared in OS crash and burns. Plus it can be used to restore the OS drive apps and settings.
Much of the above doesn't help you now but it could with future devices. All my PCs even my laptop are configured as dual drives. I learned a long time ago it works well, saves sweat and data.

Question What to do after an update ?

Hey guys,
Newbie question here... Got the Pixel 7 a few weeks ago and did the December feature/security update last night.
Coming from an S10, I'm used to going to recovery and clearing cache partition after an update, or even factory reset after a major update to make sure the system doesn’t ‘hang up’ on old files.
Now, I don’t see the‘clear cache partition option in the Pixel 7 recovery. Is there any procedure I should follow after the update or just update, restart and you’re good to go ?
Thanks

Pretty much that's it. I personally go into the Google 1 app and the storage settings to free up junk files and some duplicate pictures I don't need. That, a reboot and that's it.

Pixels apparantly lack the ability to clear the system cache. Been wondering about that too, more out of curiosity rather than need though.
Clearing the system cache has saved my system more than once.
Unlike Google or Samsung I don't touch the firmware if the OS is fast, stable and fulfilling its mission. I'm still running Pie on this N10+; last update was 3 years ago, current load is over 2.5 yo. Security simply isn't an issue, zero malware in that 2.5+ year time frame. It still runs like a bat out of hell with minimal maintenance.

kpjimmy said:
Pretty much that's it. I personally go into the Google 1 app and the storage settings to free up junk files and some duplicate pictures I don't need. That, a reboot and that's it.
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I use SD Maid pro which does a very good cleaning job for me. Not sure how well it works on Android 11 and up though. I generally ignore duplicate files though as deleting them can cause issues sometimes.
In this day and age you shouldn't need to worry about phone storage space but it's actually gotten worse not better. Embedded fast flash memory is dirt cheap... and this is the same corporation that says you don't need expandable storage or a dual drive smartphone