Samsung Galaxy S4 MicroSD limitations

[MrX8503]

That's a bet you'd lose. My HTC One X had the exact same partition sizes except I couldn't move my music to a microSD.

Furthermore, you actually get around 12gb for your apps including games. Its split onto both partitions. The reason there's less space in the fake SD partition is so you can have more of the apps in the dedicated partition

I was talking about the HTC One. It comes with 32GB standard. The poster that replied to me decided to throw in other non 32GB HTC devices.

 

[dawheat]

32GB Galaxy S4 announced by AT&T to be available 5/10 at $249.

 

[poofyhairguy]

In my two years of hoarding Android apps once I installed them all I have about 3 gigs used. I think I will survive with the 16GB model.

 

[dbk]

Most custom roms (aosp based) allow you to swap.. internal to sd.. i think it's "settings->advanced->primary storage". I think the general public won't be affected too much by this. We will see

 

[lothar]

The HTC one comes with 32GB internal. You can use that space for anything without limitations.

This is absolutely false.
Both HTC and Samsung still set stupid arbitrary limits on how much of your internal storage can be used for apps.

The only Android phones you can use the space for anything without limitations are Nexus phones from my experience.

 

[Hunt3rj2]

This is absolutely false.
Both HTC and Samsung still set stupid arbitrary limits on how much of your internal storage can be used for apps.

The only Android phones you can use the space for anything without limitations are Nexus phones from my experience.

This is untrue. HTC has been on a single unified partition for a while now. Of course, formatting /data also wipes /sdcard in the process.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Yeah no. I owned a One X up to three weeks ago when I broke it (the reason I picked up the GS4). It's not unified at all on stock.

 

[JimmiG]

It's just the way Android phones work. Most apps that need to store lots of data can be configured to use the SD-card. For example, most browsers can cache to SD, the camera app can save to SD etc.
My only real problem is Spotify, which only uses internal memory for downloads/cache unless you use hacks to swap internal and external memory. Still, never had a problem with 16GB of internal storage or even 8GB with my previous phone. I've never used more than ~800MB for actual apps. The only time I've had to go through hoops to manage space was on the HTC Desire with its 500MB or something of internal storage.

~9GB of bloat is just terrible, though. I'm currently running the SuperNexus ROM on my S3, which is a 140MB download (excluding GApps). It seems like Samsung is marketing the S4 software features (ie. "bloat") as much as the hardware itself.

 

[lothar]

This is untrue. HTC has been on a single unified partition for a while now. Of course, formatting /data also wipes /sdcard in the process.

How long is "for a while now"? It definitely wasn't the case with the HTC One X and all other HTC's previous flagship prior.
Which phones did HTC implement unified partitions starting with? What other HTC phones have unified partitions?

# mount point	fstype		device			

/boot		emmc		boot
/cache		ext4		cache
/data		ext4		userdata
/misc		emmc		misc
/recovery	emmc		recovery
/sdcard		vfat		/dev/block/sda1	/dev/block/sda
/system		ext4		system
/devlog		ext4		devlog
/reserve	vfat		reserve

Explain why this shows that the /data partition where apps are installed on the HTC One has a separate partition that needs to be mounted then.

 

[ChronoReverse]

~9GB of bloat is just terrible, though.

Hold up a second. This has been repeated enough times that I think it needs to be cleared up that Samsung's bloat only takes up 2GB (which is already too much).


*rest was wrong*

 

[lopri]

Android storage system is confusing. There are system partition and user space but they are virtual now. I had some initial trouble understanding the concept of "SD card," "external storage," or "App to SD" type of apps. There are so many virtual folders with same pointers - SD card contents - which got more complex with the support of multiple users. (starting with Jelly Bean?)

Some of the low-level utility added to my confusion because they do report internal memory and external storage on, say, my N7. I am still not completely certain of its file system.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Instead of looking at the symlinks you could look at the blocks under /dev


For example, this is from the i9500 Exynos GS4:

(only a selection of the interesting partitions)

BOOT -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p9
CACHE -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p19
EFS -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
RECOVERY -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p10
SYSTEM -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p20
TDATA -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p15
USERDATA -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p21

 

[Hunt3rj2]

How long is "for a while now"? It definitely wasn't the case with the HTC One X and all other HTC's previous flagship prior.
Which phones did HTC implement unified partitions starting with? What other HTC phones have unified partitions?

# mount point	fstype		device			

/boot		emmc		boot
/cache		ext4		cache
/data		ext4		userdata
/misc		emmc		misc
/recovery	emmc		recovery
/sdcard		vfat		/dev/block/sda1	/dev/block/sda
/system		ext4		system
/devlog		ext4		devlog
/reserve	vfat		reserve

Explain why this shows that the /data partition where apps are installed on the HTC One has a separate partition that needs to be mounted then.

The One and the One X+ have had it. /sdcard just a redirect for legacy support, the same is true on the Nexus 4.

Edit: If you go to /data/media it is the same exact thing as /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard0.

Edit2: You know, for a "technical" forum people here seem to not know much about the details.

 

[JimmiG]

The One and the One X+ have had it. /sdcard just a redirect for legacy support, the same is true on the Nexus 4.

Edit: If you go to /data/media it is the same exact thing as /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard0.

Edit2: You know, for a "technical" forum people here seem to not know much about the details.

That's not surprising and doesn't mean people lack technical knowledge. The Linux file system with its arbitrary mount points and symbolic links is very confusing for people who are used to the Windows file system. Even highly competent and experienced Windows system administrators might not have had much experience with Linux.

 

[MrX8503]

Holy hell. Why is the storage system so confusing?

 

[ControlD]

Holy hell. Why is the storage system so confusing?

It isn't all that confusing if you are used to working with Linux systems.

 

[zerogear]

Holy hell. Why is the storage system so confusing?

Jailbreak a iPhone and look at the file system, it's really not any less "complicated"

 

[Red Storm]

It isn't all that confusing if you are used to working with Linux systems.

And in all my years of using Android phones I personally have never had a run in with it, so to the average user it might as well not even exist.

 

[ChronoReverse]

The One and the One X+ have had it. /sdcard just a redirect for legacy support, the same is true on the Nexus 4.

Edit: If you go to /data/media it is the same exact thing as /sdcard or /mnt/sdcard0.

Edit2: You know, for a "technical" forum people here seem to not know much about the details.

Hrm, actually you're right, it looks like even on the GS4 it's one blob.

Interestingly enough, /system is only 2.69GB. In the end the problem is 16GB is very little to go around and that's probably why both the 16GB One X and 16GB GS4 have similar spaces allotted to /data

 

[dguy6789]

Not unified? I thought all Android phones for the last year had completely unified internal storage(apps and data share the same partition). Guess Motorola has been doing something Samsung and HTC haven't.

 

[Dari]

This is absolutely false.
Both HTC and Samsung still set stupid arbitrary limits on how much of your internal storage can be used for apps.

The only Android phones you can use the space for anything without limitations are Nexus phones from my experience.

Any reason why they do this? What's the logic behind it?

 

[ChronoReverse]

Actually it looks like it's simply how things are partitioned. The One X, GS4 and Nexus S (devices I own and have JB) all have a single space for it all.

The problem is Sense and Touchwiz are both bloated and eat up a huge amount of space so both the One X and GS4 only leaves about 9.5GB available for apps and the "fake SD" space.

My Nexus S, on the other hand, leaves about 13GB since it runs AOSP.



Does anyone here have a Nexus 4? Could you open up Terminal and type "df" for the results? I understand why Samsung's bloated OS is eating up 2.69GB but I want to know if there's really a need for the /cache partition to be 1.9GB

 

[lothar]

Not unified? I thought all Android phones for the last year had completely unified internal storage(apps and data share the same partition). Guess Motorola has been doing something Samsung and HTC haven't.

Not all of them.
The Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, and Nexus 7 all have unified internal storage.
Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X flagship phones released last year did not have unified internal storage.
I can't say with regards to Motorola and the others since I never looked that much at their devices.

I browsed most reviews for the HTC One and I'm perplexed why only the one from Android Central mentions this.

 

[Dari]

So, there is a consensus that the only problem with the Galaxy S4 is its paltry 16GB of NAND and 8GB of available space? The partitions are the same for Samsung and HTC? But HTC's cheapest flagship comes with 32GB of NAND whereas Samsung's only has 16GB?

 

[lothar]

Any reason why they do this? What's the logic behind it?

I was wrong on that actually.
Both the HTC One X+(which was a "Tegra 3" refresh released last fall that hardly anyone ever bought of the original One X) and the new HTC One have unified storage.

I'm not sure what their logic behind that was originally, but Google implemented this feature about 18 months ago on all their Nexus products. I'm not sure why HTC and Samsung are just now implementing this feature only in the past 6 months.