Please help me understand storage partitioning and internal vs external SD

[empty_cups]

I am running into those errors about not enough volume space. It then asks if I want to move photos etc to the SD card, but it finds none and the check boxes are greyed out.
I have a 32GB sd card, that is basically EMPTY. I only recently got it that they refer to an internal SD as well as the external SD. And it appears that programs like APMonster only move the apps from the "phone" storage to the "Media" storage, which I am guessing is a second partition on the internal SD.
At any rate, moving apps back and forth between the "phone" and "media" areas does nothing to get rid of the anoying message, and I see no way to offload stuff to my giant SD card. Previously on my Droid X, I had saved a lot of music to the card, but now I am using Google Music and have 20K songs in the cloud, so who needs to fill up the card with music?

So, to rephrase, is there a guide to using the storage more effectively. It is really frustrating to have tons of storage and out of space messages flashing all the time. Is this something that will work better with ICS?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[TisMyDroid]

Connect your Maxx to a pc and save any files on your sd card that you want to save. (Or connect your sd card directly). Once you have the files from your sd card saved, from your Maxx, go into settings, storage and format sd card. Your Maxx has phone storage, internal sd card storage and sd-ext storage (which is your 32gb sd card). Default Media storage is on your internal sd card and is probably full with your pics and media. Once you have your external sd card formatted for your razr, you can move all those pics and music to it. There are good file manager/file explorer apps that can make it easier.

Oh, and if you open My Files, "internal phone storage" refers to the phone's internal sd card and "sd card" refers to your 32gb external sd card. File manager programs will use sdcard (internal) and sdcard-ext (external sd card).

Hope this helps. Keep us posted. And welcome to Droid Forums!

Edit: You are right. Appmonster does not recognize the external sd card, only the internal one. Es File Explorer and Ghost Commander are two popular file explorer apps that do recognize your external sd card.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

 

[cbroussard99]

Connect your Maxx to a pc and save any files on your sd card that you want to save. (Or connect your sd card directly). Once you have the files from your sd card saved, from your Maxx, go into settings, storage and format sd card. Your Maxx has phone storage, internal sd card storage and sd-ext storage (which is your 32gb sd card). Default Media storage is on your internal sd card and is probably full with your pics and media. Once you have your external sd card formatted for your razr, you can move all those pics and music to it. There are good file manager/file explorer apps that can make it easier.

Oh, and if you open My Files, "internal phone storage" refers to the phone's internal sd card and "sd card" refers to your 32gb external sd card. File manager programs will use sdcard (internal) and sdcard-ext (external sd card).

Hope this helps. Keep us posted. And welcome to Droid Forums!

Edit: You are right. Appmonster does not recognize the external sd card, only the internal one. Es File Explorer and Ghost Commander are two popular file explorer apps that do recognize your external sd card.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

INTERNAL STORAGE is your SD Card. The SD Card is actually your phones internal storage. At least it is on my Razr maxx.I know for a fact because I placed a certain file on my removable SD card and it onlybshowed the file on the Internal storage and not the actual SD card storage.

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[TisMyDroid]

INTERNAL STORAGE is your SD Card. The SD Card is actually your phones internal storage. At least it is on my Razr maxx.I know for a fact because I placed a certain file on my removable SD card and it onlybshowed the file on the Internal storage and not the actual SD card storage.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

Sd card is your razr or razr maxx's internal phone storage and sdcard-ext is your removable sd card. In file management and file explorer apps such as es explorer or ghost commander, these will show up as:

mnt/sdcard = Internal sd card
mnt/sdcard-ext = removable sd card

in "My Files" they show up as:

Internal Phone Storage = internal sd card
SD Card = removable sd card

Very confusing because many apps don't recognize the sdcard-ext file name and only have options for "sdcard" which on most phones refers to a removable sd card but on the razr's, it usually refers to the internal sd card.

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[cbroussard99]

Sd card is your razr or razr maxx's internal phone storage and sdcard-ext is your removable sd card. In file management and file explorer apps such as es explorer or ghost commander, these will show up as:

mnt/sdcard = Internal sd card
mnt/sdcard-ext = removable sd card

in "My Files" they show up as:

Internal Phone Storage = internal sd card
SD Card = removable sd card

Very confusing because many apps don't recognize the sdcard-ext file name and only have options for "sdcard" which on most phones refers to a removable sd card but on the razr's, it usually refers to the internal sd card.

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Droid Forums

Crazy...

 

[TisMyDroid]

Yes it is crazy. Then you have the two sd cards show up completely differently when you connect to your pc.

MOT: E= Internal sd card
MOT: D= External (Removable) Sd card
(or whichever two consecutive letters applies on your pc)

What bugs me, is I always backed up my apps, texts, set-ups, etc to my removable sd card. If something happens to my phone, no big deal... I could always take out my sd card and access all my backups without the phone. But with the razr because these backup apps only save to the internal sd card without recognizing or offering an option to save to the external one, if I don't remember to move these backup files to my ext card, I may not be able to access them if my phone bites the dust. If something happens to my razr then everything on my internal sd card is history. It is just a pain and extra work.

I think as more phones are starting to have this file structure, apps will change to accommodate this.

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[94lt1]

I read about a possible work around, I don't know if it works, I really kinda doubt it does, but perhaps you may give it a try.

In your internal memory you have files like messaging, downloads, and so forth.

According to what I read, if you move those folders over to your sdcard-ext via file manager, then your saves will go straight to your sdcard-ext..

Idk how true this is.. perhaps someone would try it and report back...

My hunch is that your device will just create the files again on your internal storage SD card.

But idk.

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

 

[TisMyDroid]

Idk 94lt1, you just may be blowing happy smoke out of your ears on this one, rofl! No, just kidding. I am actually going to try it. It shouldn't be too hard because I already have the files on both sd cards, so I will delete the one on the internal sd and see if it works.

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[ChuckzDroid]

Titanium Backup can be configured to back up to an external card. Takes a little cutting and pasting, but it works.

 

[lovemyram4x4]

If you don't have any media on your internal storage, what's on it to fill it up? I have >100apps, some d/L's & all my ringtones(even the ones I don't use), and haven't even came close to using 1gb of the 8gb available on the internal storage.

 

[TisMyDroid]

If you don't have any media on your internal storage, what's on it to fill it up? I have >100apps, some d/L's & all my ringtones(even the ones I don't use), and haven't even came close to using 1gb of the 8gb available on the internal storage.

Yes, I also have lots of room on my internal sd card. My only concern is backup files and backup settings are by default, stored on the internal card and if your phone ever becomes unusable then you do not have access to those backups unless you also save them to your removable sd card.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

 

[lovemyram4x4]

Yes, I also have lots of room on my internal sd card. My only concern is backup files and backup settings are by default, stored on the internal card and if your phone ever becomes unusable then you do not have access to those backups unless you also save them to your removable sd card.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

Yeah, I put my backups on external SD, but I leave the apps at their defaults which is normally interspersed SD, at least any of mine that would have a lot of extra data to store like my mobile invoicing app for my customer & price list.

Didn't notice if you internal SD partition or the app partition is the one that's low on memory. If it's the latter my guess is you have some games installed that require a lot space.

 

[TisMyDroid]

Yeah, I put my backups on external SD, but I leave the apps at their defaults which is normally interspersed SD, at least any of mine that would have a lot of extra data to store like my mobile invoicing app for my customer & price list.

Didn't notice if you internal SD partition or the app partition is the one that's low on memory. If it's the latter my guess is you have some games installed that require a lot space.

I think the op with this problem has left the building. Hopefully some of the suggestions helped him.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

 

[sjason73]

I am running into those errors about not enough volume space. It then asks if I want to move photos etc to the SD card, but it finds none and the check boxes are greyed out.
I have a 32GB sd card, that is basically EMPTY. I only recently got it that they refer to an internal SD as well as the external SD. And it appears that programs like APMonster only move the apps from the "phone" storage to the "Media" storage, which I am guessing is a second partition on the internal SD.
At any rate, moving apps back and forth between the "phone" and "media" areas does nothing to get rid of the anoying message, and I see no way to offload stuff to my giant SD card. Previously on my Droid X, I had saved a lot of music to the card, but now I am using Google Music and have 20K songs in the cloud, so who needs to fill up the card with music?

So, to rephrase, is there a guide to using the storage more effectively. It is really frustrating to have tons of storage and out of space messages flashing all the time. Is this something that will work better with ICS?

Thanks for any insight.[/QUO Yes. As far as ICS handling this situation better. File manager on ICS refers to storage as internal storage and Micro SD. I like the term Micro I think that it describes the storage spot better. However ICE still files the information the same way. Priority is set to internal as cmpared to Micro. : ( I read whe someone mentioned cutting andpasting the folders to the Micro SD storage...that action does work on on ICS.

 

[kbeezie]

Unless the dynamics of memory has changed on me from what I know:

/data /system /cache and so forth are your internal memory partitions
/sdcard is your removable SD card
/sd-ext is your (2/3/4)EXT linux partition if you partitioned your SD card (since android cannot move your apps to a FAT/FAT32 partition as you have no linux style permissions on a FAT partition.

In which case sd-ext is on the same removable SD card, the main difference is you cannot normally access it from a windows or mac since that partition type is normally left unmounted on a computer.