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Samsung galaxy note storage

snookian

Lurker
Feb 16, 2012
1
0
Hi guys i live in the uk and recently brought a note, having looked on the internet before hand it said that it come with 16gb storage however on my phone it says 2gb system storage and 11gb usb storage, my question is what is the usb storage? is that part of the 16gb that the internet stated and so apps and files get stored there or on the system storage.
I am new to the world of android having previously been on iPhone.

Thanks in advance

Ian
 
Hi Ian,

Welcome to Androidland ;)

You are correct in assuming that the 2Gb and the 11Gb are the marketed 16Gb (you never see the complete amount as some is reserved by the phone and the rest is lost to rounding (manufacturers consider 1000 bytes to be 1kbyte, where most people consider 1024 bytes to be the same). The 2Gb is used (by default) to store applications, although you can also shift them onto an SD card if you have one. The 11Gb is free for you to play with (mp3s, videos and documents).

I have no idea why the 11Gb is called USB memory, but it must be an android convention.

Enjoy your new toy...

Regards,
Eric.
 
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I have found it very annoying that there does not seem to be a standard naming convention for the storage.

On the note the on board, non system space is referred to interchangeably as USB Storage or SD Card.

If you put an SD card in that is referred to interchangeably as External SD card or just SD Card.

Then, if you want to install an SSL certificate it says Install from USB Storage but is actually referring only to an external SD Card. It will fail without it.
 
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Thanks to someone else's post today I think that I have an idea of how the terminology goes together. In the settings, the USB storage is the /sdcard folder you see in the file manager. If you have an actual microsd card inserted then this shows up as SD card in the settings and is available under /sdcard/external_sd in the file manager.

You have no USB storage as access to the storage via the USB port is emulated in software by the Android OS.
 
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I just don't understand why need to separate a 2GB out from the 16GB. When you download apps, many needs to be saved in this 2GB sector. You could not move these apps to the 16GB or the external SD card. It is really annoying getting message telling you storage space is low... whereas I have nearly 11GB and 32GB. Why must apps use this 'system' storage. Why can't a) all apps stored in the 11 or 32 space? b) combine the 11+2 = 13GB system storage? Anyone can enlighten on this?
 
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I just don't understand why need to separate a 2GB out from the 16GB. When you download apps, many needs to be saved in this 2GB sector. You could not move these apps to the 16GB or the external SD card. It is really annoying getting message telling you storage space is low... whereas I have nearly 11GB and 32GB. Why must apps use this 'system' storage. Why can't a) all apps stored in the 11 or 32 space? b) combine the 11+2 = 13GB system storage? Anyone can enlighten on this?

I guess it is to ringfence this 2Gb so that your phone will always have that much storage to play with. This is actually linux best practice designed to prevent an errant app filling up the file system and bringing down the OS. So you can fill up your storage with mp3s and still have space for lots of apps (I have 48 apps installed and still have 1.6Gb free). BTW: It is always possible to move some apps to the SD card (settings->applications->storage usage->On SD card and check those you want to move).

Perhaps this is not the real technical reason, but it sure makes sense to me.

Hope this helps...

Regards,
Eric Ritchie.
 
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I guess it is to ringfence this 2Gb so that your phone will always have that much storage to play with. This is actually linux best practice designed to prevent an errant app filling up the file system and bringing down the OS. So you can fill up your storage with mp3s and still have space for lots of apps (I have 48 apps installed and still have 1.6Gb free). BTW: It is always possible to move some apps to the SD card (settings->applications->storage usage->On SD card and check those you want to move).

Perhaps this is not the real technical reason, but it sure makes sense to me.

Hope this helps...

Regards,
Eric Ritchie.

Thanks Eric - the problem is... I have move everything and anything that could be moved to the SD card (another stupid naming convention - which is the 11GB - part of the 16GB internal memory). Those fellas at Samsung must have a funny sense of humour.

Speaking of ringfence, agree that systme files should be cordoned off in this 2GB, while downloaded apps should be programmed to be save in either the 11GB or the external SD card
 
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Snip... apps should be programmed to be save in either the 11GB or the external SD card

I get the feeling that app developers/Google are not going to want to develop custom storage models for different phones. One of the things about Android that always annoyed me, and the reason why the Note is my first Android phone, was the puny internal storage in Android phones. It is only really in the last year that phones with 16Gb of internal storage became available (I could be wrong with this timeline though since I am not been following Android that closely). BTW: I explicitly bought the 32Gb version of the Note. Given that my Nokia N900 had 32Gb internal storage 2 years ago, this is laughable. I bought another Android phone for my wife (cheapish Expria Pro) and this was released on virtually the same day as the Note with a whopping 1Gb of internal storage. Where do you want to move the apps to on this phone?

I guess you will just have to get a nice microSD card (I still use the 16Gb card that I bought for my n900) and move apps onto that until the day when manufacturers wake up and realise that perhaps increasing the phone cost by a couple of dollars is better than having vitrually no internal storage.

/rant

Regards,
Eric Ritchie.
 
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hi eric,
Thanks for putting some light on this.
I am a new android user(galaxy note), prior to which i was a high end symbian and linux maemo user.
And ian,thanx for posting the issue with the note as i too am experiencing the same.
I will describe whats the issue here. The symbian N8 too has three memories which are..the E.//2gb phone memory, F.//12gb usb mass storage and the G.//micro sd. Now whenever u downloaded any app or music or even copied it from your comp,it always
used to prompt all the three drives giving you an option to select the drive in which you want to save the file,same was in N900 linux maemo..it was so simple and easy.
But here the note too has three drives but unfortunately the device never gives an option to select drives and also only the 2gb system storage is being used and the 11gb usb storage is not being utilised at all..however u can enable the usb by connecting to your comp..but still only images,videos and songs can be moved and not applications and the worst part is in your comp you can access only two drives..the 11gb usb and your micro sd drive.
Kindly post your opinion.
Regards.
Sharath.
 
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Hi Sharath,

To be honest I have got used to the limitations. With about 70 applications installed I still have about 70% of my protected "system" partition free. Given that some of my applications are games with around 100Mb of data, I cannot see myself running out of space any time soon.

Also, the fact that I can transfer whatever I like onto the other partitions without worrying about causing app download problems is not too bad at the end of the day.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the freedom that the N900 gave me, but it was a pain to always have to kill all apps using the storage areas before I could connect the phone to a computer. This is not a problem with Android due to MTP (having a virtual, software based, USB transfer). Sure, I cannot access the system partition, but I can keep my apps open while quickly transferring a file. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

Lastly, if you are desperate to access your system files then you can always root your phone. Can't say that I have felt the need so far though.

Regards,
Eric Ritchie.
 
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