Help Almost no space to install applications... any solution?

[mrmister001]

Hi, I just bought an Android phone with KitKat 4.4.2 from Hanspree manufacturer, model SN50MC1 and although the phone has a lot of free space inside, incredibly I have almost no space to install applications.

The Hannspree SN50MC is partitioned as follows:

sdcard0 (This is an external SD card I have installed on the phone) which space is 14 GB

sdcard1 (internal phone storage) and it is divided into 2 partitions, one is sdcard1 that has 11 GB free ... and the other partition / device has 2 GB free

When I install applications they go to / device, so it is like if the phone had only 2 GB of internal memory for applications, because applications go all there. The other 11 GB are not used by the applications...

I'm wondering why the Hanspree Enginers partitioned the phone so bad !!! perhaps they thought people would install just 4 cool apps, and they only would need just 2 GB (sad) and the other 11 GB for cool pictures from the family...

The thing is... if I decide to move the apps to the external SD card (which it is sdcard0) ... actually I can move the apps to this place and I see how the space from the partition / device 2 GB is released and then I see how sdcard0 occupy more space but as the internal partition / device 2 GB is so small, even if I move apps to the external card sdcard0, what happens is that some of the data will always remain in this partition / device 2 GB and increasingly I get less and less space, so I have a new phone that has plenty of space on all places except in the internal partition, and although I have a lot of space, I can not install more applications because I'm being very limited

This never happen with Huawei.

In Huawei, the internal partition is unique, no segmented into parts. Only one partition, called internal memory and it has all the internal memory of the device, about 14 GB free. The result is a wonderful phone in which you can install hundreds of applications without being limited by space.

In Hanspree I have a "hot potato", a quick phone with 8 cores that have space on all places, but that has no space for applications.

Any solution?
Cheers

 

[Brian706]

Take a look at this thread and if possible, install the small app and paste your results here.

I'm not sure that there's much you can do if you are limited by a partition size short of resizing the partitions on the device. If that's even possible it would require some elevated privileges and I'm not sure what resources are available for your device. It's a device I've never heard of before so development might be pretty limited.

 

[Hadron]

Not a solution, but the problem is that the manufacturer thinks it's still 2011. That type of partitioning was the norm with Gingerbread, but was replaced by the "unified" model your previous phone had when I saw (4.0) came out. Except that for reasons known only to themselves some non-mainstream manufacturers, mainly Chinese budget devices, have never moved on and insist on having separate /data and /sdcard partitions still.

Yours is particularly weird if /sdcard is external and /sdcard1 is internal - that is the opposite way to any other I've met!

Unless you can find support for repartitioning the storage (which as Brian says may not be available, and is one of the more involved mods) the best you can hope is root, partition the removable card and use a script or and app like Link2SD to move more stuff there than the "move to sd" function does. But in this day and age that should not be necessary - it's just a shame that some manufacturers still do stupid things like this.

 

[mrmister001]

Brian706 and Handron, thanks to both for talking crystal clear and explaining this. Yes, it's a mess, let's say this, a mess. If I have to do it myself I'll be spending the whole day or praying all the time with the fingers crossed.
I'll try to do this: Perhaps in a computer shop that give services to the people... like cleaning viruses and stuff, perhaps they could also repartition Android devices and do all the process themselves. If so, I'll pay that service and then I will get the device with just 1 partion.
WHAT WE MUST LEARN: BEFORE TO PURCHASE, ALWAYS ASK HOW THE DEVICE IT'S PARTITIONED.

However, Hadron said something very interesting I did not know.
Hadron, you told something about "unified" model... and the partitioning model was replaced after Gingerbread, doing the unified model, with just one partition for the internal memory.
Can you please, tell me where did you learn about that?
Is there any tech article explaining the standard in partitioning Android devices changed?

Cheers and again thanks a lot

 

[Crashdamage]

This is a pretty good ex[planation of Android partitioning:

http://gadgetstouse.com/gadget-tech/why-you-cant-install-apps-on-phone-storage/25181

...and this goes into a little more technical detail:

http://www.all-things-android.com/content/review-android-partition-layout

 

[glc]

Start play store and turn off automatic updates.
Un-install updates for programs you don't use,
or programs you can run without the update.

 

[Hadron]

I learned about the "unified" storage model back when ICS was announced, as that was one of the key features. Plus we've seen this quite a few times.

 

[mrmister001]

Hi everyone...
Glc that is not enough sadly, I already did what you said. Thanks crashdamage.
Hi Hadron
I feel cheated by Hanspree, seriously.. what you said about the unified storage model was introduced, according this article in Android 4.0, so when I purchase an Android 4 device, what I expect is a device not partion based, and what I get is this hot potato.
I copy and paste what the article says:

Android 4.0 Ice-Cream Sandwich altogether brings new kind of Memory management different from its predecessors which was Partition based.

The internal memory of Ice Cream Sandwich is not divided between application memory and storage memory, it is now a memory only, with one partition, which behaves dynamically. In theory, and up leaving an extremist view, this means that we have 16 GB of installed applications and files anything, which was impossible in previous versions of Android.

- See more at: http://www.blogsolute.com/memory-ma...ce-cream-sandwich/21956/#sthash.Ur2tH0yj.dpuf

So that's all folks, every time I look to the phone, an octa-core very fast and I see it was partioned this way... I wanna cry.
Sadly in computer shops people won't attend me with this, they say that if they do that I lose the warranty of the device and that they cannot change the partition.
So everytime I do stuff, the only option is pray all you know. I have now only 500 MB free of internal storage.

I WAS CHEATED BY HANSPREE, BUT NO MORE. I'VE LEARNT WELL THE LESSON.

Cheers

 

[mikedt]

I believe Hannspree are an importer of budget tech products from China, sourced from unknown manufacturers. So it's very unlikely there will be a way of fixing it. Switching a device to unified rather than partitioned is done by the manufacturer, with a specific tool, or third-party devs if there's enough interest and knowledge for a particular device. This actually happened for Oppo Find 7, but that's quite a well known China phone, with plenty of good technical information available for it.

Unlike Huawei or Oppo, Hannspree are NOT a manufacturer, they just import and distribute whatever they can.