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Root Internal/External SD confusion

JetShift

Lurker
Oct 28, 2013
5
0
Hullo everyone,
I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830 with custom Nebulosity mod (android 4.0.4) installed. Since I kept bumping into constant storage problems, I decided it might be best to get things clean. I just can't get over this internal/external SD business. As of now, I have a 1.87 (or so) gig external SD that has two partitions, a FAT32 (around 1.73 gigs), and and ext2 (the rest). (I have partitioned it many times hoping that it would get rid of whatever is eating up all the space, but sadly to no avail.) I've read about internal and external SDs, but I just can't get my head around this whole thing. My SD seems to be full - if I connect through USB, or plug my SD into the SD slot on my laptop, it shows as full, however I cannot find the files or folders that take up the space on it. What I've read is that the Ace basically stores the system files on the internal SD. Might be true, however that doesn't explain why my external should be packed to the brim with data. Whenever I remove my SD card, my phone still functions fine, so it can't be all the system data, could it? I have checked the size of each and every individual file and folder, and they just don't add up to 1.87 gigs. If I check my storage space, it says that the SD card has 445MB worth of Apps, 10 MBs of pictures, 9 MBs of Audio, 1 MB Downloads and yet only 35,6 MBs available. (Also it doesn't display an external SD of any sort.) What gives? If I check my file manager, all the files are under the sdcard folder and the sd-ext is empty. That doesn't explain, however, why my SD card is full even if I unmount it and plug it into my laptop. All in all, I'm confused as heck. Could someone help my clarify what's going on? I will definitely invest into a larger SD card soon, but I'm afraid it won't help since my Samsung seems to treat my external SD as an internal one - or at least so it seems. My basic questions would be: what is the difference between an internal and external SD card? If there's an internal one with all the system files, how come my external is already full even though everything should be stored on the internal one? Does it make sense to buy a larger external SD even though this one should be empty and yet it is already full without any sort of apparent data on it?
Thank you for your answers in advance, any help would be hugely appreciated.
 
Internal memory is where the system files of the android os are stored along with most of the apps and their data. You can move some of the apps to sd card memory but some of them just cannot be moved. You external sd card is basically your ordinary flash storage device, you can put whatever you want on it, pics, music, documents, some user apps etc.

By reading your problem, i don't see why you have a secondary ext partition on the card, you have not installed any mod to actually use that partition for anything its just lying there empty. As for your full sd card warnings, i really can't say without looking myself. Maybe there are some hidden files, app data or junk files that you don't know about. Tell you what, look into the card and backup only the files you need on a computer, format the card and put your files back in, it will clear out whatever it is that's taking the space. Be careful of the user apps that you have installed on the sd card, back them up or move them back into the internal/phone memory if you don't wanna loose them.
 
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ayush29k: The reason I have an ext2 partition is because I have linked some of my apps to my sd in order to increase the internal storage. (Can't take up more than about 128 MBs though, because the partition is only that big.)

"Maybe there are some hidden files, app data or junk files that you don't know about." That's my guess as well, I just can't figure out what exactly takes up all that space and what I should or should not delete. There is no music copied to it, I've only taken about 5 or so pics this far, and while I have some apps installed, there's no way they should take up almost two gigs. I have formatted the card many times before, the weird thing is that if I copy everything from it, the backup folder indeed shows about 1.7 or so gigs of data, however I just cannot find said data - no hidden files, no nothing, most of the folders are way below a hundred MBs, and there are no huge files on it. Pretty weird stuff. I'll also include a screenshot of the storage settings on my phone once I'm home.
(Until then here are the details - I'll back this up with a screenshot later today:
SD Card
Total space: 1.73GB
Apps: 445MB
Pictures, videos: 10.84 MB
Audio: 8.86 MB
Downloads: 1.01 MB
Available: 36.86MB
The weird thing is that the grey section that shows the available space takes up most of the graph, yet it says only 36.86 MB is free.)


I'll grab myself an 8gig card this week, see if that solves my space problem. Still, could someone clarify if the Ace has both an internal and an external SD card, or only internal storage and external SD? This is more than confusing...
 
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SOLVED!

Okay, so turns out I had two complete Clockwork backups that took up 1.2 gigs on my card. That explains everything. Due to some freakish reason however, the folder displayed as empty on my laptop. I have managed to locate and erase it through an sd manager app, so all's fine now. The thread can be closed now. Thank you for the help everyone, I guess at least the forum allowed me to think aloud and solve the problem. :p Sorry for taking up the forum space by doing so.
 
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