Root Apps2SD vs Data2Whatever vs data2SD

[silva_drag]

What is the differences with
Apps2SD vs Data2Whatever vs data2SD etc... or if there are anymore that i may had missed out.

Which one is the best to use and most efficient to use?



HTC-Desire

Rom - Running GingerBread 2.3 GingerVillain

 

[SUroot]

Gingervillain already has a2sd. You just need to partition your sd card. See faq about apps2sd in my signature

Data2sd moves the entire internal storage (data partition) to sd ext. Data2whatever does the same. I think these can be laggy.

Apps2sd just automatically moves installed apps to sd ext. I prefer this

 

[silva_drag]

Gingervillain already has a2sd. You just need to partition your sd card. See faq about apps2sd in my signature

Data2sd moves the entire internal storage (data partition) to sd ext. Data2whatever does the same. I think these can be laggy.

Apps2sd just automatically moves installed apps to sd ext. I prefer this

Thanks for the prompt reply...

I have read the FAQ and it teaches how to install apps2sd+ on a new build.

Is there instructions for how to set this up after i partitioned my sd card, does the apps2sd on Gingervillain does it job itself or do i need to change the install location for where to save applications from autmatically to internal memory / external? or do I need to install anything in order for the apps to be moved to sd card? as im quite confused...

My internal memory has 15mb left, would this be changed to a higher amount? Is there a rough estimate of how much would be left? as i believe not ALL apps can be moved to the sd card?

from using app2sd (the app from the market) atm it only moves certain apps to sd card? do I not need this app from the market then?

Is data2sd not a better solution as the whole of the internal memory is on the memory card which this has more free space and the storage does not run low.

Memory card is 8GB class 6 - would this be fast enough for data2sd if its laggy?

Thanks

 

[SUroot]

This is nothing to do with the "move to sd card" option. Its a script that takes apps installed on your internal memory (so set install location to "internal") to the partition. Once partitioned, the a2sd script should work automatically. ...and yes, this affects ALL user installed apps.

GV uses the dark tremor a2sd script which by default doesnt move Dalvik cache to SDEXT. There is a section in the faq to change that via terminal emulator.

Once you have set dalvik to be moved to EXT, you do nothing else. You move nothing, you change nothing, its all automatic.

If you have only 15MB free now, after partitioning the card to 512 or 1024 and moved dalvik you can expect upto 100MB free perhaps. Do it, you need a partition anyway.

I still found data2sd laggy on my class 10. It is better in that it saves you more space, however the /data partition is written to by the rom almost constantly so your SD card is constantly being written to. This can also cause it to wear out. A2sd is just apps and dalvik cache so the writeback is minimal.

Also, data2sd is no good on AOSP roms. Sense is ok, but if the SD card is unmounted untidily, you risk corrupting all your data. An example on a sense rom of untidy dis mount would be battery pull or forced reboot by an app such as rom manager. The only safe way is use the shutdown option in the power menu.

AOSP is different though (such as GV) because it does an unclean disamount of the file system on teh sd card no matter what, so every time you turn your phone off, theres a huge chance youll lose all your data.

a2sd is a much older solution, but I still think nothing has trumped it since.

 

[silva_drag]

This is nothing to do with the "move to sd card" option. Its a script that takes apps installed on your internal memory (so set install location to "internal") to the partition. Once partitioned, the a2sd script should work automatically. ...and yes, this affects ALL user installed apps.

GV uses the dark tremor a2sd script which by default doesnt move Dalvik cache to SDEXT. There is a section in the faq to change that via terminal emulator.

Once you have set dalvik to be moved to EXT, you do nothing else. You move nothing, you change nothing, its all automatic.

If you have only 15MB free now, after partitioning the card to 512 or 1024 and moved dalvik you can expect upto 100MB free perhaps. Do it, you need a partition anyway.

I still found data2sd laggy on my class 10. It is better in that it saves you more space, however the /data partition is written to by the rom almost constantly so your SD card is constantly being written to. This can also cause it to wear out. A2sd is just apps and dalvik cache so the writeback is minimal.

Also, data2sd is no good on AOSP roms. Sense is ok, but if the SD card is unmounted untidily, you risk corrupting all your data. An example on a sense rom of untidy dis mount would be battery pull or forced reboot by an app such as rom manager. The only safe way is use the shutdown option in the power menu.

AOSP is different though (such as GV) because it does an unclean disamount of the file system on teh sd card no matter what, so every time you turn your phone off, theres a huge chance youll lose all your data.

a2sd is a much older solution, but I still think nothing has trumped it since.

I have partitioned my memort card to ext4 partition and moved the davik cache via terminal emulator.

There was then 69MB left in the internal memory, the apps were still installed on the sd card after using titanium backup to restore,

I have set the install location to internal.

I moved the apps back to the internal memory and it seems like it has installed on the phone's internal memory? as the memory is now 23mb left?

Do you know how to check if the script is running or if there is a way to reinstall it?
================================================================

Also if we have a rom that does not have the GingerVillain extras, how do we install or flash the dark tremor a2sd script?

 

[SUroot]

Since things were installed on Sd card, you may need to redo the a2sd cachesd terminal emulator command.

"Quick System Info" from the market will tell you if the script is working or not.

You can download dark tremor as a separate zip on XDA and flassh it like you flash a rom (after flashing the rom). Most roms include anyway. Manily just cyanogen that doesnt.

 

[silva_drag]

Since things were installed on Sd card, you may need to redo the a2sd cachesd terminal emulator command.

"Quick System Info" from the market will tell you if the script is working or not.

You can download dark tremor as a separate zip on XDA and flassh it like you flash a rom (after flashing the rom). Most roms include anyway. Manily just cyanogen that doesnt.

Thanks for the quick reply,

I redo the command and it restarted,

From quick system info it shows

SD Card Storage
Total 6.57GB, Freee 5.77GB

A2Sd Storage
Total 0.98, Free 890MB

Internal Storage
Total 148MB, Free 20.43MB

System Storage
Total 250MB Free 116MB

System Cache
Total 40.00MB Free 36.57MB

Memory
Total 406MB Free 239MB

Do you know why my internal memory has gone down to 20MB?
Apps seems liks its still installed there...

 

[SUroot]

Im concerned by your a2sd and internal storage both saying 0.98MB. Its almost as if you are using data2sd / data2whatever.

Have you definitely not flashed one of these?

 

[silva_drag]

Im concerned by your a2sd and internal storage both saying 0.98MB. Its almost as if you are using data2sd / data2whatever.

Have you definitely not flashed one of these?

opsss wrong input

Internal Storage
Total 148MB, Free 20.43MB

 

[SUroot]

Dunno. Do you use the HTC email client? How big is your contact storage?

a2sd is definitely working as it shows the space has been used. The only thing I think it can be is app cache such as emails or contacts.

HTC mail, be aware trash folder takes up internal memory. If contacts storage is bigger than say 15MB, you may have a problem here.

 

[silva_drag]

Dunno. Do you use the HTC email client? How big is your contact storage?

a2sd is definitely working as it shows the space has been used. The only thing I think it can be is app cache such as emails or contacts.

HTC mail, be aware trash folder takes up internal memory. If contacts storage is bigger than say 15MB, you may have a problem here.

I found out that if i used Titanium backup to uninstall all apps via batch jobs

then i will get 119mb free space in internal memory?

I then restored the apps and the memory went down again?

it seems like it likes to install into the phones internal memory?

Is there a way to change this or do i have to uninstall all apps and just start from scratch?

basically i have the gingervillain rom installed on the phone with the original sd, then got a new sd and created the ext4 partition and copied the original sd to this new sd card and uninstall and reinstall the apps.

do i have to start from scratch?

 

[SUroot]

Are you just restoring "missing apps with data"? You should be. And yes, apps still install to internal memory, but then the script moves them.

Did you wipe when you flashed the rom? How many apps have you got? And did you check contacts storage size? Do you use HTC email?

 

[silva_drag]

Are you just restoring "missing apps with data"? You should be. And yes, apps still install to internal memory, but then the script moves them.

Did you wipe when you flashed the rom? How many apps have you got? And did you check contacts storage size? Do you use HTC email?

Yes when the rom was flashed it was completely wiped - but beware that i did not have ext4 partition on my sd at that time?

As i had the rom flashed already, and did not flash the rom after this new update of the ext 4 partition? as this is a new sd card

I have about 33 apps
How do you check contacts storage size? (I have over 300 contacts?)
I use the email and cleared all the cache on the phone but not much diff.

I've used Titanium backup to move apps to SD, which then the internal Storage is 100MB free then moved it back to internal storage and now 25MB left?

It seems like titaniuim backup likes to restore it to the phones internal memory?

 

[SUroot]

Like I said, its supposed to be on internal memory. That's where a2ssd automatically moves it from.

Something is wrong. Once you have moved all apps back to internal memory, then run the a2sd cachesd, you should have much more space than you have got.

I think all this moving back and forth has messed things up.

Contacts storage is checked via manage applications. Clearing cache in email does not empty the trash folder. You have to manually do that.

However, since moving to SD causes such a difference, I dont think its either of those things.

I suggest

Boot into recovery.
Wipe data / factory reset/
Wipe dalvik cache (advanced menu)
Boot into rom.
Titanium restore "missing apps with data" to INTERNAL memory.
Run terminal emulator and do the a2s cachesd as su.

See where that leaves you.

 

[silva_drag]

Like I said, its supposed to be on internal memory. That's where a2ssd automatically moves it from.

Something is wrong. Once you have moved all apps back to internal memory, then run the a2sd cachesd, you should have much more space than you have got.

I think all this moving back and forth has messed things up.

Contacts storage is checked via manage applications. Clearing cache in email does not empty the trash folder. You have to manually do that.

However, since moving to SD causes such a difference, I dont think its either of those things.

I suggest

Boot into recovery.
Wipe data / factory reset/
Wipe dalvik cache (advanced menu)
Boot into rom.
Titanium restore "missing apps with data" to INTERNAL memory.
Run terminal emulator and do the a2s cachesd as su.

See where that leaves you.

Wiping everything and reflashing rom then restore then running script actually work.

Dont know what the problem was before.

I now have the apps installed and got over 100mb free internal memory.

I just typed "Apps2sd cachesd" instead of "A2sd cachesd"
Are there any differences between the two commands?

Thanks

 

[jrussell88]

I checked this thread out as I've just got a new Crescent and about to increase its internal capacity with Data2Sd or Apps2SD.

I already have an HTC Desire with Data2SD (Gingerburst rom) which is stable and works well. When I switched from Paul's MoDaCo rooted rom to Gingerburst with Data2SD, I didn't notice any deterioration in speed, but with a 4Gb micro-SD card, I got 2Gb of internal memory on the SD card which isn't full yet.

My understanding is that by using an ext4 filesystem, Data2SD allows the OS to address the phone's internal memory and the ext4 partition as a single memory space. It's an elegant solution and performance-wise, I can't see why this should be any worse than any other way of adding external memory to internal memory. Presumably the internal ram is filled first, then the ext4 partition on the SD card, and the constraint in both cases is the speed of the external memory.

Recently the SD memory has been filling up, so after checking out card performance I replaced my Samsung Class 6 card with a SanDisk Class 4 card and got a nice bump in performance.

The whole 'higher class = higher performance (in a phone)' is a misconception as the class refers to sequential (ie continuous) access not random access. Video and photography with large files benefit from high speed sequential access. Phones, accessing many smaller files, benefit from faster random access.

My SanDisk Class 4 card is slower for sequential access than the higher Class (eg 6 or 10) cards, but faster for random access. If you google for threads on the topic of SanDisk micro-SD, Class and Android you will find performance figures and commentary.

Here are the results for my new SanDisk Class 4:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 22.204 MB/s
Sequential Write : 4.845 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 20.493 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 0.538 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 3.456 MB/s [ 843.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.337 MB/s [ 326.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.111 MB/s [ 759.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.499 MB/s [ 121.8 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [G: 0.0% (0.0/14.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/02/08 12:59:34
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

And the 4Gb Samsung Class 6 I was using in the Desire:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 3.178 MB/s
Sequential Write : 4.495 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 3.164 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.281 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.378 MB/s [ 92.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.068 MB/s [ 16.6 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.459 MB/s [ 112.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.095 MB/s [ 23.2 IOPS]

Test : 50 MB [J: 91.0% (1598.1/1755.6 MB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/02/04 7:09:39
OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

The slow random writes on the higher class card are the bottleneck. The 8Gb Class 10 Apacer SD card from my camera shows the same effect:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 21.869 MB/s
Sequential Write : 17.595 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 21.118 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 0.934 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 3.676 MB/s [ 897.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.009 MB/s [ 2.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.960 MB/s [ 966.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.009 MB/s [ 2.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [G: 3.3% (252.4/7751.0 MB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/02/07 23:13:25
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

SanDisk also offer a 'MobileUltra' card designed for phones. This offers very high sequential access speeds, at the expense of some of the random write speeds. I've yet to try this in my Desire:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 43.312 MB/s
Sequential Write : 8.694 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 40.768 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 0.674 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 4.835 MB/s [ 1180.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.855 MB/s [ 452.8 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.796 MB/s [ 926.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.259 MB/s [ 63.3 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [G: 0.0% (0.0/14.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/02/07 16:44:09
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

For phone apps get a card with a higher minimum random read-write speed. As the SanDisk Class 4 has a similar sequential access speed to a class 10 card you needn't lose much.

I suspect that the memory cards which come with phones aren't up to much - if the unbranded 2GB in the Crescent is representative an upgrade should improve performance. So whichever software tools you are using, if you are using the SD card as an adjunct to the phones internal memory consider a faster SD card.

My conclusion is that the Data2SD is an elegant and effective solution with a fast memory card - but avoid Class 10 memory cards. The SanDisk Class 4 have the best reputation and speeds for internal phone memory and as this combination is working very well on my Desire I'll try it on the Crescent.

Sorry to have gone slightly off-topic - I hope this helps someone!