USB Mass Storage

[Stigy]

For those that read Engadget's initial review it said that the Galaxy Nexus does not support USB mass storage mode, but rather only MTP and PTP (media transfer protocols).

Check out this thread and quote about what that means and what to expect. First quote has a basic explanation of USB mass storage mode for your information.

ICS supports USB Mass Storage (UMS). The Galaxy Nexus does not. This is the same scenario as Honeycomb, as for instance HC supports USB Mass Storage while Xoom does not.

If a given device has a removable SD card it will support USB Mass Storage. If it has only built-in storage (like Xoom and Galaxy Nexus) it will (usually) support only MTP and PTP.

It isn't physically possible to support UMS on devices that don't have a dedicated partition for storage (like a removable SD card, or a separate partition like Nexus S.) This is because UMS is a block-level protocol that gives the host PC direct access to the physical blocks on the storage, so that Android cannot have it mounted at the same time.

With the unified storage model we introduced in Honeycomb, we share your full 32GB (or 16GB or whatever) between app data and media data. That is, no more staring sadly at your 5GB free on Nexus S when your internal app data partition has filled up -- it's all one big happy volume.

However the cost is that Android can no longer ever yield up the storage for the host PC to molest directly over USB. Instead we use MTP. On Windows (which the majority of users use), it has built-in MTP support in Explorer that makes it look exactly like a disk. On Linux and Mac it's sadly not as easy, but I have confidence that we'll see some work to make this better.

On the whole it's a much better experience on the phone.

Impromptu Q&A Session With Android Engineer Dan Morrill Brings To Light Reasons Behind Galaxy Nexus' Lack Of USB Mass Storage

PC-accessible storage is there, it's just not "USB mass storage" (by name). It's over MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). Basically the Galaxy Nexus, because there's no SD card, will let the /sdcard directory be accessible over USB.

As a user you will never see any of it. As a user, what you'll see is that it works exactly the same as before, except that you are using MTP instead of USB Mass Storage.
On Windows, this is pretty close to indistinguishable. On other platforms it's unfortunately a bit of a hoop to jump through at the moment. But that should hopefully change as people improve software like libmtp and mtpfuse.

Reddit thread: Whoa, whoa. ICS doesn't support USB mass storage? : Android

 

[byrds8]

So Ill be able to plug in my phone to the computer and still transfer files right?

 

[speede541]

Oh, wow, major bummer. Guess i'll have to return that box of USB sticks and micro USB adapters & cables I bought.

Sooooo... he makes a big deal of being able to plug this into a PC and read/write to it like a USB thumb drive. Is that new for Android? I just took for granted that this was sort of function to be expected.

 

[T-Keith]

Bummer, google has always had really good support for other operating systems. Hopefully there is something for linux and chrome os soon.

 

[rexdog1888]

Oh, wow, major bummer. Guess i'll have to return that box of USB sticks and micro USB adapters & cables I bought.

Sooooo... he makes a big deal of being able to plug this into a PC and read/write to it like a USB thumb drive. Is that new for Android? I just took for granted that this was sort of function to be expected.

Not new, just new way of doing it, used to u had to put it in USB mass storage mode and the phone couldn't use the sdcard while it was like that, sounds like this fixes that

 

[Yevs]

Ive been trying to transfer some photos for a while now. It copied 4 and wont do any more... i can see it as a drive and open files on it, but i cant transfer photos to the picture folder.... odd maybe a bug?

 

[kao]

i've transferred a fair few files over to mine from an xp machine and my macbook pro and it's been fine for me. seen a few people complain about it being slow but i haven't noticed it.

 

[Yevs]

No matter what i do i cant copy paste my old photos. Its driving me nuts. The only way to get them is via picasa...

I have transferred some pdf files no problem.... but photos just kill it.

Edit: just dropped the entire folder and its working. But selecting 400 photos and copy pating them kills explorer on win 7.

 

[momagic]

I'm having problems transferring files over to my GN. I'm using Windows 7 and it fails all the time!

Help!

 

[Clancy_s]

Over on xda some people are finding ptp transfer works better than mtp - on windows.

Linux / chrome / mac is going to be fiddly.

 

[droidfan1]

Question - so I have all my apps backed up via Titanium Backup on my SD card. I can transfer the folder onto my computer. Then I can plug my nexus in, and put the folder on my nexus right? Or not? Since google removed USB mass storage, how can you put random files on the phone?

 

[droidfan1]

Galaxy Nexus: Enable USB Debugging | Technipages

answer here

 

[Stigy]

Question - so I have all my apps backed up via Titanium Backup on my SD card. I can transfer the folder onto my computer. Then I can plug my nexus in, and put the folder on my nexus right? Or not? Since google removed USB mass storage, how can you put random files on the phone?

Even though you answered your own question below, yes you can still do this.

The point of this post was to calm down the people who think disabling USB Mass Storage means they cannot hook their phones to the computer and transfer files.

You can still do this except it goes over a different protocol, that's it.

 

[motm95]

This is still aggravating news for Mac and Linux users.

 

[droidfan1]

This is still aggravating news for Mac and Linux users.

Why?

 

[Clancy_s]

Why?

Neither Mac nor Linux have ootb support for mtp - microsoft tranport protocol is a proprietary windows thing (I think ptp is a variant).

Google provide a utility for mac users, no help for linux users.

Other than the SAV this is the thing making me consider buying some other phone.

 

[Stigy]

Neither Mac nor Linux have ootb support for mtp - microsoft tranport protocol is a proprietary windows thing (I think ptp is a variant).

Google provide a utility for mac users, no help for linux users.

Other than the SAV this is the thing making me consider buying some other phone.

Linux support seems to be relatively easy though.

But yeah it is frustrating for non-Windows users.

[Q] MTP on linux Ubuntu [Archive] - xda-developers

 

[Clancy_s]

Linux support seems to be relatively easy though.

But yeah it is frustrating for non-Windows users.

I saw that and it may provide a solution but many of the follow up posts are along the lines of 'doesn't work for me' or 'works intermittently'.

Over at the ubuntu forums some report it works consistently with xcfe but not with gnome; I don't want to change my desktop manager just so I can connect to my phone.

I've found several other suggested solutions, including setting up a ssh server and using adb push - one bloke has written an adb gui file manager but says it's a bit rough...

not doubt I will eventually be able to get files on to the phone but I resent having to spend time setting up something I expected to work straight ootb.

 

[dmiller2007]

Definitely disappointing that i can't just plug the GN into my desktop and access the files. Hopefully this will get cleared up soon. This was always one of favorite things about Android. Not needing to tinker with drivers or anything on my Linux machine

 

[Stretlow]

I'm by no means an expert on this, but i just plugged mine in, opened the folded and dropped 7 gigs of music, some wallpapers, some photos and the first season of family guy no problem

 

[dmiller2007]

I'm by no means an expert on this, but i just plugged mine in, opened the folded and dropped 7 gigs of music, some wallpapers, some photos and the first season of family guy no problem

I'm assuming you are referring to a galaxy nexus. But the important thing is what OS is your desktop runnin?g

 

[Stretlow]

I'm assuming you are referring to a galaxy nexus. But the important thing is what OS is your desktop runnin?g

Yes the nexus, Windows 7 service pack 1

 

[motm95]

Yes the nexus, Windows 7 service pack 1

And as stated before in this thread, MTP is a proprietary Microsoft protocol so of course it works OOTB on Windows. But not so on Mac and Linux. We have to turn to third party libraries and/or applications with questionable support.

As a long time Linux user and Nexus One owner, this is very disappointing.

 

[Stigy]

Seems the other solution is phone on WiFi and FTP into the phone for Linux users -- just a thought.

 

[motm95]

I suppose I can use ssh to scp files over, or even use FUSE to mount the filesystem over ssh. Apparently, ICS fully supports USB mode -- it's just the Galaxy Nexus' design does not permit it due to no separate micro SD card. :/