• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Jelly Bean USB Mass Storage

You lucked out.

What is special about the Motorola cable is Motorola Quality Control.

A generic cable might work and it might not. The Motorola cable will work (unless there is a problem with the port).

Recommendation ... keep the Motorola cable around as a safeguard. Try others if you like. If you run into a problem swap in the Motorola cable. If the problem goes away ... well ... you get the point.

... Thom
 
Upvote 0
I'm seeing the same thing.

I don't get what people are panicking about!

Never mind, I did some reading up on it.

I still don't really see too many real advantages of mass storage. What are you able to do on mass storage that you aren't able to do on media transfer?

Mass storage mode is better in all regards:

1. It is a LOT LOT faster reading files and directories
2. Can have multiple folders open
3. Folder drag and drop into other folders (a problem more than not with MTP)
4. Works with more devices and cables
5. It is a LOT faster writing files
6. It is less intrusive
7. Can edit files and folders while transferring data
8. MTP is designed mainly for media files, so can be a problem if trying to copy an entire drive for backup.
9. MTP has problems sometimes reading all files and can easily stop working and need a replug of the storage to get working again. MTP can sometimes "freak out" with non-media files.

MTP sucks butt compared to mass storage mode.

Added: Mass storage was the number one reason I almost turned my GS3 in for the HD Maxx, in spite of the 17% smaller usable display and weaker camera. Since now the same as the GS3 with the same lame a$$ MTP, no reason to change.

I think the reason Moto zapped it is no more lapdock support. Perhaps that was in the custom feature set some time ago, but there was a dev lag for removing the feature. Mass storage mode was needed for the lapdock to work as designed for the external storage ports. Mass storage mode went away like the lapdocks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mscheaf and sremick
Upvote 0
Mass storage mode is better in all regards:

1. It is a LOT LOT faster reading files and directories
2. Can have multiple folders open
3. Folder drag and drop into other folders (a problem more than not with MTP)
4. Works with more devices and cables
5. It is a LOT faster writing files
6. It is less intrusive
7. Can edit files and folders while transferring data
8. MTP is designed mainly for media files, so can be a problem if trying to copy an entire drive for backup.
9. MTP has problems sometimes reading all files and can easily stop working and need a replug of the storage to get working again. MTP can sometimes "freak out" with non-media files.MTP sucks butt compared to mass storage mode.

Really? It's crazy, I have had none of those problems so far on jb.

How the heck could it be intrusive? That just sounds made up.
 
Upvote 0
OK I just checked my daughters maxx HD. We just bought it last week . Its not rooted and has the Jelly bean OTA update. When I plug it into my Windows 7 machine the phone says " Connected as a media device" but my windows 7 machine sees both cards and I can drag and drop all day long.

robdec17, i have windows xp, not 7. maybe thats the diff? otherwise i have the moto drivers installed, and i got my companionlink calendar to sync this morn. my phone shows up as a camera device if my usb settings are ptp, but it does not show up at all if set to mtp, or media device. still playing with the settings but no help at all from moto...wonder if something is wrong with my phone, or if it is really a win 7 thing? thanks for your responses though!!

btw, are you using usb debugging ON setting on the phone?
 
Upvote 0
Really? It's crazy, I have had none of those problems so far on jb.

How the heck could it be intrusive? That just sounds made up.


Everything described are problems with MTP, since not a function designed with file managing in mind, but media file trasfer. How is something that is less functional not intrusive to function? It is disruptive compared to mass storage.

Added:

Another point not mentioned is files are very awkward to playback using MTP as the external source. Mass storage provides direct playback without a file mirror on the device needed to be created.

Given your conjecture of me making something up, it seems that given my points are based on facts- you are the one making stuff up :)

No way to have the same overall function as mass storage using MTP.
 
Upvote 0
Everything described are problems with MTP, since not a function designed with file managing in mind, but media file trasfer. How is something that is less functional not intrusive to function? It is disruptive compared to mass storage.

Added:

Another point not mentioned is files are very awkward to playback using MTP as the external source. Mass storage provides direct playback without a file mirror on the device needed to be created.

Given your conjecture of me making something up, it seems that given my points are based on facts- you are the one making stuff up :)

No way to have the same overall function as mass storage using MTP.

Rush is right on all his points. MTP is inferior in many ways to mass storage. However, if all you ever do is drag and drop files from your PC to your phone, then you really won't notice much difference. The only things that really bothers me is the slow transfer speeds when transferring numerous files at once and that you can't navigate through the rest of the sdcard while transferring a file from you PC to the phone. I have a collection of 500+ wallpapers and it always takes forever to transfer via MTP.

However, one big plus (for me anyway) that MTP offers is that you don't need to mount/unmount the sdcard. This means you can access all the files on your sdcard while still plugged into your PC.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rushmore
Upvote 0
robdec17, i have windows xp, not 7. maybe thats the diff? otherwise i have the moto drivers installed, and i got my companionlink calendar to sync this morn. my phone shows up as a camera device if my usb settings are ptp, but it does not show up at all if set to mtp, or media device. still playing with the settings but no help at all from moto...wonder if something is wrong with my phone, or if it is really a win 7 thing? thanks for your responses though!!

btw, are you using usb debugging ON setting on the phone?

Yes I have debugging on
 
Upvote 0
Good news! I did locate a pc with win7, and drag/drop works flawlessly, without downloading any drivers!! So after trying on 4 machines with win xp(none work ums), and one win 7 ive concluded that a win 7 upgrade is a must. need a new computer for work anyway, so might as well go for it...on 6yr old tech now and slow. Not looking forward to the massive learning curve for me but happy to know that RMHD will stick around. Another note, i did the factory data reset, which did not fix the drag/drop ums issue but it did fix many other issues, as noted by previous posters. Thanks for your patience in assisting me in coming to this final conclusion.
 
Upvote 0
Good news! I did locate a pc with win7, and drag/drop works flawlessly, without downloading any drivers!! So after trying on 4 machines with win xp(none work ums), and one win 7 ive concluded that a win 7 upgrade is a must. need a new computer for work anyway, so might as well go for it...on 6yr old tech now and slow. Not looking forward to the massive learning curve for me but happy to know that RMHD will stick around.

Good to hear. BTW, I made the switch from XP to Win 7 last spring when I built myself a new computer. There is no massive learning curve. It's a pretty easy transition.
 
Upvote 0
Good news! I did locate a pc with win7, and drag/drop works flawlessly, without downloading any drivers!! So after trying on 4 machines with win xp(none work ums), and one win 7 ive concluded that a win 7 upgrade is a must. need a new computer for work anyway, so might as well go for it...on 6yr old tech now and slow. Not looking forward to the massive learning curve for me but happy to know that RMHD will stick around. Another note, i did the factory data reset, which did not fix the drag/drop ums issue but it did fix many other issues, as noted by previous posters. Thanks for your patience in assisting me in coming to this final conclusion.

Glad you finally have it working. Drag and drop works flawless on mine.
 
Upvote 0
What are your thinking Google & Moto?!! Bright shiny new RAZR M, updated to wonderful Jelly Bean. ZAP - no USB mass storage. My major purposes for having this fancy gadget just went POOF, gone! And my nice 32GB SD is toast.

Yeah, yeah, the cloud is wonderful, but that doesn't mean you burn the rest of us who have built up extremely useful infrastructures that are now useless. I hope somebody is listening...
 
Upvote 0
Good news! I did locate a pc with win7, and drag/drop works flawlessly, without downloading any drivers!! So after trying on 4 machines with win xp(none work ums), and one win 7 ive concluded that a win 7 upgrade is a must. need a new computer for work anyway, so might as well go for it...on 6yr old tech now and slow. Not looking forward to the massive learning curve for me but happy to know that RMHD will stick around. Another note, i did the factory data reset, which did not fix the drag/drop ums issue but it did fix many other issues, as noted by previous posters. Thanks for your patience in assisting me in coming to this final conclusion.

Drag-and-drop may work flawlessly, but there are several folders from my computer that I'd like to automatically update on my droid when it's connected via USB. That worked well with mass storage, as it was a mountable-disk and would work with SyncBack or other automated backup programs.

With the MTP protocol, one can simply do drag-and-drop but cannot mount it as a disk that automated copy programs can access. Such an "advancement" in the OS is actually a step back into the stone-age when it comes to copying files to an SD card from the PC's hard drive.

(Granted, I could use a program like SugarSync to access files from the cloud - but syncing via cable kept me "up to date" and didn't use up any of my monthly data allotment.

Just my 2
 
  • Like
Reactions: sremick
Upvote 0
I recently installed a custom jb 4.2 rom only to find that ums wasn't working. It would connect my computer in MTP mode which was annoying so I tried to find a way to change it back to ums and finally found that the option is hidden away in system settings-->storage. Once you're on that page, open the hidden options menu and "USB computer connection" option should show up. Im not sure how you would access this hidden menu since the HD maxx doesnt have physical hard keys (my phone, the SGS2, has an "options" touch key next to the physical menu button). Once you access this menu, you should have no problem getting ums mode to work.
Ive attached some pictures below.

tl:dr

ums on jb 4.1/4.2 is possible, you just gotta get to the hidden menu.

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8417/screenshot2013010101093.png
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9577/screenshot2013010101095.png
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7135/screenshot2013010101100.png
http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/6248/screenshot2013010101161.png
 
Upvote 0
Android always have had 3 modes of connections to PC: MTP, PTP and UMS.
MTP - Media Device is used to transfer MEDIA files
PTP - Camera is used to transfer photos
UMS - Mass Storage is used to transfer ALL TYPE of files.

Since JB (Jelly Bean) an coincidentally with the announcement of Google Nexus 7, device that NOT HAVE sd card. Google android have decided to remove sd card or USB mass storage.

MTP sucks compared with UMS!!!
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones