When will they ever learn?

[Rgarner]

When will somebody find a way around how newer Android screws up the SD card? It's ridiculous to have to choose between having a card that can actually hold anything and one that isn't trapped forever in one device. We should be able to put apps, data, photos, videos, games, documents, etc. on a card and copy them to a computer instead of having to worry about losing all that if something happens to the card and/or phone.

 

[mikedt]

When will somebody find a way around how newer Android screws up the SD card? It's ridiculous to have to choose between having a card that can actually hold anything and one that isn't trapped forever in one device. We should be able to put apps, data, photos, videos, games, documents, etc. on a card and copy them to a computer instead of having to worry about losing all that if something happens to the card and/or phone.

They did learn actually. While you can certainly store photos, videos, documents, and user data on a FAT formatted SD, many Android apps and games didn't work properly, or wouldn't work at all when transferred to FAT removable storage.

So you can either keep it as FAT, which is readable by anything, but has serious problems with apps and games, or you can use adoptive storage with 6.x or above, which uses encrypted EXT, not readable by anything else, except the phone, but works with apps and games of course.

 

[wrf]

So you can either keep it as FAT, which is readable by anything, but has serious problems with apps and games, or you can use adoptive storage

Which has serious problems with its speed, format, encrypion, existence... and gives up, corrupted, on 1st possible problem leaving you without data. Or you can choose... Hey, no, most of us can't choose as most of vendors does not allow adopted storage in their os builds. So you're right. They did learn. Not allowing to write on sd by default and removing support for app2sd and adopting. Lesson learnt...

 

[Hadron]

The problem with speed and durability isn't so much ext4 as sd per se. You didn't notice it the same way with the old way of moving apps to sd because that only moved part of the app (apk and library components) and didn't move the app's internal data. Hence sd speed was only an issue with loading apps rather than running, and there was a lot less writing than there is to the data area so less risk of card failure (sd cards can fail anyway - I've had a lightly-used fat32 format Samsung card crap out terminally after only a few months). I used to use ext4 partitions for apps back in the bad old days of devices with 150MB of internal storage, but never moved app data to them. You can still do that type of thing if you want, it requires root but it also did back then.

Yes, some manufacturers choose not to allow adoptive storage. That's the manufacturer's choice. If it's important to you, don't buy from manufacturers who don't support it. Personally I agree both with you and with the manufacturers who don't include it: it's a bit crap, and I would not use it myself.

The not allowing writing to sd by default is a security thing: fat32 doesn't support file permissions under Linux, so anything there could be altered by any other app. Google over-reacted to this in 4.4, where they basically didn't allow user apps to write to sd. That's since been rectified, in that an app can ask for permission and you can choose whether to grant it or not, but amazingly 3 years later many apps have still not added this option. It's been there for long enough though, so complaints about an app not being able to write to SD should be addressed to the app developer (not defending Google, they make plenty of bad decisions IMO, just saying that app developers have the choice here and so it's their fault if they've not provided the option).

 

[zuben el genub]

The problem with speed and durability isn't so much ext4 as sd per se. You didn't notice it the same way with the old way of moving apps to sd because that only moved part of the app (apk and library components) and didn't move the app's internal data. Hence sd speed was only an issue with loading apps rather than running, and there was a lot less writing than there is to the data area so less risk of card failure (sd cards can fail anyway - I've had a lightly-used fat32 format Samsung card crap out terminally after only a few months). I used to use ext4 partitions for apps back in the bad old days of devices with 150MB of internal storage, but never moved app data to them. You can still do that type of thing if you want, it requires root but it also did back then.

Yes, some manufacturers choose not to allow adoptive storage. That's the manufacturer's choice. If it's important to you, don't buy from manufacturers who don't support it. Personally I agree both with you and with the manufacturers who don't include it: it's a bit crap, and I would not use it myself.

The not allowing writing to sd by default is a security thing: fat32 doesn't support file permissions under Linux, so anything there could be altered by any other app. Google over-reacted to this in 4.4, where they basically didn't allow user apps to write to sd. That's since been rectified, in that an app can ask for permission and you can choose whether to grant it or not, but amazingly 3 years later many apps have still not added this option. It's been there for long enough though, so complaints about an app not being able to write to SD should be addressed to the app developer (not defending Google, they make plenty of bad decisions IMO, just saying that app developers have the choice here and so it's their fault if they've not provided the option).

The current trend of selfies and self videos isn't helping. You see almost everyone riding anything with a camera on their helmet. Some have them mounted on the dashboard.
They are recording this somewhere on some device. Larger storage for videos and selfies.

 

[Rgarner]

Is there a way to force a computer to read an adaptive SD card? Is it necessary to have multiple SD cards to be able to get everything on one and be able to use only some on a computer? Not everybody has millions of dollars. Could a computer running Linux help, or maybe an Ubuntu phone? Can Magisk somehow get around the problem? By the way, I have to say thanks for all the help. I don't know anybody else who could answer all these questions.

 

[mikedt]

The current trend of selfies and self videos isn't helping. You see almost everyone riding anything with a camera on their helmet. Some have them mounted on the dashboard.
They are recording this somewhere on some device. Larger storage for videos and selfies.

I think most dashcams and helmetcams record on the device itself, and they're often set to continually record as soon as turned on, but they'll only keep so much before old video is overwritten. So people can record traffic accidents, to help settle insurance claims, record dangerous driving, etc. Rather like a blackbox cockpit voice recorder might only record the last 30 minutes or so.

 

[mikedt]

Is there a way to force a computer to read an adaptive SD card? Is it necessary to have multiple SD cards to be able to get everything on one and be able to use only some on a computer? Not everybody has millions of dollars. Could a computer running Linux help, or maybe an Ubuntu phone? Can Magisk somehow get around the problem? By the way, I have to say thanks for all the help. I don't know anybody else who could answer all these questions.

Linux can certainly see and possibly mount EXT formatted media. Windows doesn't. However I believe adoptive storage SDs are also encrypted, as is the internal storage, so would need to obtain the decryption key from the phone, if that's possible. Android is running a Linux kernel, EXT is the native format for it of course, FAT is not.

Since Android 6.x, storage can be securely encrypted by default AFAIK. To try and protect private app data, etc.

 

[Davdi]

I've used adoptive storage (32GB Sandisk Class 10 card) with a cheapo chinese phone (Homtom HT17/Android 6.0)
It works well enough, but is a bit laggy.#

 

[Hadron]

You should be able to copy stuff from an adopted sd over USB while it's in the phone, but as Mike says it is encrypted and so it won't work in a card reader whatever OS you use.

Android is increasingly moving towards encryption by default for internal storage, and Google take the same approach to the adopted sd card. It's not that it couldn't work without encryption, but they've chosen to do it this way. It does make internal app data, and apps themselves, stored on the card more secure, but it is a lot less convenient.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Damn.
32GB is enough for my apps.
Music, Movies and books is what i want my MicroSD card for.

 

[Hadron]

Well no need to adopt the card for those.

That's my preference: buy a phone with enough storage for apps and use the card in fat32 mode for media.

 

[tube517]

I've used adoptive storage (32GB Sandisk Class 10 card) with a cheapo chinese phone (Homtom HT17/Android 6.0)
It works well enough, but is a bit laggy.#

You need a higher speed card. MInimum UHS-1

 

[Rgarner]

How do I unencrypt it to work with at least Ubuntu if not Windows? Where does Google get off encrypting our data without our permission and not giving us some kind of key or back door? I want to be able to transfer all kinds of things between phone and computer, including but not limited to photos. By the way, if it turns out I have duplicate albums in Photos, is it OK to delete one or will it get rid of both?

 

[Deleted User]

Big brother Google knows best
Valid point, they should give us a choice over whether to encrypt the data or not.

 

[Hadron]

I know of no way of unencrypting it, bar reformatting the card which of course deletes the data. Best to copy data off via USB.

It's inconvenient for media. For apps and app data it's no different from keeping them on internal storage, since without root you wouldn't have access to them there either (and that may be part of the motivation: not giving more insecure access than you would have if apps were on the phone. Remember that the old-style apps to SD didn't move app data to the card, and it actually hid the bits of the app it moved very well indeed).

 

[Deleted User]

I think they should sort out this situation where even though you tell the system to put apps on the SD card, it actually leaves a significant amount on the internal memory. I was disappointed at how much internal memory was consumed by app data on my tablet device. Why doesn't all the app data go on the SD card?
Edit: I guess performance is a factor here?

 

[Hadron]

Are you talking about the old "move apps to SD" thing rather than the adoptive storage? I thought that adoptive storage was supposed to behave just like internal (I say "supposed to" because actually I don't regard the drawbacks as worth it and so have no intention of ever using it myself).

The old way has always been rather limited (though as you note, moving the internal app data would affect performance). But since Google haven't supported that since 4.0 I don't think there will be any development of that now.

 

[tube517]

On my previous phone I split the sd card into 25% adoptable/75% portable. The phone only had 16GB internal and I used a 64 GB card and the card added another 16GB adoptable and 48GB portable.

Does it solve the OP's issue? No.

And I agree w/the OP.

 

[Deleted User]

Are you talking about the old "move apps to SD" thing rather than the adoptive storage? I thought that adoptive storage was supposed to behave just like internal (I say "supposed to" because actually I don't regard the drawbacks as worth it and so have no intention of ever using it myself).

The old way has always been rather limited (though as you note, moving the internal app data would affect performance). But since Google haven't supported that since 4.0 I don't think there will be any development of that now.

Yes, move apps to SD. I had assumed that my Fire tablet, with its paltry amount of internal memory would be able to use the large capacity SD card I got for it. But in reality, the internal memory has become full pretty quickly, with all the app data left on there.
And yes, I agree that the drawbacks of adoptive storage mean I won't be using it.

 

[zuben el genub]

How do I unencrypt it to work with at least Ubuntu if not Windows? Where does Google get off encrypting our data without our permission and not giving us some kind of key or back door? I want to be able to transfer all kinds of things between phone and computer, including but not limited to photos. By the way, if it turns out I have duplicate albums in Photos, is it OK to delete one or will it get rid of both?

Actually. I think there is an emulator for Android available. Not sure if it's Chrome or Linux but I have seen in mentioned in tech news aggregators. You might start looking at more specialized forums.

 

[Rgarner]

What are these more specialized forums of which you speak? What is an emulator?

 

[mikedt]

How do I unencrypt it to work with at least Ubuntu if not Windows? Where does Google get off encrypting our data without our permission and not giving us some kind of key or back door?

When you click-through and agree to their Terms of Service or EULA, they have your permission? Although I've not read the Google ToS completely recently. Also device manufacturers often have their own ToS and EULAs as well, which you usual click-hrough and agree to, like Samsung.

BTW buy any Apple device now, and your data is encrypted by default, Macs and iOS.

 

[zuben el genub]

What are these more specialized forums of which you speak? What is an emulator?

Daily Rotation picks up all tech and science news only.
Broadband Reports is another. The forums are broken down pretty well. There are others you would have to search for. The emulators are mostly used by developers.

An emulator will run one OS inside another. I bought the emulator for Palm and put it on a Symbian Nokia. I could run all the Palm apps I bought.

 

[Rgarner]

It's possible to transfer everything from SD to computer via USB? Is it possible to put it on a flash drive?