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Root [International] Move it all to SD Card

rsfour

Member
Nov 30, 2012
73
7
Glasgow
Morning!

I've invested in a super super SanDisk ultra 64GB SD card and I want it to be the storage for l my backups, pictures, videos and music.

I've set the camera up to save to sd and moved the pictures over but how do I move all my content. I'm being a bit lazy not hooking it up to a pc but is there an app I can use? I for example what's app media gets stored to the internal sd and there is no way to change that. So that would mean every time I received a photo I'd need to copy it to the sd card manually - and that's a pest.

Fyi i am rooted.
 

Had a look at that app, sorry for being stupid but ive not quite grasped what that app does.

If i create a bind between two folders folder A and folder B, A being internal and B external, anything saved to A will be MOVED to B. Also the applications will still be able to access items on folder A but the location is actually folder B.

Like redirected folders on windows.
 
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The app words things differently but essentially yes.

A bind is like a symlink, which is like s shortcut in windows.

So you first give the application folder b on external sd card. This is where you want the data to be.

Then you give it folder a, where the data is now.

It moves all the data from folder a to folder b. Folder a is now empty. Folder a is then bound to folder b. In other words folder a ceases to be a folder and becomes a shortcut to folder b.

Unlike actual shortcuts though, the bind means folder a still appears as a folder to the applications that use it. So anything an application saves into folder a is actually being saved into folder b.

Hope that helps
 
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The app words things differently but essentially yes.

A bind is like a symlink, which is like s shortcut in windows.

So you first give the application folder b on external sd card. This is where you want the data to be.

Then you give it folder a, where the data is now.

It moves all the data from folder a to folder b. Folder a is now empty. Folder a is then bound to folder b. In other words folder a ceases to be a folder and becomes a shortcut to folder b.

Unlike actual shortcuts though, the bind means folder a still appears as a folder to the applications that use it. So anything an application saves into folder a is actually being saved into folder b.

Hope that helps

You are a star. Thank you.
 
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Im sure i've got it set up and working now, however how do i test if the data is actually correctly binded?

I moved the whatsapp folder and when a file is downloaded i do i see it on the SD card and updated files work. However using ES File Explorer i of course can see the data on the internal memory too. How do i make sure it 100% working and there is no actual information on the internal memory.
 
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@suroot...just so I am clear on this also, is this similar to the DarkTremors a2sd that I ran on my Evo? This is the link for that DTa2sd that rooted, Evo4g folks ran when their sd card was partitioned...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=715938
Now if anyone here is looking at this thinking, "hey, why can't I use that DTa2sd thing?"...you cant on the SG3...it was for the Evo4g:) I just mentioned it because DirectoryBind looked similar to DTa2sd.
 
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Im sure i've got it set up and working now, however how do i test if the data is actually correctly binded?

I moved the whatsapp folder and when a file is downloaded i do i see it on the SD card and updated files work. However using ES File Explorer i of course can see the data on the internal memory too. How do i make sure it 100% working and there is no actual information on the internal memory.

If you can see it on both, its moved. If you untick the bind, the original folder will be empty.


@suroot...just so I am clear on this also, is this similar to the DarkTremors a2sd that I ran on my Evo? This is the link for that DTa2sd that rooted, Evo4g folks ran when their sd card was partitioned...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=715938
Now if anyone here is looking at this thinking, "hey, why can't I use that DTa2sd thing?"...you cant on the SG3...it was for the Evo4g:) I just mentioned it because DirectoryBind looked similar to DTa2sd.

No. Its not the same. Data2sd moves the /data partition to /sd-ext (an ext partition created on your SD card) and symlinks to that location. This is for phones such as whatever you had (and me with HTC desire) that have minute /data partitions.

a2sd is similar but just /data/app > /sd-ext/data/app

If you download a game, the apk and a little bit of data go to /data/app and /data/data. On phones with minute /data partitions, this fills up quickly. The majority of the game data however is in /sdcard/Android/data

On the S3, /data and /sdcard use the same space by use of the FUSER formatted space. Now both /data and /sdcard (combined) can use that 11.35 GB space (based on 16GB version) but apks are pretty small. Theres no way we're going to run out of /data. The problem for us is /sdcard/Android/data because 6-7 games can fill the /sdcard part of the EMMC.

The EMMC is made up of /system, /cache, /data and /sdcard (plus others) but the last 2 are combined. /data will never be a problem for us.

So although it appears similar, it is not. Instead of it moving data from an ext formatted /data partition to an ext formatted ext sd partition, this is just binding a directory from one sd card to another
 
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