Need help from other Android Users: What is your Android Memory scheme.

[Hook]

I'd like to try to gather a little information from Android users, if I may.

There are a couple of threads in the Samsung forums dealing with this, including a very long one in the Galaxy Player forum. However, it would be helpful to get input from a wider array of Android folks than the ones who pay attention to posts in the Samsung fora.

It appears as if there is an odd way in which Android handles internal memory and the external SD card and I wanted to see if more people could confirm or deny whether it is true on their phones. When I started out, it looked like a Samsung problem, or at least most of the forum discussions of it I found involved Samsung models, but I now have found anecdotal evidence of it in other models. I would like to know, from people with different devices, how wide-spread this set-up is on Android. My goal is to figure out whether this is indeed, universally, how Android is set up and what the parameters are.

Here is what I have found, based on my SGP and a lot of reading through forums:

A. It appears that when there is a large amount of user memory internal to the Android device, it becomes identified as as the SD card by the system. In this situation, the actual SD card is presented by the system as a sub-folder of SDCARD in a file manager. What I don't know is exactly how much internal memory invokes this scheme. It looks like it may be universal for 8Gb (of which only 5 GB is going to be accessible) and above.

B. In Android devices with this scheme, moving apps from the phone to external memory (SD card/USB Memory, whatever label is on the move button in manage applications) actually moves the apps to internal memory, not the SD card. Likewise, any app set to use the SD card for data uses the internal memory not the SD card. If the program has an internal setting that allows you to specify an actual file path you can point the data to the SD card, but such capability seems rare except in media player apps.

C. The consequence is that your internal memory can get quickly filled up even though you have a big 32Gb SD card going mostly unused.


I know the above is true for my Samsung Galaxy Player 5. I believe it is true of other Android Phones and tablets out there given forum discussions. Is it true for your Android device?

I know that my old HTC Nexus One is fine. It has 512Kb internal memory (only 200 Kb or so user accessible). In a file manager, the SDCARD folder opens the SD Card and apps are also moved to that card from the phone. Where is the line drawn between o.5 GB and 8Gb? Does SDCARD point to the actual external memory card if there is 1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb? Where does it flip over to this newer scheme.

The problem with this scheme is it turns the SD Card into media storage only. That might not be a big problem for many people, but if you are downloading GPS maps locally, using apps like medical apps with big data bases or playing data intensive games, that 5Gb internal memory (in my case) is going to get chomped up quickly.


So I would appreciate it if you would provide the following information about your Android device (only if you have an SD card):

1. Make and model of your handheld

2. OS version

3. Amount of internal memory

4. When you move an app using manage applications from phone memory, does it go to internal memory or the SD card.

5. In a file manager, does the folder /SDCARD show the files and folders in Internal memory or the actual external SD Card. If it shows internal memory, is there a folder called external_sd that opens the actual SD card.



If this scheme turns to be universal, it changes, at least, what I will think about when buying a new device. It means that my choice will be between a phone that has a large enough amount of internal memory that I really can just use the SD card for media, a phone with sufficiently small internal memory that it uses the SD card by default (which is why I want to establish that parameter), or simply buying a device with no SD card slot.

Let me know if anything is unclear and I'll edit post for more clarity. Thanks in advance for your help.

[AZ-TE]

1. Samsung Infuse (SGH-I997)
2. Android 2.3.6
3. The Internal Memory is divided into 2 sections: USB Storage(sdcard) with 13.03 GB and System Storage with 1.04 GB
4. When I move an app, it moves it to the internal sdcard (USB Storage)
5. In my file manager /sdcard show the contents of the internal sdcard. While /external_sd shows my actual sdcard

I hopes this helps. Let me know if you need anything else.

[Hook]

Thanks. Very helpful. I'm assuming you haven't included the amount of memory on the real external SD card in your numbers. Therefore, I am assuming your phone specs say it has 16 Gb internal memory (of which 13+ is the "USB Memory.").

Given this setup, 16 Gb internal memory would be my minimum.

[Varjak]

AZ-TE, Hook, does that mean this Infuse does NOT have the problem? I can't tell from AZ's description. Shouldn't the memory have 3 categories? (internal system memory, internal storage, external card) It might help to settle on terminology and definitions (standardize) to help determine what we're talking about.

[AZ-TE]

To Clarify:
The Infuse has USB Storage (Internal sdcard) of 13.03 GB, System Storage of 1.04 GB, and SDCard (External sdcard) 2.0 GB (with a max of 32.0 GB, I believe).

Let me know if I need to clarify more.

[Hook]

AZ-TE, Hook, does that mean this Infuse does NOT have the problem? I can't tell from AZ's description. Shouldn't the memory have 3 categories? (internal system memory, internal storage, external card) It might help to settle on terminology and definitions (standardize) to help determine what we're talking about.

Varjak, it has the problem, but it starts to get to be less of a problem with 16Gb internal.

AZ-TE's SD card is mounted as a sub-folder so it isn't directly addressable by apps looking for /SDCARD. So when he moves apps, they go to internal (USB) memory. It is the same archtecture I have been describing. It is more of a "Problem" for Raspy and Me because we only have 5Gb of USB memory.

[Drillbit]

Apps are moved into the internal SD not the external SD card. Unless all of the internal SD is completely partitioned as Phone memory. Certain parts of the app do remain however with internal memory and these are parts related to widget and agent services that must be booted when the system is booted. Internal Phone Memory is really just system C:> renamed.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[Hook]

Apps are moved into the internal SD not the external SD card. Unless all of the internal SD is completely partitioned as Phone memory. Certain parts of the app do remain however with internal memory and these are parts related to widget and agent services that must be booted when the system is booted. Internal Phone Memory is really just system C:> renamed.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks. So I assume the 500Kb memory on my Nexus One is phone memory. I'm also guessing that phone memory doesn't show up when you connect the phone to your computer because it is a different file system. For that same reason, it isn't really user memory in the same way USB memory is because you can't really access it and write to it. It's a place that apps can install and even save data, unless moved.

[Drillbit]

The phone memory can show up through a file manager app on the phone assuming the phone is rooted. Its not just a different file system, but a partition with stricter permissions that require superuser access. Once you get down to this level in Android, you're basically dealing with Unix/Linux drive management.

Internal Phone Memory acts like a boot partition. Everything that the phone needs to boot up has to go there. That's why apps with widgets either have to be installed on the Phone memory or have parts of them installed on Phone Memory. Stuff like the contacts app has to go here. Various agent services for apps, used for background notifications, syncs and other maintenance activity, also goes into there. That's why when an app is transferable to the SD, some parts actually remain in the boot partition/phone memory. The principle is similar to the C: drive in a PC.

[RickAgresta]

When I used the built-in system tools, I saw that the 'Application storage' available was 5.16Gb, and my 32Gb SDHC card had 6.01Gb available (labeled as SD Card)
The Advanced Task Manager utility added this info:
Internal storage 6700Mb total, of which 5288Mb was available -- converting between Mb and Gb gave comparable numbers. The DroidX is billed as having 8Gb internal memory.
When I transferred an app from Internal Storage that the system said was 27.29Mb to SD Card, the SD Card available space dropped by 27Mb, and the Internal Storage increased by a small (~2Mb) amount.
I am not currently rooted, so am guessing that is why I can't see *anything* I can identify as' Internal Storage' -- I wrote this about 24 hours ago but had trouble getting it posted…