SUCCESS! The 64GB Question - How to move apps to SD card or flash drive?

[birdastrompgman]

I rooted my N7, bought a USB-OTG cable, flash drive, and downloaded Stickmount.  It recognizes the flash drive, and mounts it as sdcard/usbStorage/sda*/.  I can read the files already stored on any flash drive, but the free storage (64 GB, for example) on the flash drive isn't available to any of the 4 different Move2SD or file explorer apps I used.  ES File Explorer, for instance, sees the autorun and introductory files on a new flash drive, or the 61 files on the flash drive I carry in my pocket.  Its SD card analyzer, however, shows the same 5.92GB of total storage space whether I put a 16GB or 64GB  flash drive into the OTG cable.  None of the Move2SD apps are configurable to let me change their default SDcard destination.

Changing the apps backup directory to sdcard/usbStorage/ doesn't help.  Turning on the USB debugging developer option doesn't help.

I tried to find/install an app that will let me create a second partition on my flash drive.  Link2SD mentions three partitioning apps: minitool, paragon, and easeus.  I couldn't find minitool or easeus on Google Play.  Paragon failed to download, giving me an insufficient space error message.

So, can someone tell me an app that will allow me to create another FAT32 partition on my flash drive?  Is there another workaround to access my USB flash drive?

[birdastrompgman]

Do I have to write a script?  Do I have to run a kernel with ums?  Does Jelly Bean have native ums support?

I assumed that Stickmount seeing the SDA1 directory (A=drive, 1=partition 1) meant I'd have access to that drive and partition.  So, creating another partition will just give me an SDA2 directory that I can read files in, but not write files to?

[birdastrompgman]

I think I'm almost there.  I found easeus, which is a Windows program, on CNET.  I used it to partition my flash drive into two primary FAT32 partitions, and formatted them.  I also found a USB Mass Storage OTG app for the N7.  More tomorrow.

[birdastrompgman]

The problem is Stickmount and USB Mass Storage Watcher OTG put the flash drive partitions in different places than where the various move2SD apps expect to see them.

Unmounted, they're in /dev/block/sda1 and /dev/block/sda2
Stickmount mounts them in /sdcard/usbStorage/sda1 and /sdcard/usbStorage/sda2
USB Mass Storage Watcher OTG lets you put the partitions in /usbOTG/mnt/sdcard or /usbOTG/mnt/usbdrive or a new folder of your choice under /usbOTG/mnt/

Link2SD tries to unmount the first partition, and tries to use install-recovery.sh and init.d scripts to mount the second partition at boot to /data/sdext2/, but it doesn't see them.

I tried disabling Stickmount and using USB Mass Storage Watcher OTG to leave the flash drive partitions unmounted.  Link2SD still didn't see the flash drive.

I never got App2SD to work. I selected apps and tried to move them.  The app pulled up the app info settings for every selected app.  I didn't know what to do, so I tried clearing data and caches, forcing stops, and uninstalling apps.  It made no difference.  the apps never moved.  Worthless app, with no documentation what it's doing.

DroidSail Super App2SD wouldn't install, giving an insufficient space message, despite 5.92GB of available space.

I'll probably end up writing scripts to mount the second partition where Link2SD wants to see it, but I'll try some more bespoke apps first.

[birdastrompgman]

Well it didn't work.  Here's the script I wrote, placed into the sdcard directory as link2.sh, and executed.  Link2SD still doesn't see the flash drive.

mount -t vfat /dev/block/sda2 /data/sdext2

So, what's the story with the rest of you?  Nobody else has a a flash drive or external memory card hooked up to their N7 and working?  If you do, now is the time to tell us how you did it.

[birdastrompgman]

I got tired of trying to find a canned program to move my apps to my flash drive.  The canned programs all make (often wrong) assumptions based on cell phone architecture. 

I started moving them manually.  So far, I've managed to move 5 of them successfully.  It's pretty simple - just move the .apk file over to the mounted flash drive location, and make a directory for the associated data files, if necessary.

So, I'm going to repartition my flash drive and complete the process.  Right now it's a 32GB drive split into two 15 GB partitions, and nothing is seeing partition 2.  So I'll make a 24 GB partition 1 and a 6GB partition 2 in case some day I can use #2.

[JayJ]

Not sure I follow with what your trying to achieve here, are you planning on leaving the flash drive permanently attached because the moved apps you will only be able to use when it's connected?

Apps don't really take up that much space compared to files we use like game data and that goes on the internal memory (sdcard), movies, music, pictures, porn etc...

Am I missing the point?

[birdastrompgman]

I have an 8GB N7 with <3GB free space, so the 24GB partition would be handy.  I run an astronomy program that loads 1.4GB of compressed & uncompressed data files, and that would free up a lot of storage if I could move it.  Similarly, I run a couple of data-intensive birding programs I'd like to place on the flash drive.  I wouldn't have to plug it in when I'm web surfing or gaming on an airplane - just on the astronomy field or when birding in a new area.

Back to the drawing board.  The .apk files are installation packages.  When run on the flash drive, they install apps back in my 8GB internal memory. 

[JayJ]

That's fair enough I knew there would be a valid reason.

[frank]

I know the apps2sd thing was very popular in the past android versions where the apps partition was separated from the data partition, so you could only install a limited amount of apps.  On my archos tablet, that was ~300 mb if you didn't root, so apps2sd allowed you to move the app to the "SD" which was just another part of the internal storage.  You couldn't move them to an actual SD card, even though the device had the card slot.  Its all semantics and not very straightforward.   

Unless there's some new way to use it with android 4.0 and later, I don't think any apps2sd is going to help you out.  Hope you find something though.

[birdastrompgman]

Thanks.  I'm new to Android, so I wasn't aware of that history.  At leas some of the apps seem to have managed to move apps to external usb storage in a second partition mounted in /data/sdext2.  I need to find the error in my linux script.  I suspect it's in my device definition, so I may just try another script to move the stickmounted second partition, rather than trying to mount the unmounted device.

[norcal618]

Im still on the fence weather to root or not to root. My main reason for rooting would be to expand space for more apps on my 8gb nex7 via stick mount. If this isn't possible I definitely  will not root. Bird, please keep posted on your progress in this matter. If you achieve thus feat please let me know via this thread. Thnxs

[birdastrompgman]

Every path of investigation comes to the same dead end.  Android "external memory" refers to a partition in the soldered-in memory chip in your device.  USB plug-in memory hasn't been successfully spoofed/mounted in place of the OEM memory, AFAIK.

USB memory is best used to store large media files, like movies, books, and music.

[rp1]

hello

i signed up specifically because of this as iv been wanting to buy a nexus 7 but it isnt available in my country in
an affordable price range and am hoping to buy one soon, and this is the main problem that i see coming up given
the size of the programs and games available for mobile OSs.

I messed a little with linux in my time and was thinking, and it may be wholly and solely wrong due to my inexperience
with the Android OS or Linux in general, i was thinking:
What not create symlinks?  i remember doing it for a few distros i ran, esp for mounting problems and disappearing shortcut
files, it might work in this scenario as it is already rooted, and maybe we are able to install tools allowing for proper
file handling and distribution in Android 4.1?

IIRC it wouldnt take the same amount of space but did only leave a sort of shortcut for the program to access it
but atleast when i did it, it had to be created by hand, i do not remember if it accepted whole folders as symlink,
but i think it might, or we could just make a small script that mounts all the files manually, whenever the program shortcut
is accessed, it might slow down the process somewhat but in the end it IS saving space

i hope to god i havent made a fool of myself

[S.Prime]

I have seen some discussion at xda on creating symlinks, so with my limited Linux knowledge, I do know that it is possible.