[Q] Question about how the storage on the M8 is mounted

Cyber Akuma · Mar 26, 2014

Considering how many people have used one of these by now, I was wondering if anybody could answer this.

One thing that drove me crazy about some Motorola and Samsung phones with 16+GB of internal storage, is that the storage was partitioned off and the usable space was mounted as if it was an sd card. This really wrecked havoc on apps that are supposed to save data to the SD card, because they would think the internal storage was the SD card and save to there. Not only was this annoying for some backup-based apps, but games which need to download anywhere from 500MB to 3GB of resources would install to the (usually 10GB or less after the rest is partitioned to the system) internal storage, thinking they were installing to the sd card. Basically, the sd card was only usable for photos, videos, and music... and file managers. The phone might as well not have an SD slot.

So far every HTC phone I have had hasen't been this way, the EVO 3D I currently has mounts the internal storage as actual internal storage, so apps correctly download these large amounts of data to the SD card. I didn't get a One because the lack of a SD slot was a dealbreaker for me, but now I am extremely interested in the M8 (Just a shame it isn't water proof like the S5 or Z2, oh well).

I am curious about how it treats it's internal storage however, since it starts out at 16GB(although it appears the Sprint version will be 32GB). Does it actually mount it as internal storage, so apps who want to write to the SD card would be writing to the real SD card itself, or does it work like the Samsung and Motorola phones where it partitions off part of it's internal storage as if it was external, making apps think that it's internal storage is the SD card?

I really hope it doesn't mount it's internal memory as if it was the SD card.

AarSyl · Mar 26, 2014

I have the Evo LTE, and it has the same storage space as the new One (16gb internal with a microSD slot). It treats the memory as internal SD and external SD. Most apps are saved to the internal SD. Only a mere few (XDA is the only one that comes to mind) can be saved/moved to the ext SD.

I hope that this answers your question.

ahecht · Mar 26, 2014

aarsyl said:
I have the Evo LTE, and it has the same storage space as the new One (16gb internal with a microSD slot). It treats the memory as internal SD and external SD. Most apps are saved to the internal SD. Only a mere few (XDA is the only one that comes to mind) can be saved/moved to the ext SD.

I hope that this answers your question.

The latest update to the EVO LTE changed the way storage was handled. They got rid of the internal SD so all of the 16 Gb was treated as phone storage. I would imagine that the M8 will be the same, especially given how Kit Kat treats memory cards.

Cyber Akuma · Mar 26, 2014

ahecht said:
The latest update to the EVO LTE changed the way storage was handled. They got rid of the internal SD so all of the 16 Gb was treated as phone storage.

Wouldn't something like that require re-partitioning of the flash ROM? I remember when I asked if it was possible to do this on a Galaxy S4 with a custom ROM I was told it would require re-partitioning the internal memory and be extremely risky and possible to brick.

Granted though, I would love it if the M8 handled memory this way. Has anyone here tried one and can confirm or deny this?

ahecht · Mar 26, 2014

Cyber Akuma said:
Wouldn't something like that require re-partitioning of the flash ROM? I remember when I asked if it was possible to do this on a Galaxy S4 with a custom ROM I was told it would require re-partitioning the internal memory and be extremely risky and possible to brick.

Granted though, I would love it if the M8 handled memory this way. Has anyone here tried one and can confirm or deny this?

Yes, the Android 4.3 update for the EVO 4G LTE was distributed as an RUU that repartitioned the internal memory.

gbritton · Mar 26, 2014

The repartitioning to the LTE brings it in line with the first HTC One in terms of internal storage. It does mean that USB file transferring becomes MTP-only (no more mounting the partition directly). I find MTP rather slow (and at least under Linux, unreliable)... It's annoyed me to no end dealing with my wife's HTC One. At least the faster CPU than my Evo 4G LTE should make SFTP not glacially slow.

Captain_Throwback · Mar 27, 2014

gbritton said:
The repartitioning to the LTE brings it in line with the first HTC One in terms of internal storage. It does mean that USB file transferring becomes MTP-only (no more mounting the partition directly). I find MTP rather slow (and at least under Linux, unreliable)... It's annoyed me to no end dealing with my wife's HTC One. At least the faster CPU than my Evo 4G LTE should make SFTP not glacially slow.

The external SD can still be mounted in Mass Storage mode on the EVO LTE, so hopefully that'll also be the case on the M8.

Karthikkb · Jun 22, 2014

Mounted as SDCARD

Cyber Akuma said:
Considering how many people have used one of these by now, I was wondering if anybody could answer this.

One thing that drove me crazy about some Motorola and Samsung phones with 16+GB of internal storage, is that the storage was partitioned off and the usable space was mounted as if it was an sd card. This really wrecked havoc on apps that are supposed to save data to the SD card, because they would think the internal storage was the SD card and save to there. Not only was this annoying for some backup-based apps, but games which need to download anywhere from 500MB to 3GB of resources would install to the (usually 10GB or less after the rest is partitioned to the system) internal storage, thinking they were installing to the sd card. Basically, the sd card was only usable for photos, videos, and music... and file managers. The phone might as well not have an SD slot.

So far every HTC phone I have had hasen't been this way, the EVO 3D I currently has mounts the internal storage as actual internal storage, so apps correctly download these large amounts of data to the SD card. I didn't get a One because the lack of a SD slot was a dealbreaker for me, but now I am extremely interested in the M8 (Just a shame it isn't water proof like the S5 or Z2, oh well).

I am curious about how it treats it's internal storage however, since it starts out at 16GB(although it appears the Sprint version will be 32GB). Does it actually mount it as internal storage, so apps who want to write to the SD card would be writing to the real SD card itself, or does it work like the Samsung and Motorola phones where it partitions off part of it's internal storage as if it was external, making apps think that it's internal storage is the SD card?

I really hope it doesn't mount it's internal memory as if it was the SD card.

I also was using HTC EVO 3D. Now I am using HTC One M8. This phone treats Internal Storage as SDCARD and External Storage card as SDCARD2. I am also seeing this as problematic. I don't want to root at this point of time and just living with it with my M8. I rooted EVO3D and had complete Freedom even with CM 11 (KK 4.4.3). Lets wait and watch...

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[Q] Question about how the storage on the M8 is mounted

Cyber Akuma

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AarSyl

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ahecht

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Cyber Akuma

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ahecht

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gbritton

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Captain_Throwback

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Karthikkb

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