Enabling storage adoption in Marshmallow on the Honor 7

paulobrien

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Nov 6, 2003
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Note: This guide is only tested on the Honor 7 B320 Marshmallow release

The Marshmallow Beta for the Honor 7 is great, making a very nice device feel even better. But one thing missing is the option to 'adopt' microSD cards as Internal Storage, something that is particularly useful on the Honor 7 given its limited 16GB capacity.

Fear not, you can do it manually!

In order to set adopted storage up, you will need a computer with working 'adb' and, of course, a microSD card in your phone, the faster the better. Here's the process!

1. BACK UP THE DATA YOU HAVE ON YOUR MICROSD CARD. Your card will be formatted by this process, so make sure you have saved any pictures, videos etc. from your card to your PC before you start.

2. Decide how you want to split your card. You can either commit 100% of the card to internal storage, or split between internal storage and conventional SD. This option is useful if you like to unplug your card and put it in your PC. I would probably recommend committing the whole card.

3. Open your command window / terminal on your computer and type the 'adb shell' command (with your phone connected of course). You will need to enable USB debugging in developer settings (which in turn is displayed by tapping the build number of the device 5 times) in order to see the option.

4. Type 'sm list-disks' to list the disks available for adoption. It'll look something like below - take note of the disk ID (disk:179:160 in this example).


5. Partition the disk. For this we use the 'sm partition DISK TYPE RATIO' command. For example, to partition the disk above as fully adopted storage (aka private) I'd use the command 'sm partition disk:179:160 private'. If I wanted a 50/50 split between adopted and regular, I'd use the command 'sm partition disk:179:160 mixed 50'. Easy right?

6. This process will take a while, but when it's done, the Settings -> Additional Settings -> Storage view on your device should show the new Internal Storage. Note that, for some reason, the free space isn't reported correctly, however everything seems to work OK. When you install apps, they will generally install automatically to the adopted SD, although you can manually move things around if you want to, perhaps for performance reasons (the real Internal storage will likely always be a bit faster).


7. If you want to see how you are doing for space, you can use a third party tool such as FreeSpace or FreeSpace Plus.


And that's it! Let us know how you get on, and enjoy your new, expanded Honor 7!

P
 

FakkaHe

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Jan 22, 2016
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Hey mate, do you mind if i ask a few questions regarding the use of this?

The only thing i had to do, to get apps and download etc to save on the SD card was to change default storage to SD, in storage menu instead of internal.

Now everything i download or install is stored on my SD card. Huawei solved this by emulating your SD card to look like the internal storage.

This feature is in both 5.0.2 & 6.0.

I attached some photos. (Note: I already have some downloads and photos on my internal storage, took me a while to buy a sd card and i have been lazy so i haven't moved any files yet.)
 

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paulobrien

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Nov 6, 2003
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Hey mate, do you mind if i ask a few questions regarding the use of this?

The only thing i had to do, to get apps and download etc to save on the SD card was to change default storage to SD, in storage menu instead of internal.

Now everything i download or install is stored on my SD card. Huawei solved this by emulating your SD card to look like the internal storage.

This feature is in both 5.0.2 & 6.0.

I attached some photos. (Note: I already have some downloads and photos on my internal storage, took me a while to buy a sd card and i have been lazy so i haven't moved any files yet.)
In a nutshell, regular SD storage only allows you to put limited types of data on the card, with adopted storage everything can go on the card. It's a lot more 'set up and forget' than the old way.

P
 

FakkaHe

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Jan 22, 2016
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In a nutshell, regular SD storage only allows you to put limited types of data on the card, with adopted storage everything can go on the card. It's a lot more 'set up and forget' than the old way.

P
Oh.. So even if i change the default storage, like i said, it will still save some data in the internal storage?

Edit: My bad i didn't read the post properly...
If i adopt, can i still use it as usual? I mean remove the sd card without anything happening to my files?
 
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paulobrien

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Oh.. So even if i change the default storage, like i said, it will still save some data in the internal storage?

Edit: My bad i didn't read the post properly...
If i adopt, can i still use it as usual? I mean remove the sd card without anything happening to my files?
It depends how you partition. With full adoption, you can't read files from the card as they are all encrypted.

P
 

albaoe

Senior Member
Oct 31, 2012
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Madrid
Tried it in B313 and is not working. The SDCard appears as damaged, and prompts me to format it. I noticed that the process "sm partition disk:170:169 private" just lasted about 5 seconds...which is weird if you say it takes a while...

PS: Got OTA update to B320.Gonna update and then try again.

---------- Post added at 09:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 PM ----------

Nice! After updating to B320 it works flawlessly. I have been waiting for this for a long time...Thank you!!!
 
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ryouza

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Feb 24, 2011
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hi, i try to execute commands to obtain the storage setting as in the guide, but i am stuck in adb shell, with error.. can you help me?
i've installed adb setup 1.4.3 and hionor suite to have all drivers and software on set in windows 10, and when i go to adb shell, all goes well, but if i try sm list-disk, there is an error :
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
what can i do?
 

paulobrien

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Nov 6, 2003
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hi, i try to execute commands to obtain the storage setting as in the guide, but i am stuck in adb shell, with error.. can you help me?
i've installed adb setup 1.4.3 and hionor suite to have all drivers and software on set in windows 10, and when i go to adb shell, all goes well, but if i try sm list-disk, there is an error :
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
what can i do?
On B320?

P
 

Too51oll

Senior Member
Nov 27, 2007
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Swansea
I've got this error on B320, Samsung Evo 64GB
Code:
Error: java.lang.IllegalStateException: java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException: Thread Binder_6 gave up waiting for partitionPrivate after 180000ms
Any ideas?
 

Bender007

Member
Jul 28, 2013
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Marl
I used this on B330 and i´m a little bit confused.
System shows internal and sdcard 8gb free space
FreeSpace shows sdcard 29gb free but not an adopted sdcard
ES explorer doesn´t show any sdcard also other apps like airdroid show any sdcard just internal with 10gb ?

update:
after working with the phone (install apps, copy pictures) it seems that the adopted sdcard works properly

update 2:
there are now some apps that did not start. reinstalling doesn´t help. very strange
 
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paulobrien

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Nov 6, 2003
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I used this on B330 and i´m a little bit confused.
System shows internal and sdcard 8gb free space
FreeSpace shows sdcard 29gb free but not an adopted sdcard
ES explorer doesn´t show any sdcard also other apps like airdroid show any sdcard just internal with 10gb ?

update:
after working with the phone (install apps, copy pictures) it seems that the adopted sdcard works properly

update 2:
there are now some apps that did not start. reinstalling doesn´t help. very strange
Can you post pics from your storage settings page?

P

Sent from my HUAWEI NXT-L29 using Tapatalk
 

Bender007

Member
Jul 28, 2013
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Marl
I just made a factory-reset and try again to adopt the sdcard
I will report what happen then

update
after factory reset my phone can´t read the sdcard so i put the sdcard into my pc but windows says ´no disk´.
with partition wizard i saw 2 partitions, 16mb primary fat32 and 2nd with the rest of space
I tried to delete both partitions and format the sdcard but nothing happens.
maybe the card is dead...:confused::(
 
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