[MOD] Mount Point Swapper

maxdamage2122

Senior Member
Nov 16, 2007
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205
0
This flashable zip will allow to choose how to mount your internal and external storage.
Your two options are:
  1. Internal storage as /mnt/sdcard and external storage as /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd
  2. Internal storage as /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd and external storage as /mnt/sdcard
I have not been able to successfully mount the internal anywhere else unfortunately but will continue looking into it.

SIDE EFFECTS/ISSUES WITH THIS METHOD
  • You can not mount the external sdcard to a computer
  • In storage settings, External storage shows under "Phone storage" and the internal storage shows under "Storage card"
  • Selecting "Unmount storage card" will unmount the internal storage ("Mount storage card" will remount it though)
  • If you remove or boot with out the external sdcard neither storage space will be available for use
  • Possibly others...

Changelog
v1.0.1
  • Updated touch calibration
  • Changed update-binary-installer
  • Bug fix
No Version
  • Initial release
 

Attachments

Last edited:

.Gibson.

Senior Member
Mar 24, 2012
398
211
63
35
Chicago
I'm definitely interested, however I am curious about what the reason/benefit of this mod would be.
The benefit would be all the big games will store the game data on the bigger external card. Along with other settings certain apps store. Also, if you have to exchange your phone, you keep all of your data.

Sent from my El Tevo
 

Spyderekz

Senior Member
Mar 22, 2008
575
101
0
Wichita
I need a couple people with TWRP/CWM recovery to test out a couple flashable zips for me since I have not unlocked my bootloader yet. If you are interested please PM me and let me know which recovery you are running. PLEASE DO NOT post anything in this thread till I am done testing and have posted the zip. I should have it up late tonight (sadly I have work today) if everything goes as planned.

I have figured out how to mount the external storage as /sdcard and the internal storage as /sdcard/ext_sd. I have not been able to successfully mount the internal anywhere else unfortunately but will continue looking into it.

SIDE EFFECTS/ISSUES WITH THIS METHOD
  • You can not mount the external sdcard to a computer
  • In storage settings, External storage shows under "Phone storage" and the internal storage shows under "Storage card"
  • Selecting "Unmount storage card" will unmount the internal storage ("Mount storage card" will remount it though)
  • If you remove or boot with out the external sdcard neither storage space will be available for use
  • Possibly others...
I'll test it for you, but I would also like a few things changed. Maybe increase app storage? Or could we dedicated some of it to phone ram?

sent from my EVO LTE
 

mobius1484

Senior Member
Jun 5, 2012
272
54
0
Clinton, UT
What I'd really like to see is the ability to have swap.

This is a big benefit thanks cause when flashing roms twrp doesnt see the external sd card

Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
TWRP does allow you to view the external sdcard you have to go into mounts and change it. Be sure to change it back though or your back up's wind up on your external card.

Sent from my EVO using XDA
 

ryanalan82

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2008
1,134
379
0
There should be a couple extra steps put in the OP.
And remember original storage is:
Internal storage = the app itself
Phone storage = the apps data
sd card= everything else

1. any apps that (the apk file itself) are installed in the phone storage, should be moved to internal storage.

2. Any of the game data that is on phone storage, should be moved to the actual sd card (sdcard2). This data is in the Android folder on phone storage (sdcard). So it should be moved from /mnt/sdcard/android/data to /mnt sdcard/ext_sdcard/android/data. Really just move the whole folder to the sd card. I moved the whole folder to phone storage from the sd card when I got the phone so I didn't have to sit there and download all the game data for the bigger games and such again.

3. Follow the steps in the OP of this hack.

4. If you want to get some of your 2 GB app storage space back, move the apps as you wish to phone storage. This will be the app apk file not the huge game data. But this time phone storage will be the actual sd card. So it won't take away from your 10 GB it will take away from the sd card.
The apps that get moved will get moved from /data/app to /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure.

also at this step I would say move a couple big apps/games as oppose to many little apps/games. Better to have a couple big ones to load not that often, than to have many little apps to load more often and cause more slowdown. The more little apps you have on the sd card the more possibility the phone gets slowed down, cause no matter what sd card u have, it's gonna be just a little slower than what came on the phone. So moving just a couple 50 mb games should go a long ways.

Now the question is what to do with that 10 GB. If I do this hack, which I eventually will, I would probably fill this space with titanium backups, have the pictures and video saved here, roms and such I will flash I recovery, ringtones, wallpapers. You kinda don't have to many more choices with this space. if I'm gonna take space away from the memory card but don't want to delete any of my 40 GB of music, I would want to move whatever I could in that 10 GB of space so it doesn't get wasted. Remember moving apps or huge game data doesn't go into the 10GB anymore.

There are pluses to this hack and there are minuses. Until I get the exact figures on what I can put where I am going to wait on doing all this, but I hope I helped give a bit of an overview to what is going on with your storage space and how it is used.

I posted this in the other thread too so no one misses it cause moving stuff around is time consuming and annoying.

Swyped from my eVo
 
Last edited:

Spyderekz

Senior Member
Mar 22, 2008
575
101
0
Wichita
What I was thinking is to redo partition sizes. The 2.3gb for internal app storage get increased a little more.

Could we use some space to increase our RAM as seen in task manager? Mount the rest as the /android or /data folder so our apps would load faster instead of ex_sdcard.

Mount the external SD as the sdcard as normal. Sounds crazy I know..

sent from my EVO LTE
 

ryanalan82

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2008
1,134
379
0
Flashed the new zip last night, everything is sweet. In fact I was having a problem moving apps from the internal [2GB) to the phone storage [10GB) and having the moved apps survive a reboot before I did this hack. I would move them, and after next time I would reboot, it would have the storage space taken up but not be installed. This is what made me flash this cause I was only going to have the 2 GB for apps. So after doing this and reboot everything is where it's suppose to be. Fixed my tons of problems with Google music too. storage and ram are a pain in the ass with this phone.

Follow my instructions and everything will be great.

My question is when I do flash new ROM and the swap mounts gets undone, can I flash this after the ROM in the same session or after a fresh install and reboot?

Swyped from my eVo