SDHC card as ext3?

[bsoplinger]

This really isn't Android development related but seems too technical for the general area. Please move it if there is a more correct place for this post to be.

I had the bright idea that I could get 'extra' storage by sym linking an internal application directory to the external SDHC card.

So I copied files and tried to link:
ln -s /sdcard/sdcard2/some_app_dir /sdcard/some_app_dir

This fails. After reading some here I figured out that its because the SDHC card is formatted in FAT32 and the internal /sdcard directory is a linux type format (ext2, ext3 or ext4, not sure which).

I figure no big deal, just format the SD card as ext3 (or 2 or 4 whatever matches, I just picked 3 for my attempts).

Now I can su in terminal and type:
mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/block/mmcblk2p1 /sdcard/sdcard2
and its mounted and everything. Life seems good.

So I exit terminal and see what I can do with 'normal' apps. No go. Figure I had a permission problem. That can be fixed.

The bigger issue is the need to open a terminal session and manually mount the SDHC card.

So my questions are 2...

Is what I'm trying to do really do-able? As in will the whole sym link and ext3 formatted SDHC card idea work?

Secondly, how do I get the SDHC card to automagically mount?

 

[pyraxiate]

This really isn't Android development related but seems too technical for the general area. Please move it if there is a more correct place for this post to be.

I had the bright idea that I could get 'extra' storage by sym linking an internal application directory to the external SDHC card.

So I copied files and tried to link:
ln -s /sdcard/sdcard2/some_app_dir /sdcard/some_app_dir

This fails. After reading some here I figured out that its because the SDHC card is formatted in FAT32 and the internal /sdcard directory is a linux type format (ext2, ext3 or ext4, not sure which).

I figure no big deal, just format the SD card as ext3 (or 2 or 4 whatever matches, I just picked 3 for my attempts).

Now I can su in terminal and type:
mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/block/mmcblk2p1 /sdcard/sdcard2
and its mounted and everything. Life seems good.

So I exit terminal and see what I can do with 'normal' apps. No go. Figure I had a permission problem. That can be fixed.

The bigger issue is the need to open a terminal session and manually mount the SDHC card.

So my questions are 2...

Is what I'm trying to do really do-able? As in will the whole sym link and ext3 formatted SDHC card idea work?

Secondly, how do I get the SDHC card to automagically mount?

Try this yet ? I used it on a test build on the kyocera zio and it worked.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.a0soft.gphone.app2sd

Let us know

 

[bsoplinger]

I didn't mean that I needed to save app space since I already use app2sd but that I wanted to save space from the files some particular app saves onto internal memory by moving them to the SDHC card.

If the app(s) in question were written with the idea that there could be multiple places to store files I wouldn't need to do this but they aren't. They write to a single, fixed location that's on the internal memory of the Streak. Which means if I move those files to the SDHC I need to make them appear in their internal memory location, hence the link command in my OP.