Indeed it is confusing, not helped my the mixture of terms we are using, and mixture of terms used by Samsung in settings and folder names. Note that it is not just us getting confused the developers and apps are confused also. This is brought about by the hardware manufacturers outpacing the Android OS which was never designed to have mutiple SD cards. So to summarise and try to clarify;
- Phone RAM, ~ 800MB has all the current running processes under Settings, Running Services. Manages itself by unloading least used process if it needs more room.
- Device Memory, ~ 1.7 GB main internal storage memory & default app download location. Not accessable directly with 'My Files'.
- SDCard Storage ~ 11.5GB, Mounted as /Sdcard in 'My Files' and still internal to the phone. Called /sdcard to maintain compatability. Confusingly called also called "USB Storage" under Settings, Storage. This area mounts on your PC under Computer\i9100\Phone (on Vista/win7). It appears that most applications see this as external due SD since there are many folders created by apps to store cache files, and other program data. Unfortunately there appears no conventions like in the Win world, with 'com.ebay...' file appearing in the root of this tree, while others are stored by name of developer or publisher not necessarily the name of the app!!
- External micro SD, if you have one installed. This area is mounted as \sdcard\extrernal_sd in 'My Files'. The size of this of course relates the card you actually have (mine is 32GB and has 68MB used at the moment). When using Settings, Manage Applications, this is area Samsung SGS2 using when it moves an app. However to confuse you further can see at the bottom of the "Settings, Manage Applications, On SD Card" screen it MB used + GB free add up to ~11.5GB but this is wrong - my card is 32GB!! Have not worked that one out.
Under Settings, Storage this area is refered to confusingly as "SD Card" at the top of the screen!! Because of Unix style of directory tree, and that most phones have 2 storage areas instead of 3 - file managers sometimes report incorrect usage and available stats. On the desktop when you plug in the phone it appears as Computer\i9100\Card.
Having said all that perhaps you can help me clarify how the apps treat storage.
- As mentioned managing Apps in Samsung direct treats internal memory as the SD card when moving apps. These are stored in a hidden folder in \sdcard. Hidden folders start with '.'
- USB OTG(On-the-go) is an application, that mounts in 'My Files' as \sdcard\usbStorage. ie. if you plug a card reader into your phone it will host the device (like the desktop does) directly. When hosted folders will appear under \sdcard\usbStorage\sda, sdb, sdc, or sdd \ then your folder structure under the card. Note phone cannot host all USB items but storage, external powered HD, and some keyboards can be hosted. Because this is an application - do not expect to store files in \sdcard\usbStorage and have other application see them - they won't
- I am currently using Norton Mobile Utilities - and it also has a application management allowing you to move apps, but it treats the SD card as being the External SD card not the internal one like the Samsung functions do!!
- To add to the inconsistency the standard Camera application on SGS2 seems to know the difference!! When you choose to store on the 'phone' it's going to internal sd under \sdcard\DCIM\Camera while if you choose to store photos under 'SD Card' it is actually going to the external Micro SD and stored under \sdcard\external_sd\DCIM\camera. The Gallery app finds them all regardless.
Perhaps clarifying some other apps treatment of this 3 storage areas is
worthwhile? Hope this has added value instead of more confusion
