Help A12 not supporting internal SD support

[xra7en]

Samsung Galaxy A12, Android ver: 11 (could not find a forum for the A12, so the A10 was the closest I could find)

Is there a way to get this to use the SD card as internal memory? I am using 90% of internal and 3% on SD card. I used to be able to do this on other androids, cannot seem to do it on this one.

Any suggestions if this is not possible?

Thanks in advance!

 

[svim]

Samsung has opted to not include support for adoptable storage on its devices. I've seen several postings online on hacks to Samsung phones to enable it but I'm not going to say it's worth trying or it's not. Since it's something Samsung has intentionally chosen not to support, it's a matter of how much you're willing to risk losing data if something does go wrong.
In any case, whatever you do, hopefully you have working backup solution in place. Backups are important no matter what, but even more so if you're going to be doing non-official altering of your phone at such a lower level of functionality.

 

[puppykickr]

Don't bother with using SD cards as internal memory.

SD cards are always slower than the real built in memory, and the lifespan of a SD card formatted as internal is pitiful.

 

[xra7en]

@svim OK, thanks all for clarifying that. I usually root all my devices, but could not find anything definitive on the adoptable storage issue. I'll prob figure something out.
@puppykickr You are correct they are slower, however great for auto backups on images and other data that take up space
Thanks again!!

 

[Hadron]

But you don't need to format a card as internal to back up images there? Formatting as internal is only needed for storing apps and their private data there, and the private app data, which are constantly updated, are the thing which limits the device lifetime (whereas media, which tend to be written once and read multiple times, are not a problem).

 

[xra7en]

I am not an image user, more of an app user - gaming, work and other apps. These apps seem to fill up my phone fast, and since I can no longer have a larger internal storage (vs my other phones), it becomes problematic. The only reason I switched is because of AT&T/Cricket moving to HD Voice, and while my other phone supposedly supports it, the companies do not recognize it - thus went with the Samsung. They used to be my fav, but now, not so sure.

I'll have to come up with something else. My work app, fills up fast, and a lot of our work orders hit it.

Thanks again for the input!

cheers

 

[svim]

There is an important thing to consider when it involves using a microSD card as either 'Internal' or 'Portable'.
-- The Android default is Portable, you mount a card and it's left as is. It's also treated as just external storage media you insert or remove when you want to. You can use it to transfer files back and forth between different devices.
-- When you format a card as Internal (again, currently not an option with Samsung devices) this alters the card significantly. The card gets reformatted, from its default FAT32 or exFAT file system (allowing it to be used in multiple devices), to using the ext4 file system instead (the same file system as your phone's internal storage). And it gets encrypted. Those two aspects essentially link that card to that phone, the link being the unique encryption key, stored within that phone, applies only to that specific card and that specific phone. So a card set up as Internal at that point becomes just another component to that phone, it's not supposed to be removed as it's now just merged with the internal storage chip as one now with more capacity storage media (the ext4 file system now being common on both). You no longer interact with that card nor its content, the Android operating system on that phone just sees it as part of the overall storage media. If later, say you forgot you previously formatted the card as Internal and you do remove the card, when you attempt to mount it in a different device because of the encryption protecting the files stored on it the card isn't usable.
If later you decide you don't want or need a card to be adoptable, you can still continue using the card by changing it back to Portable. This re-formats the card back to FAT32 or exFAT, and removes the encryption. This of course changes the file system itself again, so backup your data.

So there are a lot of differences involved with a card being used as portable or adoptable. If you do move on to a different, non-Samsung brand phone and still want to use a microSD card to expand its internal storage capacity, be sure to get a good, brand name card with an upper-rated class rating.
https://www.sdcard.org/developers/sd-standard-overview/speed-class/
I have to disagree with statements that microSD cards are too slow and are unreliable. That was the case several years ago but technology developments have resulted in SD cards with much faster read/write capabilities using chips that are more stable and reliable. Just don't use a card that's five to seven years old. Using any microSD card as Internal is still a compromise, the internal storage chip is still faster and more responsive, but the for most people it's not noticeable in day-to-day usage. The underlying problem that the industry needs to move past is the reliance on FAT based file systems, a major weak point, for SD cards.

 

[puppykickr]

I have to disagree with @svim about the reliability of SD cards.

Although some people seem to have good luck with them, I have not.

I have about a 50% success rate in SD cards ladting more than a month to three months.
Those that last that long do last for years, but that initial 50% early fail rate really turns me off.

We are talking name brand cards of the highest available quality from brick and mortar stores.

The 256 GB SansDisk card I bought lasted about two weeks.

These cards (the ones that even worked at all) were all formatted as external storage except for one Lexar 32 GB that was formatted as internal. That one lasted about three months.

Even if a card is set up as external, it still slows the device down by a small amount.
Of course, this amount is more noticeable on a device with smaller RAM.

It is a far wiser decision to invest in a device with more internal memory than in these cheap, slow, unreliable cards.

At best, a SD card will give years of added storage to a device- incrementally slowing that device as it becomes more full.

At worst, the SD card will crash, corrupting and destroying any and all information on it, and making the device basically unresponsive until the rotten thing is removed.

As for me, now my only use for an SD card is to have apks for apps that I install onto all new devices, and use it to install and start apps before the device ever sees the internet.

 

[svim]

I have to disagree with @svim about the reliability of SD cards.

Although some people seem to have good luck with them, I have not.

I have about a 50% success rate in SD cards ladting more than a month to three months.
Those that last that long do last for years, but that initial 50% early fail rate really turns me off.

We are talking name brand cards of the highest available quality from brick and mortar stores.

....

You do realize that whatever issues you're having with SD cards is very anecdotal, don't you? If your situation was actually the norm, external memory cards wouldn't even be an option for us now. If all microSD cards failed at even a 10% rate, there would have been a industry wide recall.
A 50% failure rate is an indicator there's a localized issue that needs to be looked into.

 

[mikedt]

FWIW I've been using larger capacity (>32GB) SDXC type micro-SDs for more than 5 years now, and not had any failures yet. Started with a 128GB, then a Sandisk 256GB, and now a Samsung 512GB I bought late last year. The Sandisk 256GB that was in my phones, I'm still using in my T95 Android TV box for storing and playing movies.

 

[puppykickr]

Say what you will, but all cards above 32 GB are based upon layering 32 GB wafers on top of each other, and each layer increases the possibility of failure.

The longest lived card I own (2009) is a SansDisk 2 GB.
The next are a few SansDisk 32 GB.

The ones that died are all Lexar 32 GB and a recent 256 GB Sansdisk.

The ones that never worked at all are PNY.

So yes, for me- on multiple devices- my failure rate of SD cards is about 50%.

And more and more manufactures will be eliminating SD card capability altogether.

As for the percentages you mention, you must remember that it cost manufacturers close to nothing to make these things by the millions, and they are sold for $10 (32GB SansDisk) to $45 (256GB SansDisk) each.
I have not even bothered to look to see the exorbant price of the 512 GB SD card that would fit my newest device, as I will not be taking the chance of throwing away at least a third of what the device cost plus data (that 256 GB card actually cost what the Moto e6 it was in did!) when the card goes belly up unexpectedly.

Even a 5-10% failure rate is nothing compared to profit made from the sale of a few.

In fact, from what I saw- if I remember right- a 5%-10% failure rate was considered to be very acceptable, with 15%-20% common with the higher capacity cards.

There was a time when I was a staunch defender of SD cards, and found the idea of a device that could not have one an abomination.

The SD cards themselves proved me to be wrong on that, and I had to learn the hard way that SD cards are nothing more than a false promise of memory expansion that places stored data at severe risk with each write to the card.

Oh, sure- supposedly tens to hundreds of thousands of write cycles to burn before an issue MIGHT appear- if you are lucky enough to get a good card- and no way to count just how many cycles have been used.

Of course, they also don't tell you that each time you delete something from the card, that also counts as a write cycle.

Rename a file?
Write cycle.

Not sure, but my guess is that moving a file from one folder to another on acard also counts as yet another write cycle.

Oh, and let's not forget what happens if the little turd is removed without properly 'ejecting' it first.
That happened once on an old Samsung Galaxy Prevail that had the push button SD card slot on one side.
If anything at all pushed that slot, it popped right open- regardless of what the device was doing at the time.

Now the card slots are completely different from what I have on devices where cards have survived.
The good ones were under the battery, sliding up into a slot near the battery contacts.

Now they are on these little tin foil or plastic trays that require a metal pick to extract them with.
Yeah, good luck not damaging something with that system.

Just like automotive engineers, the push with such things seems to be to take what has always worked and to convolute it into not working or doing less with more effort- and then finally getting rid of it altogether.

I, for one, will be praising the end of the SD card, and all of the confusion and misery it causes now.

Here's to hoping that it comes soon and costs the makers of these horrid things a fortune in losses!

I also hope that with the demise of the wretched SD card comes the plethora of higher memory capacity devices that are affordable for a change.

Right now, the best bang for the buck seems to be the Moto e, that comes with 2/32 GB for $120 plus tax.
There is a slot for a 512 SD card, but thank God that the SIM card also goes in there, otherwise the entire tray and slot would just be empty, unused space!

 

[puppykickr]

https://www.quora.com/Is-SD-card-a-good-idea-for-long-term-data-storage?share=1

 

[puppykickr]

You do realize that whatever issues you're having with SD cards is very anecdotal, don't you? If your situation was actually the norm, external memory cards wouldn't even be an option for us now. If all microSD cards failed at even a 10% rate, there would have been a industry wide recall.
A 50% failure rate is an indicator there's a localized issue that needs to be looked into.

In my experience, recalls are only invested in on safety issues.

Anguish and loss of finances due to a failed SD card are neither.

So, no, no recalls for a horrible long term storage option.
Can I even justify the use of the term 'long term' here?

I mean really, is two weeks to three months considered long term?
That is when my SD card failures all surfaced.
Any that survived longer than that continue to do so.

About half of them.