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Root MicroSD card Partition Info (and Link2SD)

B

bjtag

Newbie
Ok i have been using 64 GB Micro sd card in LG L70 MS323 for weeks no problems. I have it parted 40 GB fat32 and 20 GB ext4 for Link2SD Working fine.

So i have been told not to do this it won't work, and Link2SD only uses/needs up to 1.5 GB's (this was a old App version limit as i have read and there is no longer limit for Link2SD partition)
Both are fine there is no Real Limit on what we use these cards for, partition size or File System format (fat32 or ext2/3/4....so far...testing more later).

The only downside or problem for SD Flash type memory I have learned of/and studied is Ext3/4 format.
These Linux File system formats have a Journaling Feature.
Basic Info of it is (Journaling has areas in the file system, where all the changes are Tracked and Writen). When the system crashes, the possibility of file system corruption is less because of Journaling. This is feature of Ext3/4 formats, Not Ext2.

The only reason so far this is a bad thing is the amount of Write Data to our Flash memory based MicroSD cards see.
This could be a problem when the total writes to flash memory cell have been used up!!! (this can not be undone and the cell is no longer usable)
Well ext2 does not have this feature and is more friendly to our SD cards as it writes less to the card over its life...
 
You are the most stuborn individual I think I have ever meet, including me. Lol.

You will never use more than 1.5GB partition can handle.
ext.4 works best with this ROM and works best for keeping data on card due to electrical glitches (pulling card before unmounting, pulling usb cable from phone when hooked to computer before unmounting, etc.).

The bigger the SD card partition, the harder it is on you system.

You will cause premature SD card corruption and or failure with a partition thats larger than 20% of the actual usable space available (you don't get 64GBs of space available from a 64GB card, my 16GB only gives me just under 15GBs of usable space).

This is coming from experience, which is the best teacher.

Do what you want, its your phone and your expensive 64GB sd card.

I was an avionics system technician on a Grumman A6 Intruder (both A6-E TRAM and EA6-A) while in the Marine Corps.
I still had to learn everything the hard way when it comes to Android Devices.
Being a Master Mechanic gives you no advantage what so ever. You still have to learn thru experience as I did or you can listen to sound advice from someone who has already been there, and done that as I have.
The choice is still yours to make. Nobody can take that away from you.
 
Just a update... My phone and 64g sd card still going strong... With 40gig fat32 / 20gig ext2 partition. And wife's phone 20gig fat32 / 10gig ext4 and her SD card is one year old now and she's using her phone 24/7... Will update at first sign of any problems...
 
One thing in testing is seems faster the larger the ext. Partition is.... The over provisioning should also slow the on set of write failure of the SD card...
 
I read that 1GB/1.5GB 20% thing, but most of the posts about that were back to 2011 or 2012, when people only had 4GB or 8GB cards. There are a couple of posts reporting corrupted SD cards. But it is hard to tell if it was because of large ext4 partition or something else. That being said, I may still use small ext4 partition IF I can determine I will never use more than 2GB of ext4.
 
Well, I played the phone last night and my conclusion is 2GB is not enough for me. This cheap MetroPCS L70 phone is capable of running large games. Angry Birds GO and Minion Rush alone will take about 700MB.

Since my another Android device has 32GB internal storage, I never paid attention to the space. It is a shame that L70 only has about 1GB of free space. Link2SD is a brilliant idea. But the technology is very simple. As a Unix/Linux developer, I know how to do that from the command line. And it is a shame that Android OS does not provide a better native SD card support.

I do not see any reason that large ext4 partition will cause premature SD card failure. But I would backup everything on SD card to PC (Linux box or Windows with ext4 software). If the SD card failed, just copy everything from PC to a new SD card and you are good to go.
 
This brings up an interesting but offtopic point. Due to the wear leveling (the drive/chip marks sectors as having "too many reads and writes") and marks it as unusable (can no longer write to that cell), and then internally moves the data elsewhere, does this cause the partition to shrink or does it show less and less available space over time? I realize that a quality brand name sd card will last for many many years so this isn't something easy to test* (stay away from the no-name brand, you WILL lose your data!)
* I could write a batch file in a loop that copies data onto the card for a few weeks
​
guxu said:
Well, I played the phone last night and my conclusion is 2GB is not enough for me. This cheap MetroPCS L70 phone is capable of running large games. Angry Birds GO and Minion Rush alone will take about 700MB.

Since my another Android device has 32GB internal storage, I never paid attention to the space. It is a shame that L70 only has about 1GB of free space. Link2SD is a brilliant idea. But the technology is very simple. As a Unix/Linux developer, I know how to do that from the command line. And it is a shame that Android OS does not provide a better native SD card support.

I do not see any reason that large ext4 partition will cause premature SD card failure. But I would backup everything on SD card to PC (Linux box or Windows with ext4 software). If the SD card failed, just copy everything from PC to a new SD card and you are good to go.
Click to expand...
 
So far both mine and my wifes phones and cards are working perfect...
Still using the same partions as posted months ago... My wife does about 4 gigs of data a month with photos(dropbox), facebook, and pintrest... All linked2SD
Will update again if they Die or crap out....
 
I do not see any reason that large ext4 partition will cause premature SD card failure. But I would backup everything on SD card to PC (Linux box or Windows with ext4 software). If the SD card failed, just copy everything from PC to a new SD card and you are good to go.

Copy the ext4 partition onto PC, and then copy over from PC to new ext4 partition and you are good to go. Thanks, I like that!
 
You can also Boot from a clonezilla live CD and use it to image the ext4 partition to your windows hard drive. It will copy the partition data exactly but it won't copy all sectors. Windows tools, on the other hand, will have to copy all sectors as they don't support ext4.
 
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