Help NAND used as sd?

[Venik212]

I have an Idroidnation (168G) box that I used with kodi (formerly known as XBMC) for Google TV. It comes with a 2.4 gb internal storage and 2.6 gb NAND flash. I also have a 128gb external sd card. I was unable to install certain things shortly after I got the box, getting a message that I do not have enough space.
I tried to move all the apps I could into the external sd card, but whenever I did that the apps moved into the NAND flash memory, not the external 128 gb sd card.
HOW DO I FORCE ANDROID TO DO WHAT I WANT, which is to move user-installed apps into the external sd card? Is there an app for that? The application manager and several apps I tried all treat the internal NAND flash memory as the "sd" card destination, and completely ignore my external sd drive!
Thanks--

 

[Hadron]

Moving apps to SD was deprecated in Android 4.0. Some devices support it still if the manufacturer added it back, but it really depends on what the manufacturer did.

It sounds like you have a manufacturer who did the most brain-dead thing possible: they retained the Android 2.3 style of keeping separate partitions for apps and app data (/data) and for media (/sdcard - a different partition of the internal storage emulating an sd card) and then put back the option of moving apps to SD without taking sufficient care to make that the real SD card rather than the emulated one.

So to be clear: this isn't a problem with android per se, it's that your TV box's software was written by lazy clowns who have not the slightest understanding of what they are doing - probably because lazy idiots cost less than developers who know or care what they are about. Sorry if that was a bit of a rant, but we get a lot of this sort of stuff (though this is a particularly extreme case) and it's because there are crappy budget manufacturers doing a really bad job of implementing the OS, and who in the process give the platform itself a bad name.

OK, rant over . So what can you do? The answer is that you would need to root the device to be able to do anything - to overcome the shoddy implementation the manufacturer has provided you need administrator access. If you can root it (the techniques depend on the device, and I have no experience of this model) then you might be able to use an app like Link2SD to allow you to use the physical SD card for apps. You will not be able to accept system updates if you root the device (well you can, but it's at your own risk: they will certainly break root, and may introduce other problems, so I'd not recommend it). But those are your options: investigate the possibility of rooting it, or live with the limitations the manufacturer has built in. Sorry.

 

[Venik212]

Many thanks for this detailed and informative answer, which is TOTALLY consistent with my impression of this manufacturer and their (imperfect) knowledge of what they are selling. I shall muddle along until I get my NUC box, install Linux on it, and have no more problems.

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