Resize partitions? - Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot

It's been bugging me for a while that the system partition sizes are so huge, and I only get a little over 9GB for actual storage. Specifially the cache, of which I'm only using 104/2037MB, and the system, of which I'm only using 485/2717MB.
Is there any way to resize these partitions to give me more room for storage? I'm looking into making a new partition on my sd card, but that still doesn't solve the stupidly huge cache/system partitions.
There is also the issue of the missing space. As far as I can tell, my phone only has 14892MB in total, not the advertised 16GB. I understand that usable space is frequently lower than advertised on storage devices, but this is a little bit too much.
I've researched this but couldn't find anything useful. Maybe my google-fu is low haha.
Thanks in advance.

Bump.

Masterjuggler said:
Bump.
Click to expand...
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I've been looking for a way to do this as well. I feel like I'm wasting at least a good 3gb that could be used for installing some larger games or something. As far as I can tell, there is a way to do it on another variant of the S4, involving using odin to flash a Chinese version of the stock rom(specifically the PIT file) which repartitions the storage. But it only works on that variant, and won't work for us. No way to do it on the sph-l720, at least none that I can find.
I was thinking I could reclaim some of the system partition by taking any apps that are essential to me, and converting them to system apps. But since the system partition gets wiped every time I update the rom, which is very frequently, that would be a disaster.

Related

What does "Re-Partition" mean?

I've recently been doing a lot of flashing here and there and always wondered what "re-partition" meant. Would anyone care to enlighten me?
NOTE: my bad, I should of mentioned this is regarding Odin.
Say you had a 4gb sdcard and had a 1gb ext4 partition for A2SD+, you could then repartition it to 512mb. Doing this will give you back 512mb for the fat32 partition and wipe your sd. None of this applies to us as we done have custom roms, and with the vast internal storage, we shouldn't need it either
Hopefully that gives a bit of insight to it
Sent from my GT-P1000
GANJDROID said:
Say you had a 4gb sdcard and had a 1gb ext4 partition for A2SD+, you could then repartition it to 512mb. Doing this will give you back 512mb for the fat32 partition and wipe your sd. None of this applies to us as we done have custom roms, and with the vast internal storage, we shouldn't need it either
Hopefully that gives a bit of insight to it
Sent from my GT-P1000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think what xoltrix2000 is talking about is when we flash the ROM there is the option to repartition using a PIT file. If I understand correctly, it specifies the sizes allocated to each image file (factoryfs.rfs, modem.bin, etc) in the Flash storage where the ROM is stored. In effect it is treating the internal storage (not to be confused with the internal SD card) like you would treat a hard drive in a computer. The PIT file just specifies how it's broken up.
Hi, and yes it's in regards to Odin, sorry!
So do we need to repartition if we're switching to different regional firmwares? Just in case they're different size? The reason I'm asking is because I noticed different performance issues and thought that it might need something like that to be done.
xoltrix2000 said:
Hi, and yes it's in regards to Odin, sorry!
So do we need to repartition if we're switching to different regional firmwares? Just in case they're different size? The reason I'm asking is because I noticed different performance issues and thought that it might need something like that to be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've actually been experimenting with not partitioning and manually loading up the images and I have noticed some performance oddities as well. I think that re-partitioning may be better in the long run, it will bring you close to stock of whatever you are going to. But, as always, do a RotoBackup before flashing so you have your stuff just in case.

[Q] Resizing /system and /cache to gain space?

Hello everyone and thank you for having me on your wonderful forum. I have learned so much in such a short time by reading everything I could whether I was intending to use it or not.
I got my 16gb Nexus on Monday and immediately prepped it for ROMs, settling on CM10.1 RC2, Prior to that I had an Optimus V running CM7. On my Optimus, after flashing CM7 for the long haul I was able to move all excess /system space back into /data using terminal emulator and the fdisk command, but I followed a guide of some sort that is long lost now.
Everything is fantastic so far except one thing, there seems to be quite a lot of space reserved in the /system and /cache partitions, and I am not sure if I am able to re-partition this space back to /data or how exactly to do this.
right now /system is reading at 395.8 / 827.8 MB used, and /cache is at 68.4 / 551.7 MB. I would like to repartition 200 MB away from /system and 300-400 MB away from /cache, and put it back into /data. This will leave me some space to integrate or convert a few apps to system apps, and enough cache space to be safe (why does it need 550 MB to begin with?) and give back another half gig of storage that I paid so much to have.
I have three issues with this, one being that I can find almost no information on this topic directly mentioning the NExus 4, and any relatable information from other devices talking about device specific toolkits to do the job.
The only thread I found on XDA about this is below, and it only gave me a vague "this is not possible"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2248400
The second issue is I do not recall the command switches/flags that go with the fdisk command, only that I had to use some things to set file permissions or remount the partition or some such (I know, i'm a noob, forgive me).
Lastly, I am rather confused by the multiple partitions of /data and /storage/emulated all showing a partition size of 13231.8 MB. Obviously they are all the same physical space, but I am afraid to mess with the partitions and break what I assume are a ton of symlinks that trick apps into believing there is an external SD card in play. Can any of you shed some light on this for me?
I3ig Al said:
Hello everyone and thank you for having me on your wonderful forum. I have learned so much in such a short time by reading everything I could whether I was intending to use it or not.
I got my 16gb Nexus on Monday and immediately prepped it for ROMs, settling on CM10.1 RC2, Prior to that I had an Optimus V running CM7. On my Optimus, after flashing CM7 for the long haul I was able to move all excess /system space back into /data using terminal emulator and the fdisk command, but I followed a guide of some sort that is long lost now.
Everything is fantastic so far except one thing, there seems to be quite a lot of space reserved in the /system and /cache partitions, and I am not sure if I am able to re-partition this space back to /data or how exactly to do this.
right now /system is reading at 395.8 / 827.8 MB used, and /cache is at 68.4 / 551.7 MB. I would like to repartition 200 MB away from /system and 300-400 MB away from /cache, and put it back into /data. This will leave me some space to integrate or convert a few apps to system apps, and enough cache space to be safe (why does it need 550 MB to begin with?) and give back another half gig of storage that I paid so much to have.
I have three issues with this, one being that I can find almost no information on this topic directly mentioning the NExus 4, and any relatable information from other devices talking about device specific toolkits to do the job.
The only thread I found on XDA about this is below, and it only gave me a vague "this is not possible"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2248400
The second issue is I do not recall the command switches/flags that go with the fdisk command, only that I had to use some things to set file permissions or remount the partition or some such (I know, i'm a noob, forgive me).
Lastly, I am rather confused by the multiple partitions of /data and /storage/emulated all showing a partition size of 13231.8 MB. Obviously they are all the same physical space, but I am afraid to mess with the partitions and break what I assume are a ton of symlinks that trick apps into believing there is an external SD card in play. Can any of you shed some light on this for me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nexus4 doesn´t have a fix size for partitions, you can use the whole memory for everything... no need to re-partition anything
75markus said:
nexus4 doesn´t have a fix size for partitions, you can use the whole memory for everything... no need to re-partition anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if you are misunderstanding or not reading my whole post, or if I am not understanding you or the situation I am posting about, so please don't take offense to this reply.
It appears to me that the /system partition is reserving 827 MB space for the ROM, and CM10.1 is only using 400 MB of it
It also appears that 552 MB is reserved for the /cache partition, and only 70 MB is being currently used.
This is ~900 MB of storage space that is reserved and unused. I would like to know if it is possible to reallocate ~500-600 MB of this back into the /data partition for user space.
Please explain to me how this space is part of the whole memory that can be used for anything.
After posting I have thought some more about it and decided to NOT mess with the partition sizes, mainly because I do not know what effect it would have if I were to flash another ROM in the future, which is almost a given when Key Lime Pie is released. However I would still like to understand what I have asked about in case I do want to do this in the future, and also just for the sake of expanding my knowledge.
I like this. The only "issue" is that if more space were ever to be reallocated to /system or /cache, it'd require wiping /data obviously. Small price to pay. 500MB isn't too small a chunk for 8GB users.
75markus said:
nexus4 doesn´t have a fix size for partitions, you can use the whole memory for everything... no need to re-partition anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it does. System data cache and boot, plus like 30 other ones, same as any other phone with no micro SD card
Sent from my Nexus 7 @1.60 GHz on Stock 4.2.2
I3ig Al said:
I'm not sure if you are misunderstanding or not reading my whole post, or if I am not understanding you or the situation I am posting about, so please don't take offense to this reply.
It appears to me that the /system partition is reserving 827 MB space for the ROM, and CM10.1 is only using 400 MB of it
It also appears that 552 MB is reserved for the /cache partition, and only 70 MB is being currently used.
This is ~900 MB of storage space that is reserved and unused. I would like to know if it is possible to reallocate ~500-600 MB of this back into the /data partition for user space.
Please explain to me how this space is part of the whole memory that can be used for anything.
After posting I have thought some more about it and decided to NOT mess with the partition sizes, mainly because I do not know what effect it would have if I were to flash another ROM in the future, which is almost a given when Key Lime Pie is released. However I would still like to understand what I have asked about in case I do want to do this in the future, and also just for the sake of expanding my knowledge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think N4 uses FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) file system
noobdeagle said:
isnt this what they were saying was the reason for no SD card and use of MTP ?; basically if i recall correctly the nexus devices do not truly assign partitions instead there is a storage 'pool' that anything can use dynamically.
so i guess there is no partitions its just all 1 volume.
source: http://www.androidcentral.com/why-nexus-devices-have-no-sd-card
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Click to collapse
That is for the sdcard.
The other partitions such as /system still have fixed amounts of space allocated
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

Get use out of the 2gb wasted /system space when using a custom ROM

Hello xda,
When you install a (lightweight) custom rom on a s4, you will easily have about 2gb of the /system partition unused (+plus a few gb more in some other partitions). It sums up to about 4.5gb (!) of unused space.
Changing the partition sizes using a modified pit file is impossible.
Converting user apps to system apps seems useless as updates are installed on the internal storage.
Can something be done using foldermount? (moving cache to one of those unused system partitions?)
What do you think is the best way to get use out of this wasted space?
Thank you in advance,
Pretty much the only thing you can do with that extra space is to flash another ROM on it and then you can dual boot any 2 ROMs.
You can have a TouchWiz ROM and a LineageOS ROM, or any other combination of 2 ROMs.
This is pretty much the only thing you can do. Even if you somehow move apps to /system, their data will still be written on the /data partition.
Also, /system is read-only by default.
nxss4 said:
What do you think is the best way to get use out of this wasted space?
Thank you in advance,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash a bigger Gapps package. The Google apps will be installed on the system partition. Don't fill it completely, though.
Thank you for the replies guys! Dual booting is a good way to fill up space, indeed. But I'm really satisfied with RR 7.1.1. Maybe dualboating touchwiz for the camera is an idea, I will see!
Salut, thanks but I does it have any benefits? As updates will be installed on the internal storage anyway.
nxss4 said:
Salut, thanks but I does it have any benefits? As updates will be installed on the internal storage anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's no reason to fill your phone up with a bunch of useless apps. Install the package that fits your needs most.
As you can convert user apps to system apps you can integrate updates to system partition too.
tset351 said:
As you can convert user apps to system apps you can integrate updates to system partition too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's interesting, is there an automated way to do that? I did some research before starting this thread but couldn't find anything?
I like my phone to 'just work' (not like iphones) when I am busy
nxss4 said:
That's interesting, is there an automated way to do that? I did some research before starting this thread but couldn't find anything?
I like my phone to 'just work' (not like iphones) when I am busy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Automated? Well, it's not an iPhone
With link2sd you can migrate apps and updates into system partition.
Good luck
tset351 said:
Automated? Well, it's not an iPhone
With link2sd you can migrate apps and updates into system partition.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh well, I'm going to look into that, I use apps2sd atm for foldermount, they don't have this option. I'm gonna try out link to sd, thanks!
UPDATE: It works flawlessly, thanks !
Just no automatic applying updates to system apps, but i guess I can live with that

Finding available internal memory

Hi all, just seeing if anyone can tell me why the storage screen says I only have 1.5gb of free memory when DiskUsage says I should have a lot more?
I have rooted my phone and using Xpower rom.
Pics attached. Thanks everyone.
Curiously, I ran into the same problem yesterday after a session of flashing new firmware and restoring backup of my phone. It had never occurred before.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/z5-compact/help/z5c-reporting-incorrect-storage-size-t3564059
Someone in this thread said the problem went away after a few reboots. I've rebooted about 3 times now, still shows 16GB available instead of 32GB.
I'll probably do some more flashing/restoring later on to see if that fixes anything.
You're showing pictures of different mounting points.
/internal shown in second picture is it's own virtual partition
/system shown in last picture is also it's own partition and has its own free space
The free space shown in android storage will only display the free space on the virtual data/internal storage so it looks perfectly fine to me.
Also external sdcard won't add to virtual internal data storage.
pitrus- said:
You're showing pictures of different mounting points.
/internal shown in second picture is it's own virtual partition
/system shown in last picture is also it's own partition and has its own free space
The free space shown in android storage will only display the free space on the virtual data/internal storage so it looks perfectly fine to me.
Also external sdcard won't add to virtual internal data storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh ok. Thanks for the reply. My total internal storage is meant to be 16gb. This is why I thought the two screenshots formed (most of) this 16gb.
So based on your information, where has the rest of my internal memory gone? The first DiskUsage screenshot says I have 8.24gb in total storage. Is the rest not usable because it's a private system partition?
Also I've attached another screenshot. Is it normal for the internal system to use up 7.76gb?
About 8GB for a Sony Android system ROM sounds about right, lots of bloatware and included apps. On a 16GB Sony phone, half is available for photos, music and apps/apps data.
That's why you should never buy a phone with only 16GB in 2016/2017. My Oneplus 3t with 128GB is a hair saver. ?
pitrus- said:
You're showing pictures of different mounting points.
/internal shown in second picture is it's own virtual partition
/system shown in last picture is also it's own partition and has its own free space
The free space shown in android storage will only display the free space on the virtual data/internal storage so it looks perfectly fine to me.
Also external sdcard won't add to virtual internal data storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pitrus- said:
About 8GB for a Sony Android system ROM sounds about right, lots of bloatware and included apps. On a 16GB Sony phone, half is available for photos, music and apps/apps data.
That's why you should never buy a phone with only 16GB in 2016/2017. My Oneplus 3t with 128GB is a hair saver.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ack. Ok, I'll try remove bloatware then (although I thought Xpower did already).
Yeah I broke my beloved z1c camera and thought z5c would be a nice replacement... Really wanted a small phone.
kickling said:
Ack. Ok, I'll try remove bloatware then (although I thought Xpower did already).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uninstalling uninstallable bloatware will reclaim a few MB of space, but removing preloaded system bloatware won't help much in freeing up usable space. The system partition is a fixed size, generally inaccessible, and any unused space in there isn't counted towards total available free space.
BTW, I thought you were asking about the 16GB total space in the first snapshot in your original post. The Z5C has 32GB internal storage space, not 16GB. Just thought you should know.
mhaha said:
Uninstalling uninstallable bloatware will reclaim a few MB of space, but removing preloaded system bloatware won't help much in freeing up usable space. The system partition is a fixed size, generally inaccessible, and any unused space in there isn't counted towards total available free space.
BTW, I thought you were asking about the 16GB total space in the first snapshot in your original post. The Z5C has 32GB internal storage space, not 16GB. Just thought you should know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.... Say what?! I'm supposed to have 32gb? Why does my storage screen say I've only got 16gb? 16gb hidden system?
kickling said:
.... Say what?! I'm supposed to have 32gb? Why does my storage screen say I've only got 16gb? 16gb hidden system?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that's what I was trying to say in my original reply up there. I assumed you were confused about the anomaly in total internal storage, something that I recently experienced and was also reported by some other folks.
I've found a supposed solution after a bit of Googling, but I'm not sure if it's the right answer. I plan to test it out later on.
But yes, you're supposed to have 32GB total internal storage, inclusive of all partitions hidden or otherwise. After deducting the OS and stuff, there should be 21~22GB of usable free space left.
mhaha said:
Well, that's what I was trying to say in my original reply up there. I assumed you were confused about the anomaly in total internal storage, something that I recently experienced and was also reported by some other folks.
I've found a supposed solution after a bit of Googling, but I'm not sure if it's the right answer. I plan to test it out later on.
But yes, you're supposed to have 32GB total internal storage, inclusive of all partitions hidden or otherwise. After deducting the OS and stuff, there should be 21~22GB of usable free space left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well then. I feel dumb!
Coming from the z1c I guess I've gotten used to having 16gb internal memory.
mhaha said:
Well, that's what I was trying to say in my original reply up there. I assumed you were confused about the anomaly in total internal storage, something that I recently experienced and was also reported by some other folks.
I've found a supposed solution after a bit of Googling, but I'm not sure if it's the right answer. I plan to test it out later on.
But yes, you're supposed to have 32GB total internal storage, inclusive of all partitions hidden or otherwise. After deducting the OS and stuff, there should be 21~22GB of usable free space left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
..... I'm reading that you either need to reflash firmware, or if you're lucky repair the system partition in Twrp.
TBA...
kickling said:
..... I'm reading that you either need to reflash firmware, or if you're lucky repair the system partition in Twrp.
TBA...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I can confirm a complete fresh flash of stock firmware restores the total space to 32GB. I didn't touch the system partition, so I'm not sure whether a repair of system in TWRP would do anything, and there's no means for me to test it now.
Hopefully, a restore of my nandroid backup will preserve the correct total storage space.
EDIT: Yup, restore successful and total space is 32GB. FWIW, the "solution" I mentioned earlier was a discussion for a Nexus device, and it said it's necessary to restore stock recovery first. Not sure the exact cause of problem or actual solution to fiz the problem, but anyway reflash worked for me.
mhaha said:
Yes, I can confirm a complete fresh flash of stock firmware restores the total space to 32GB. I didn't touch the system partition, so I'm not sure whether a repair of system in TWRP would do anything, and there's no means for me to test it now.
Hopefully, a restore of my nandroid backup will preserve the correct total storage space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Twrp system repair did not fix it.
Time to flash....
If you have twrp in boot, this problem happens.
The device ends up making the system read only, and then gives you the left over /data
Then when a function calls ro.hardware, its inaccessible.
You won't be able to fix it if you don't have TWRP in the recovery partition. When you do a restore, you'll get put in to a boot loop, if anything other than the data partition is selected
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3564059

Cache Partition stuck @ 60.5mb used

Why? It's been stuck at 60.5mb used and 1.2GB free according to Diskinfo forever now. Ever since I restored Madvane's unrooted B180 backup & then flashed root with Magisk.
Why does it bother me? Because I have no idea what I'm talking about and I feel like maybe Cache is storing in the Data Partition where I install my apps...? Is it?
Also with 1.2GB free in the Cache parition & 1.2GB free in the System Partition, can I just partition those and make the Data partition bigger for more available Internal Storage for apps and stuff? I mean I have external storage as default location but so many files still get installed on internal and I'd like to expand that if I could alter these partitions.
Anybody done that before or can answer my questions? Thanks! Images attached
Anyone ?
I have not read of anyone here repartitioning internal storage. I don't think it's as simple as repartitioning a PC hard drive with a GUI tool.
Do you have any tools in mind to do this repartitioning? I think it would be a highly risky operation, so be sure to make full backups and note all the original settings of existing partitions before repartitioning.
You can Google threads on people repartitioning internal storage for other phones, but note the ones who ran into problems and bricked their phones.
I wouldn't mess with the partition sizes, personally.. in theory it works, but it can trigger some arcane safeguards added by oems.
Try wiping the cache partition in twrp..? Could have gotten bugged, which would throw an error and require reformatting
Is there any indication of a problem with the cache partition?
It's biggest usage would be to download an OTA file, so unless that's happening, I would expect cache partition to remain remain mostly empty as OP reported. Probably what's in there is TWRP or stock recovery logs - you can confirm with a root file manager.
Wiping the cache partition as suggested won't harm anything and it would be interesting to know what it's reported usage is after wipe and reboot.
divineBliss said:
Is there any indication of a problem with the cache partition?
It's biggest usage would be to download an OTA file, so unless that's happening, I would expect cache partition to remain remain mostly empty as OP reported. Probably what's in there is TWRP or stock recovery logs - you can confirm with a root file manager.
Wiping the cache partition as suggested won't harm anything and it would be interesting to know what it's reported usage is after wipe and reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess that was my question too. If there was any idication of an issue here. Seeing that free space I'd like to have it though.
On another note. There's no indication of anything being wrong with my Data partition but I formatted it to ext4 back when I bricked my phone in a hope it would fix something. But it seems fine. IDK what they default partition type was.
My data partition is ext4, which I believe is the stock default type.
divineBliss said:
My data partition is ext4, which I believe is the stock default type.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man you've been allot of help. Have you tried L-Speed? I'm thinking about trying it. I do have Kernel Auditiur installed. Don't use it.
Nothing is broke but thought about trying L-Speed.
Never heard of it. If you try it, let us know what you think.
WifiGhost said:
Thanks man you've been allot of help. Have you tried L-Speed? I'm thinking about trying it. I do have Kernel Auditiur installed. Don't use it.
Nothing is broke but thought about trying L-Speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
divineBliss said:
Never heard of it. If you try it, let us know what you think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried it seems like a nice and easy way to tweak performance or battery.
I prefer kernel adiuator myself.. L Speed has too many generic settings which do next to nothing for actual performance, reminiscent of the many garbage tweak programs that have been out there for years. K.A. allowed for better control of the cpu governor settings, which allowed me to negate some of the impact of emui's 'battery optimization'. A little bit of entropy tweaking on top of that, and I no longer experience nearly the amount of choppiness

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