What is the File structure of an SD card?

[Jon12345]

File structure with SD card

I was running low on my 16GB S5 and so bought a 64GB SD card. I installed it fine.

What I want to understand is how the files are structured. On a PC its C drive, D drive for DVD etc. With an SD card, is it considered just an extra folder or something different? Should I rename it?

Are they slower than the phones memory and so I should only put certain stuff on there?

Thanks,

Jon

 

[stlfrosti]

Re: File structure with SD card

Well, on my phone the main phone storage is called SDCard0 which is confusing.

I took mine out and don't use one as of now but it should be labeled extSDcard. Good luck getting APS to backup to it... most mine went to some internal folder named 'emulated' and I never could get them to find the real external SDCard.

 

[Jon12345]

Re: File structure with SD card

No wonder I've been confused! What is APS backup?

 

[AZgl1500]

Re: File structure with SD card

1st, your question. APS is an app or apps that can perform backup storage of a device to any of several choices. The SD card prior to 4.4.4, the cloud (web hosts), your PC via the USB cable or WiFi transfer, and horror of horrors, internally to the device itself under a folder. This last option just defies the meaning of "backup", as it stores all of your backed up data to the phone itself..... and when that is broken, so is the backup.


see this link for a lot of info on the subject:
https://www.google.com/search?q=aps...-US:official&channel=sb&q=apps+backup&spell=1



4.4.4 restricts full access to the SD card for "security reasons"

An app can create a directory/folder (name semantics) and can write/read to it all day long.

But, a file manager cannot just up and create a folder and then move stuff from any other folder to that folder. Aggravating.

Backup programs have been almost completely nullified. I am forced to do my Nova backups via the Share option. I send all of my backups to my email account and then I store from there to my PC.

I have been reticent to root my phone, in fact I have never rooted a phone. Never saw a truly good need to do it.
But, this mess with 4.4.4 and now with lolliFlop coming up is making me rethink all of that.

Why have a huge storage space available if I can't use it to its' fullest extent?
The SD card is the obvious place to save backups of your complete phone's image, and yet it is denied to us.

 

[AZgl1500]

Re: File structure with SD card

I just did a bit of reading on that link I left you and noticed a review called Tom's Guide.
Super Backup (Free / $1.99)

One of the backup apps that he recommended will backup all of your apps, contact lists, etc... to the SD card.

It is called Super Backup. https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...id=com.idea.backup.smscontacts&token=U5WQvWqn

I am not enthralled with their implementation but it does work. But you have to play with the thing a long time to figure it out.
ie, when you first hit Backup, you are presented with a list of every app on your phone and a checkbox for each. Oh goodie, now you have to click on each one of those to make them backup. (or so I thought, and actually did the first time)

At the bottom of the screen though is a greyed out label "Backup" and to the right of that is a checkbox also greyed out. BUT, that box is active.
1st click NADA
2nd click NADA
3rd click NADA
4th click oops, one app is shown to backup
5th click wow! all of them are now shown ready to backup.

This to me, is purposely deceitful for whatever reason the Dev chose. but, the app will indeed do a 100% backup of a Non-Rooted phone's apps and data, AND it will actually store that backup to the SD card. You must though, make damn sure in Settings that the extSDcard is made the default storage device. It is not by default.

I have just added this to my list of Tools on my phone.

see, your question resulted in something useful. It made me actually go out and find something useful for me to use.

there are a lot of backup apps out there, and all have their proponeents declaring them to be the best. Helium to me is so arcane that I refuse to use it. Titanium is useless because you have to be rooted to use that one. And there are more, Tom tells you about 10 of the more common "good backup apps".

Chose your own poison, but for now, I am content with Super Backup


They missed the boat though IMO because it does not have an option to do a "Complete and Full" backup in one stroke.... you have to backup each function of the phone separately. Good reasons for this, but IMO, it needs that option.

 

[AZgl1500]

Re: File structure with SD card

Now, where did all of those backed files go to?

Right here according to the screenshot:

/storage/extSDcard/Android/Data/com.idea.backup.smscontacts/files/SmsContactsBackup/bookmarks

that is just for the bookmarks backup I just made. That is a very confusing directory list name.

and when I opened up ES explorer file manager and started down that path, I made it to the sub-directory /files/
and that is where it all came to a stop. That folder is empty.

but but but, a screenshot of View Backups claims otherwise and when I clicked on the filename for Bookmarks, it actually shows me a couple of bookmarks. I don't bookmark much on my phone....

See the screenshots

 

[AZgl1500]

Re: File structure with SD card

Okay, I'm stubborn,
I hooked the phone up to my Win7 PC and opened up File Explorer and started down that path.

And indeed, that is a valid file path-name, and I followed it all the way down to where the .apk files for each application is backed up to.

I have included a couple of DeskShots to show the structure.... It will not include all of the .apk files because there are 119 of them on my phone at present.

So, what I have done is prove to myself, and maybe to you, that Super Backup does indeed perform as it claims on a Non-Rooted phone within the limitations of what 4.4.4 will do.

ie, it cannot backup the system OS files and the structure of the phone.
for that, we need to rely on Kies 3.0
for me, I have to also use Nova Prime's homepages backup feature,
for some other folks, they will use Helium as an adjunct to backing up their phone.

The hell of the mess is, there just simply at present is no way to get a total backup image of an Android phone in "one fell swoop" in the manner that I am accustomed to doing with my DeskTop PCs and my Laptop PCs.

I am, as of right now, going thru the motions of having installed a brand new hard drive in my wife's Dell laptop. The old hard drive has 5,000 plus disk errors and it was so slow, as to be totally unusable. so, I bought a new hard drive. I need to finish that up , and then start up Maxium Reflect to overwrite the new hard drive with an image of the old hard drive made a year ago when it all worked correctly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of MicroSloth updates that need to be done to that image. But, when the new imaged hard drive is finally finished up, I will again, make a new image of that which will be MicroSloth current as of today.

 

[Jon12345]

Re: File structure with SD card

Wow, what a fantastic reply! Sorry about the slow reply. I've been off work recently.