Just curious about android devises not having a harddrive

[Nana Helen]

Hi to all

See if I've got this right so far:
Any computer system needs hardware to store the software (OS, programs/apps/games and any images, info etc that we have saved). This is the memory. It also needs hardware to store RAM (the memory used when any programs/apps are running).
We can also use extra attachable memory hardware, eg USB sticks, SD cards, external harddrives.

I know my phone & tablet both have "devise storage" as well as internal SD & they each have an external SD card slot.

So what I'm wondering is, what is the "devise storage"? I assume its hardware, but how does it work differently from a PC hard drive?

Also practicing my forum use

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[gunzkevin]

Hey!
Well if you follow computer technology you will have heard of a Solid State Drive, or SSD. These are replacing hard drives due to their speed and efficiency among other benefits.
A Hard Disk Drive or HDD consists of spinning disks where information is imprinted. This information has to be read by a sensor that is stationary. So in order to read a certain file, it requires the disk to spin and have those points pass under the reader.
SSD's on the other hand, are much like flash memory you would find in a flash drive. It has little "bins" where an electron is stored, marking a 1 or a 0 in binary code. This is measured rapidly and almost instantly. Instead of needing to move that point under a reader, the SSD knows through electromagnetic resistance if the "bin" is a 1 or a 0.
HDD's are affected by shock, causing the reader to skip and making it not read a certain point. A SSD is unaffected by shock due to no physical moving part. Because of the speed, energy efficiency, and packaging efficiency, this is the type of memory used in phones. It is hardwired (meaning not removable) into the motherboard where it takes place of the spinning HDD.

I hope this helps.

 

[B. Diddy]

A hard drive is fairly quickly becoming outdated, because it is much more fragile than solid state storage (like an SD card). Android devices have RAM, which is used to hold open apps, and therefore is in constant flux. They also have ROM, which isn't exactly "Read Only Memory" any more--it can be written and erased by the system. This is considered the device storage, where system files, app files, and data files are saved. Internal SD card is a misnomer--it isn't a removable SD card, but rather the section of the ROM that is intended for storage of data and media files, but typically not for installing apps.

I hope this guide can shed more light: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...roid-memory-how-deal-low-memory-warnings.html

Edit: gunzkevin was a little too fast for me! Great minds think alike.

 

[Nana Helen]

Gunzkevin
Thanks for that! Yes I'd heard of ssdrives, but had no idea & didn't need to know. And I'd heard of the binary code with the O's & 1's, but I thort that was old & outdated lol.
So is the ssd similar to what the Mac. computers use? I'd heard they can get to the data without the holdups coz they don't have to wade throo all the bits of info while the hard drive spins all over the place.
That was great!
Helen.

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[Nana Helen]

B. Diddy
Yes that makes more sense of some of the searching issues I've had, trying to understand how my phone works. I wish they wouldn't call it the SD, not only can it get confused with the external SD, but some explorer type apps call it other things too - just to confuse me more
Thankyou

And getting to wizz around the forums too lol

Helen

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Just read yr link & realised I'd got it confused again! Lol
I will save the link
So that's what bloatware means! Can we uninstall any of the preinstalled apps if the devise hasn't been rooted?

 

[garublador]

B. Diddy
Yes that makes more sense of some of the searching issues I've had, trying to understand how my phone works. I wish they wouldn't call it the SD, not only can it get confused with the external SD, but some explorer type apps call it other things too - just to confuse me more
Thankyou

It's because of the type of communication bus that's used with the storage on a phone. With a hard drive or a SSD in a computer a "SATA" type bus is used. It's a different way for the storage device to talk to the CPU. With a eMMC (that's the name for the internal storage chips used in phones) in a phone a "SDIO" bus is used, which is the same bus that's used for SD cards. So the CPU sees SDIO ports and communicates with them, which is why they're called "SD." It would be nice if Android would tell you the difference between an eMMC and a SD card, but the companies that add uSD card slots haven't put that in for whatever reason.

You should see how Windows CE names its storage devices. The internal storage is called "Device storage" and if you plug in a USB Flash drive it's called a "Hard disk."

 

[TeknoBug]

The downside to a SSD is that if it's corrupt or parts breaks then data is gone forever, if a physical HDD fails you can still retrieve (even deleted) data although expensive to do. CSI forensics made a press conference a few years ago protesting that SSD's would be a bad idea in enterprise-level storage, as well as the inability to get data off someone's computer from a crime scene (their scenario). We'll see how long physical HDD's sticks around, SSD's are dropping in price like a hot rock.

iPods uses a solid state storage right? My old Cowan A2 media player has a physical HDD in it, you can feel it vibrate while using it.

 

[kg4icg]

There are actually some SSD's out in the public that have USB port's on them too so you can actually use them as a external storage medium in which they get there power from the USB port if used that way.

 

[garublador]

iPods uses a solid state storage right? My old Cowan A2 media player has a physical HDD in it, you can feel it vibrate while using it.

The Classic iPod still uses a hard drive, IIRC.

 

[Nana Helen]

Garublador
That's funny - I think that would confuse me enuf that I'd be getting some advice from a forum before I touched it lol
That all sounds interesting. I think I'll be checking out those technical words/letters. I'm enjoying this learning curve & can't wait to show off my new high tech lingo when I get home tomorrow lol.
Helen

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[Nana Helen]

Kg4icg
Yes I think I've got one for the tablet but the USB is a small one, so I have to use the adapter lead to then plug into the PC or or external hard drive. But I haven't played with that yet
Helen

I just reread yr post. So u mean that the SSD, on those devices, can be used as a storage place for another device? Sort of like I use my phone as a WiFi for my tablet, when usually a phone would be picking up WiFi for itself.

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[Nana Helen]

@ teknobug
Lol that would be weird - what the?!

Re. Police not retrieving data for evidence:
But I know of 2 instances where the police could get to deleted files. One on a windows PC when the guy had deleted his internet history, another on an iPhone and some other phones where images had been deleted. They could even tell who had sent the images to anyone else and who they'd been sent to.

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[TeknoBug]

@ teknobug
Lol that would be weird - what the?!

Re. Police not retrieving data for evidence:
But I know of 2 instances where the police could get to deleted files. One on a windows PC when the guy had deleted his internet history, another on an iPhone and some other phones where images had been deleted. They could even tell who had sent the images to anyone else and who they'd been sent to.

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When the circuit board of the SSD gets damaged, it's not possible to retrieve data, and deleted data actually consumes "blocks" in the SSD meaning the free space can't be recovered when it starts to fill up, which is why there are "fine tune" features on modern SSD's to extend its life span. With a HDD it's still possible unless the person actually shreds the individual discs inside the HDD.

There are actually some SSD's out in the public that have USB port's on them too so you can actually use them as a external storage medium in which they get there power from the USB port if used that way.

Yeah I got a 40GB SSD in a 2.5" enclosure that runs right off USB, pretty handy for a compact HTPC or such.

 

[Nana Helen]

@ teknobug
I see what u mean now.

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[Chanlion]

Device storage is basically your "Hard Drive." Where apps are stored and such. SD cards are essentially expanding that storage. (PCs usually use discs for their storage but technologies going towards solid state drives. Which is essentially a whole bunch of usb sticks put together.
But don't count on Android adopting more external physical storage solutions. They want everything to be in the cloud now so SD expansions might dissapear from the Android system in the future.
The thing is, not everything can be stored on a external storage solution. Same as PC, most people don't put Windows on their USB. Most apps arn't allowed to be stored on the SD card like they used to.

The Nexus line is the "model Android" Google is trying to make Android follow.

Hope that helps with your general clarification of storage.

 

[Nana Helen]

Goodness, I'm glad I posted this question!

1. I need to make sure that anything important or precious is securely kept somewhere else (preferably 2 places).
2. I need to understand this cloud thing, and start learning to use it - before I HAVE to, which then becomes a stress.

Will we be able to use any storage, or only cloud? Ive got kies air (?) on my phone, but the guy in the shop where I bought it advised me not to go near it.

Thanks guys for all this precious info.
Maybe I should stick it in a cloud
Or a couple of different ones (maybe a storm cloud and a fluffy white one ).

Sorry, got a weird sense of humour

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[B. Diddy]

You have many many options for cloud storage, much of it free. There's Google Drive (of course), Dropbox, Box, and Skydrive, to name some of the most prominent. There is also cloud storage for specific items, like Flickr for photos (you get 1 TERAbyte of free storage--a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes!).

If you want to use the cloud with the closest integration with Android, the clear choice is Google Drive. Everyone gets 15 GB of free storage, and you can purchase more. You can start to learn how to use it here: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424384?hl=en

 

[garublador]

What I do is have all of my photos automatically backed up to Dropbox, but apparently it's just as easy to do in Google+ (which stores them on Drive). They didn't implement the 15GB and full sized photos in Google+ until after I had mine set up, which is why I'm using Dropbox. I also got a promotional deal through Samsung where I got 48GB free for 2 years on Dropbox. They even messed up and gave me an additional 48 for two more years last week when my tablet got upgraded to JB 4.2.2.

All my music is stored (and backed up) on a laptop. I keep all of it on my phone but I have it two other places as well.

All apps, contacts and calendar stuff is automatically synced with Google.

I use SMS Backup & Restore to back my texts up to Dropbox.

That just leaves app data. I use FolderSync to back it up to Dropbox, but it's just as easy to do on Drive (15GB free), Ubuntu One (5GB free) or a bunch of other services. I back up my Nova settings, FolderSync settings, Tasker profiles and data files that my Tasker profiles use.

It seems pretty daunting at first, but once you figure out what's going on (cloud services are just extra storage) it's pretty easy to wrap your head around how to get it all done.

 

[TeknoBug]

I could care less about cloud, only stuff I store online are photos on Dropbox and occasionally Photobucket. I don't like the idea of Office 365 being based on cloud, I work with sensitive documents so when I need to transfer them between computers I toss them on an encrypted flash stick, anyways that's a whole other subject.

Right now I have zero reason to even bother with cloud, but from what I'm seeing, even games will be executed from cloud one day and perhaps even installed applications/programs from the computer, ugh that's begging for some serious security issues.

 

[Nana Helen]

@ B.Diddy
I think I will do that. Ta

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