Question about devices with both internal and SD card memory

[douglerner]

A friend here has a Casio G'zOne phone running Android 2.3. It has, I think, 1 GB of internal RAM, and he has an 8 GB microSD card. He got a warning that his internal memory was getting full so he couldn't receive more mail, so used the feature in his phone to move a folder with a lot of email (like 700 emails) from internal memory to the SD card. But it actually did a copy rather than a move.

How do these things usually work? If the mail is now deleted from the internal memory is it locatable on the external memory? Does it "just depend on the mail app"?

I have a Nexus 7, and it doesn't have external memory, so I have never had to deal with that before.

Thanks,

doug

 

[B. Diddy]

I wonder if the 1GB is RAM or internal storage ROM. There's a difference between system RAM (where active apps are held in memory) and internal storage ROM (where app files are stored, and where the user can store files as well). Older phones like your friend's are more likely to have <1 GB of RAM, so I'm guessing that 1 GB is actually his internal storage ROM.

Here's where it gets more confusing. Older phones usually partitioned their total onboard storage memory into 2 areas--App Storage and Internal Storage (sometimes referred to as Phone Storage or Internal SD). App Storage ranges anywhere from 256 MB to 3 GB, depending on the phone, and is where app files are installed and where many apps also store data. Internal Storage can be used by the apps or by the user to store data, media files, etc.

If App Storage starts to fill up too much, that's when you'll get a low memory warning. This can happen if you try to install too many apps, or if app data builds up (like, for example, text messages, especially those with photos or videos in them). Solutions include:
1. Deleting all text messages periodically.
2. Clearing app caches (which store temporary data) periodically using an app like App Cache Cleaner.
3. Uninstall any apps that you really don't use.
4. Move apps to internal storage. What this does is move a portion of the app's program files to Internal Storage, but it can't move the entire app there, since key parts need to remain behind in App Storage to function correctly. This, by the way, is sometimes called "moving to SD," which is very confusing, because it refers to the Internal SD, aka Internal Storage, not the external SD. Moving apps to the external SD is mostly not supported with most devices with Ice Cream Sandwich and above, unless you root them. Since your friend has a Gingerbread phone, it might be possible--search Google Play for "app2SD."

A further problem with older phones is that they don't come with much Internal Storage, so that fills up quickly as well, and so you can't move a whole lot of apps there. For a phone that's advertised as having 4 GB of onboard memory, around 2GB might be taken up by the OS (for older Android versions--more for newer ones), while an addition 1 GB or so might be taken up by App Storage, leaving only another 1 GB for Internal Storage. Adding an external microSD doesn't do a whole lot for this problem, because you can't use it to install apps. MicroSDs are good for local storage of media (like music, videos, etc.) and for some apps (like cameras) to save files on.

Your friend might have a combination of problems, with both App Storage and Internal Storage filling up. I'm not sure if the email app will be able to find those emails if they were copied over to the external SD--it might depend on the app. I would bet that the stock email app won't be able to use the external SD, but a 3rd party app might. You might want to ask your friend why he needs to have so many emails saved to the phone. Why not just keep them in a folder in the cloud of whatever email service he uses?

 

[douglerner]

Interesting and informative. I'm not sure what I can do to help him though. I was just looking at his phone and it looks like the internal storage is really just 500 MB. I deleted Facebook, which he doesn't use, and which was talking up 39 MB, and he can now send and receive email again. But I don't know what much else to delete. Most of the apps seem to not take up that much storage. And his email is also only taking up about 40 MB of storage. I don't know what all can be copied over to SD and run from there. Like can Dropbox be run entirely from the SD card?

doug

 

[B. Diddy]

There's probably not much you can do to help. This is the problem with lower-end phones and a pitfall with Android in general, since most people think they can expand their memory simply by plugging a 32 GB microSD card in. If he rooted the phone, he could uninstall bloatware. But if he can't or doesn't want to, then the best you can do is to keep deleting text and email before they build up, and clearing the app caches frequently. Maybe it's time for a new phone!

 

[douglerner]

He was happy because he just reached the end of the two year payoff on the phone and his monthly bill was going to drop by about $30/month going forward. But you may be right. I didn't realize that was a problem with Android in general. Is that also true with my Nexus 7 with the build-in 32 GB of storage? Is there a limit as to what kinds of things can be stored?

The email thing is a conundrum. Here is Japan he has an address with his carrier: xxx@ezweb.ne.jp. This goes way back before smartphones. Texting was never popular in Japan - you always got a real email address from your carrier. I'm sure he doesn't even do texting. Most people here don't. At least not the carrier-provided SMS feature, which is semi-hard to get to. Line and some of the new messaging apps are popular because they are cross-platform.

He might be better off with using ordinary Gmail, don't you think? Then he could have multi-gigabytes stored in the cloud. How does Gmail impact on his Android's internal memory?

Thanks,

doug

 

[douglerner]

Hah. I was just explaining this to him and he was saying, "Maybe I would be better off with an iPhone, like you have."

doug

 

[B. Diddy]

Newer devices like the Nexus 7 have what could be called unified storage--they don't have the breakdown between App Storage and Internal Storage. So you can use your 28 GB of storage (minus the 4 GB taken up by the OS) for apps or storage or whatever you want.

I think any web-based email would be fine for your friend. Gmail certainly is nice to use, but with a standard account, you have a total of 15 GB of storage throughout your entire Google account (which includes photo storage in Google+ and Google Drive storage as well). Most people don't need any more than that, but I think there are other web-based email accounts that can give you even more storage for free. If your friend were to use the Gmail Android app to access his email account, the temporary cache would increase with use, so at some point he might still get a low memory error--however, this can be solved by erasing the app's cache.

An iPhone is certainly a decent alternative for your friend, but is it more expensive than Android phones in Japan? The problem isn't so much with Android itself, but rather the limitations of low end Android phones, which is a by-product of having so much variety to choose from. If you friend got a good mid-range phone (no need for the latest and most earth-shatteringly powerful phone), I don't think he would have any problems.

 

[douglerner]

His email itself looked like it was only taking up about 40mb of space, so I'm not sure how much gmail would help, but it's worth the experiment. I think it is some newer apps he has gotten interested in, like box and Facebook, each which take up 30mb+ space just for the app. That eats into what appears to be only about 500mb internal space.

His phone was a good top level phone from Casio when he got it.

Here people don't pay cash for their iPhones. Instead they might make a small subsidized payment for two years. For the 16gb model is usually free. For my 32gb model it's about $5/month.

For different phones it's different. I think iPhones are a low cost alternative here.

Anyway, he's going to see what all can be switched to sd and also start thinking about what to get next.

Thanks. This has all been an eye opener for me!


Doug

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