Guest PaulOBrien Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 If you've been following the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge, you may have read that adoptable storage, a Marshmallow feature that lets you use the microSD card just like internal storage, is missing. The S7s do include a feature where you can move apps to SD card, but it's not quite the same. The good news? You can enable the feature using ADB and it seems to work great, including in hybrid ('mixed') mode. In order to set adoptable storage up, you will need a computer with working 'adb' and, of course, a microSD card in your phone, the faster the better (I personally use a 128GB EVO+ in my own device. Here's the process! 1. BACK UP THE DATA YOU HAVE ON YOUR MICROSD CARD. Your card will be formatted by this process, so make sure you have saved any pictures, videos etc. from your card to your PC before you start. 2. Decide how you want to split your card. You can either commit 100% of the card to internal storage, or split between internal storage and conventional SD. This option is useful if you like to unplug your card and put it in your PC. I would probably recommend committing the whole card. 3. Open your command window / terminal on your computer and type the 'adb shell' command (with your phone connected of course). You will need to enable USB debugging in developer settings (which in turn is displayed by tapping the build number of the device 5 times) in order to see the option. 4. Type 'sm list-disks' to list the disks available for adoption. It'll look something like below - take note of the disk ID (disk:179:160 in this example). 5. Partition the disk. For this we use the 'sm partition DISK TYPE RATIO' command. For example, to partition the disk above as fully adopted storage (aka private) I'd use the command 'sm partition disk:179:160 private'. If I wanted a 50/50 split between adopted and regular, I'd use the command 'sm partition disk:179:160 mixed 50'. Easy right? 6. This process will take a while, but when it's done, the Settings -> Additional Settings -> Storage view on your device should show the new Internal Storage. Note that, for some reason, the total space isn't reported correctly as you can see in this image, however everything seems to work OK. When you install apps, they will generally install automatically to the storage with the most space available, although you can manually move things around if you want to, perhaps for performance reasons (the real Internal storage will likely always be a bit faster). 7. If you want to see another view of how you are doing for space, you can use a third party tool such as FreeSpace or FreeSpace Plus. And that's it! Let us know how you get on, and enjoy your new, expanded S7! View full item Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest el_Charlie Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 So, "adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true" doesn't work? It works on the Nexus 5X/6P with an OTG drive. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PaulOBrien Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 21 minutes ago, el_Charlie said: So, "adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true" doesn't work? It works on the Nexus 5X/6P with an OTG drive. Cheers! No, that command basically makes normally unadoptable devices - like OTG - adoptable. Not quite the same thing. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest leedsnyc Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 Hi, I have a question about this. When I entered the command "sm list-disks" I got 179,0 as the disk. I then proceeded with the next command "sm partition disk:179,0 private" and then it came back to the blank shell command prompt. I've now got device storage 138 used out of 256 as attached and when I use FreeSpace Plus, I can't see the three types of disk - internal, FAT SD and Adopted SD. I get something totally different as per picture. Have I done it correctly? After partitioning FreeSpace Plus screenshot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PaulOBrien Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 In my freespace plus pic I hid and renamed manually, scroll down, they are there somewhere! Your pic looks fine. I mean, the total is messed up, but it all looks OK. Looks like there's 2 cards you can click and 'forget' in the list. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TK Bay Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 what is the process to reverse it and use another card ? is a simple removal of the SD ? or will it require a Shell Command ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PaulOBrien Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 12 hours ago, TK Bay said: what is the process to reverse it and use another card ? is a simple removal of the SD ? or will it require a Shell Command ? You can do the same command with 'public' or reformat the card from the storage UI. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brownstone1892 Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 Bit stuck here Paul, I get the following: 1|shell@hero2lte:/ $ sm list-disks disk:179,0 shell@hero2lte:/ $ sm partition disk:179,0 private Error: java.lang.IllegalStateException: java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException: Thread Binder_B gave up waiting for partitionPrivate after 180000ms Could someone please point out the source of my idiocy? Many thanks, BS... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest leedsnyc Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 13 hours ago, PaulOBrien said: In my freespace plus pic I hid and renamed manually, scroll down, they are there somewhere! Your pic looks fine. I mean, the total is messed up, but it all looks OK. Looks like there's 2 cards you can click and 'forget' in the list. P Thanks for the reply! I tried moving back the items I had on the SD card but then got a notification saying the storage was nearly full and was showing as red in the Smart Manager. Is there a way round this? I managed to remove the other two SD card not inserted by tapping on them and selecting remove. Also I went back to normal by clicking on the SD card and then there's an option to reformat which I did and it separated the SD card as it was before. I did this because of the notification about storage being full. Great find though and it does seem to work. Have you had any problems with storage after you've changed the SD to adopted storage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dycius Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 20 hours ago, PaulOBrien said: In my freespace plus pic I hid and renamed manually, scroll down, they are there somewhere! Your pic looks fine. I mean, the total is messed up, but it all looks OK. Looks like there's 2 cards you can click and 'forget' in the list. P I did some looking as I have the same thing where my disk is detected as 179,0. When I do this: shell@herolte:/ $ sm list-volumes all private mounted null public:179,1 unmounted 5361-D92D emulated mounted null privatemode unmounted null shell@herolte:/ $ The disk is 179,0 and the first volume is 179,1. However, when repartitioning with your command to use all of the disk: shell@herolte:/ $ sm partition disk:179,0 private shell@herolte:/ $ sm list-disks disk:179,0 shell@herolte:/ $ sm list-volumes all emulated:179,2 unmounted null private mounted null private:179,2 mounted efb2b0b4-a039-4a57-bc7a-4add70aa05e3 emulated mounted null privatemode unmounted null The partition index is changed to 2 instead of deleting 1 and making a new one. Could this be why the file manager displays free space incorrectly? I need to try this using a completely blank card by removing the first volume via gparted in linux. Unless you know a way on Linux to delete the volume of a SD card. -Dice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nukularpower Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 Had the same deal with 179,0. Now unable to install any apps as they seem to be trying to go to a volume that doesnt exist. Try at your own risk, at least until this is hashed out better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dycius Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 20 hours ago, PaulOBrien said: In my freespace plus pic I hid and renamed manually, scroll down, they are there somewhere! Your pic looks fine. I mean, the total is messed up, but it all looks OK. Looks like there's 2 cards you can click and 'forget' in the list. P I think I know the 127,0 issue. I think there is a difference between the Snapdragon vs Exynos versions of the phone. Mine is a UK model which has Exynos. There may be another needed trick to enable proper disk IDs or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PaulOBrien Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 Mine is UK too! P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jspring86 Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 I had a similar issue to one of the previous users. Free Space Plus doesn't really show my adopted storage at all in the list (I took a scrolling screenshot to show the entire list). However, in the Settings Storage menu it appears to be all there aside from the wrong total. Also, I ran into the issue of partition 179,1 becoming 179,2 and I have the Snapdragon variant. However, I haven't had any problems installing apps or any full messages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nukularpower Posted March 11, 2016 Report Share Posted March 11, 2016 If you did do this with a Snapdragon, you'll have a new option under: Settings > Storage > SD card > More. Migrate your data - this is where the moneyshot happens. Just wish I felt like I wasnt wasting time doing it, no doubt it will all need redone when a rom comes out with a more legit way to get this done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jspring86 Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 Yep, I realized after I posted this that could be the reason that FreeSpace Plus wasn't showing my SD card as internal. After I migrated stuff it looks much better here, although the total in system settings is still wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest VoxLuna Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 This is a great find, except people need to be aware of the downsides to SD cards, at least as a place for apps to reside. If I'm understanding your writeup correctly, this will probably install all future apps to SD by default And as you state, it will always be slower than the internal memory -- on my G4, it's something like 20MB/s on SD vs 50MB/s on internal, so a LOT slower. It's also going to stress your card if you have a lot of caching or other intense activity going on (load balancing or not). I have a rigorous backup system, but I don't need to tempt fate.... That being said, I DO want to have internal and external memory appear as a single drive, while keeping apps in /data/data instead of going to any /storage. This way, you can always find stuff, no matter where an app decides to store its files (camera apps, for example), as well as only having one filesystem you need to back up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lrosenman Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 Thank You! Makes me very much LESS PISSED. I bought a Samsung 128G UHS-1 card, and now can use it as I want. I owe you a drink if you are ever in Austin, TX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jspring86 Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 Surprisingly, in my use so far all my apps are still going to the true internal storage by default. When I Migrated data all my data is now on the SD card while the apps themselves go to internal, which is what you were describing to be ideal, and I agree. Who knows if that will continue but I've installed about 10 apps since adopting storage and all went to internal. Of course YMMV, but that's my experience so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JayKaFron Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 Do you know what the fastest SD card the S7 will support? I would like to use as fast a card as possible. While any pictures I find of the Mirco SD card is of the samsung evo + I am considering buying the SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro UHS-II ( Read 275MB/s Write 100MB/s). Would you know if the phone would be able to take full use of this card? Also thank you so much for the Adoptable storage method. I was one of the few devastated by the lack of support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lrosenman Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 The UHS-1 card I have from Samsung seems to be just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Joshua1 Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 The app Root Essentials on the Play Store can change adoptable storage for rooted and unrooted phones. For the latter option you find the procedure under the info button on the adoptable storage tab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MaStErKrAzE Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 55 minutes ago, Joshua1 said: The app Root Essentials on the Play Store can change adoptable storage for rooted and unrooted phones. For the latter option you find the procedure under the info button on the adoptable storage tab. Hey thanks for the heads up about Root Essentials do you happen to know if I use the app to turn on adoptable storage if I can use the app to turn it back off I would like to turn on adoptable storage but would like to know i can go back to normal if I don't like it or notice speed issue.. thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeyyMoo Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 Hey thanks man... it works a treat. I almost cancelled my preorder when I found out they disabled the adoptable storage feature.... moving things to the SD card is a real unnecessary hassle. I have 200GB sd card in now and the phone shows like 256 available space.... its wrong but when i plug it into the laptop the space on the phone shows correct. Top Bananas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Joshua1 Posted March 12, 2016 Report Share Posted March 12, 2016 1 hour ago, MaStErKrAzE said: Hey thanks for the heads up about Root Essentials do you happen to know if I use the app to turn on adoptable storage if I can use the app to turn it back off I would like to turn on adoptable storage but would like to know i can go back to normal if I don't like it or notice speed issue.. thanks again! If I am right you can just format your SD card in settings > storage and it should return to normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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