Fed up with low space any ideas?

[Guest pd555]

My Desire has a constant warning about low space on R9. Have removed some apps but no better off. Last night I reluctantly cleared data in Contacts as it said it was using 56mb (wtf). After doing this though I was worse off with only 12mb remaining from 14mb. What's going on?

I'm on R9 baked with A2SD+ and have moved all apps that allow to SD card already. This issue is seriously ruining what is a great phone for me.

All ideas gratefully accepted!

[Guest Asselberghs]

My Desire has a constant warning about low space on R9. Have removed some apps but no better off. Last night I reluctantly cleared data in Contacts as it said it was using 56mb (wtf). After doing this though I was worse off with only 12mb remaining from 14mb. What's going on?

I'm on R9 baked with A2SD+ and have moved all apps that allow to SD card already. This issue is seriously ruining what is a great phone for me.

All ideas gratefully accepted!

Your sure A2SD+ is working? and what do you mean you have moved them? it´s an automated process your not supposed to move stuff manually.

[Guest pd555]

Your sure A2SD+ is working? and what do you mean you have moved them? it´s an automated process your not supposed to move stuff manually.

I always have to go into manage applications and move to SD card. This has never happened automatically for me. I presume A2SD+ does work because a while back I was getting low space warnings on A2SD so flashed over the top with A2SD+ which freed a load of space. I thought that A2SD+ moved the dalvik cache only?

[Guest Asselberghs]

I always have to go into manage applications and move to SD card. This has never happened automatically for me. I presume A2SD+ does work because a while back I was getting low space warnings on A2SD so flashed over the top with A2SD+ which freed a load of space. I thought that A2SD+ moved the dalvik cache only?

There´s 3 types A2SD:

Froyo native A2SD:

This A2SD comes with Android 2.2 froyo, if you wish an app to reside on SD card you have to go into manage applications and "move to SD" manually for it to work. It´s been reported that it dosen´t work very well for some users.

A2SD(MoDaCo):

Moves your applications "transparently" to your SD card without you having to do anything. (other than partition an EXT3 partition on your SD card for apps to reside on) And thus freeing up space on your phone. your A2SD space is not visible to you watching the phone memory under settings but can be viewed with 3rd party apps from market, among others Titanium Backup.

A2SD+(MoDaCo):

Does the same as A2SD but in addiction it moves your Dalvik Cache onto your SD card. IIRC Dalvik cache is a cache used by the J2VM (Java2 Virtual Machine) that runs applications on Android since it´s a Java based system.

[Guest LeszekSwirski]

I always have to go into manage applications and move to SD card. This has never happened automatically for me. I presume A2SD+ does work because a while back I was getting low space warnings on A2SD so flashed over the top with A2SD+ which freed a load of space. I thought that A2SD+ moved the dalvik cache only?

You seem to be confusing Froyo's A2SD, which has to be done via "Manage Applications", and "normal" A2SD, which moves things onto the SD card automatically. The two are unrelated.

Edited November 28, 2010 by LeszekSwirski

[Guest bpivk]

I thought that A2SD+ moved the dalvik cache only?

No it moves apps and Dalvik. And that could be the reason you're running out of space. You shouldn't move apps to SD. Phone will install them to internal memory but they will reside on your SD card's EXT partition due to A2SD. By moving them manually you do more harm than good because the programs will crash if you mount the card or the card will be unmountable when you connect your phone to your PC.

I did that same mistake when I first installed A2SD and that ate through my internal memory. Now I'm left with 24mb of free space and 230+ apps and games.

Edited November 28, 2010 by bpivk

[Guest pd555]

There´s 3 types A2SD:

Froyo native A2SD:

This A2SD comes with Android 2.2 froyo, if you wish an app to reside on SD card you have to go into manage applications and "move to SD" manually for it to work. It´s been reported that it dosen´t work very well for some users.

A2SD(MoDaCo):

Moves your applications "transparently" to your SD card without you having to do anything. (other than partition an EXT3 partition on your SD card for apps to reside on) And thus freeing up space on your phone. your A2SD space is not visible to you watching the phone memory under settings but can be viewed with 3rd party apps from market, among others Titanium Backup.

A2SD+(MoDaCo):

Does the same as A2SD but in addiction it moves your Dalvik Cache onto your SD card. IIRC Dalvik cache is a cache used by the J2VM (Java2 Virtual Machine) that runs applications on Android since it´s a Java based system.

Well I baked a version with Modaco's A2SD+ and presumed it was working. I partitioned SD card with EXT3 too as far as I know. According to Quick System Info app A2SD storage is 457mb, Free 293mb and Internal Storage is 148mb with Free 13.95mb.

I have noticed that Contacts has gone back to 56mb although no longer showing at top when sorting by size (Twitter does now, 14mb). Is there an option somewhere that is storing too much data, I can't have more than 100 contacts. Help!

[Guest woti17]

Well I baked a version with Modaco's A2SD+ and presumed it was working. I partitioned SD card with EXT3 too as far as I know. According to Quick System Info app A2SD storage is 457mb, Free 293mb and Internal Storage is 148mb with Free 13.95mb.

I have noticed that Contacts has gone back to 56mb although no longer showing at top when sorting by size (Twitter does now, 14mb). Is there an option somewhere that is storing too much data, I can't have more than 100 contacts. Help!

you can change the mtd partition size if you have s-off, that would shrink your /system & /cache partition and give more space to /data

maybe you would have to shrink your rom to fit in system (delete unused system apps that you don't need ore move them to /data/app)

/dev/block/mtdblock3 174.5M 157.0M 17.5M 90% /system

/dev/block/mtdblock5 253.5M 127.6M 125.9M 50% /data

/dev/block/mtdblock4 253.5M 127.6M 125.9M 50% /cache

this is ie with with cache only 10MB but /cache mount-bind over /data in case more cache is needed

or you could look at this, which elimantes a2sd(+), and overlays a second fat32 partition on sdcard with /data, so you get much space there

(didn't try that btw as i don't run out of space)

forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=852219

[Guest qbus]

you can change the mtd partition size if you have s-off, that would shrink your /system & /cache partition and give more space to /data

maybe you would have to shrink your rom to fit in system (delete unused system apps that you don't need ore move them to /data/app)

/dev/block/mtdblock3 174.5M 157.0M 17.5M 90% /system

/dev/block/mtdblock5 253.5M 127.6M 125.9M 50% /data

/dev/block/mtdblock4 253.5M 127.6M 125.9M 50% /cache

this is ie with with cache only 10MB but /cache mount-bind over /data in case more cache is needed

or you could look at this, which elimantes a2sd(+), and overlays a second fat32 partition on sdcard with /data, so you get much space there

(didn't try that btw as i don't run out of space)

forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=852219

Moving whole /data to SD is final solution but you need very fast card for that (CLASS 10 preffered).

[Guest pd555]

All sounds very complicated, what's a simpler solution? We shouldn't have to do all this just to use our phones in normal operation.

I guess my next question is how come Contacts is using 56mb and how can I reduce this? Not sure where the options are for this. Can Contacts be moved to SD?

[Guest Czuka]

Check the amount of data which is taken by Mail program. In my case this was the issue - 60 Mb was eaten by old emails.

[Guest woti17]

All sounds very complicated, what's a simpler solution? We shouldn't have to do all this just to use our phones in normal operation.

I guess my next question is how come Contacts is using 56mb and how can I reduce this? Not sure where the options are for this. Can Contacts be moved to SD?

could be wrong but contacts-data should be in in /data/data (which is internal memory), maybe look there what makes up 56 MB

btw: most of internal storage is in /data/data (its the application data, not .apk's which are on sd with a2sd(+)), have a look in there what takes the space

cleaning of caches might also free up internal storage

might be useful if you are familiar with terminal

in /data/data

find -size +500k -print  # shows file with more than 500k (take M for MB, ie 1M = 1MB)

or

find -size +500k -exec ls -l {} \;

after a command

|more # shows only one page if there are too much results

ls -l # shows dir in long format, with size of files

du -sh nameofdirectory # shows summary od file size of nameofdirectory

[Guest woti17]

Moving whole /data to SD is final solution but you need very fast card for that (CLASS 10 preffered).

yeah, and hard to find a 16/32GB class 10 card (didn t see any > class 4) ;-)

and a little expensive to buy the overhead with a ext3 file on a fat32 partition

[Guest bcmobile]

a little expensive to buy the overhead with a ext3 file on a fat32 partition

Ahhh... ext3 on a fat32 partition? ;)

Not sure exactly what you're getting at but nonetheless, Kingston and Sandisk both make good class 10 cards which you can pick up for around US$50 plus shipping.... which kind of sucks since I paid AU$160 for the same card when I bought my Desire back in Apriil

http://www.digitalstar.com.au/detail.aspx?ID=44930

Edited December 6, 2010 by bcmobile

[Guest sibere]

Moving whole /data to SD is final solution but you need very fast card for that (CLASS 10 preffered).

Not really. I've got a class6 (gives me about 10 to 11Mb/s Write on big files) with DATA2SD and I have more I/Os than the NAND ;)

check this out : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=852219