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Using the External sd card as main memory

PostPosted: May 26th, 2012, 10:03 pm
by KLRichards
Dont fall into the same trap as i did, and i think others have.

Yes you can add micro SD card, but they become EXTERNAL memory, which is next to useless. You can store media on them but not apps. So as far as i can see the claim you can EXPAND the memory is complete bollo**s.

As for the Extreme a very good under £200 tablet, but if the 16g Elite was out when i bought mine, or even if I knew it would be released so soon, I would have gone for that.

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 26th, 2012, 10:33 pm
by Jay
O, that's odd. I thought on android phones you could store apps on the memory card. Or is it because some of the 16gb memory would be classed as an sd card...I'm confused!

Thanks though for the advice. I may just take the risk and get an Elite and pray Suggsy's Rom works!

Using the External sd card as main memory

PostPosted: May 26th, 2012, 11:50 pm
by Trashcooky
Jay wrote:O, that's odd. I thought on android phones you could store apps on the memory card. Or is it because some of the 16gb memory would be classed as an sd card...I'm confused!

Thanks though for the advice. I may just take the risk and get an Elite and pray Suggsy's Rom works!


No your thinking is not wrong but we are not talking about phones we are talking about Chinese box tablets that in the case of the Exteme and the Elite can't make phone calls. These Allwinner tablets have varying sized memory chips built inside which itself is then divided into varoius areas (like partitions on your windows PC) after installing things like the OS, bootloader and bits and bobs only a certain amount of memory is left available for your personal use. This is why some people have been dissapointed to find (as an example) when they buy an 8 Gig tab that when they come to install apps they don't actually have 8 Gig free because the system files and OS etc are using a great chunk of it.

Also as KLRichards correctly says, the inference that you can increase useable memory from the base amount up to 32 Gig by adding an SD card is completely erronious. It just like you putting an SD card in your PC. When you do it doesn't get added to your system memory it purely exists as an external mass storage device. This is exactly how it works on your tablet. The big difference between your PC and tablet is that some of the tablet memory (nand) is assigned as an SD card and is mounted through the operating system, so even if you don't put an external card in the tablet it will still report "mounted SD card" during a boot up.When you put an external SD card in the tablet it is seen as a completely seperate external SD card not an extension to the internal one. Nonetheless this is a great way to store movies and music which the tablet can then access through a suitable app.

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 27th, 2012, 10:09 am
by MrLazy
KLRichards wrote:Dont fall into the same trap as i did, and i think others have.

Yes you can add micro SD card, but they become EXTERNAL memory, which is next to useless. You can store media on them but not apps. So as far as i can see the claim you can EXPAND the memory is complete bollo**s.

As for the Extreme a very good under £200 tablet, but if the 16g Elite was out when i bought mine, or even if I knew it would be released so soon, I would have gone for that.


Wish I'd known this before as well. Fell into the trap because I thought as my Galaxy SII with ICS could do it so would this, bought a 32gb card and it's virtually unused. Would have waited for a 16gb version if I'd known.

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 27th, 2012, 11:08 am
by Jay
Judging from the response of some of the extreme users I think I will go ahead and buy the Elite version, purely for the convenience of having more space for apps etc.

I was however wondering how g ood Scan.co.uk are with their warranty? I know many of the users here have returned their extreme tablets to to ebuyer due to faults and will assume there is a chance of there being a fault on the Elite version. I just dont want to find out Scan are terrible for returns... :|

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 28th, 2012, 3:12 pm
by Tattyhead64
KLRichards wrote:Dont fall into the same trap as i did, and i think others have.

Yes you can add micro SD card, but they become EXTERNAL memory, which is next to useless. You can store media on them but not apps. So as far as i can see the claim you can EXPAND the memory is complete bollo**s.

As for the Extreme a very good under £200 tablet, but if the 16g Elite was out when i bought mine, or even if I knew it would be released so soon, I would have gone for that.



Hi Kevin, I store quite a few apps on my sd card, not sure what you mean?

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 28th, 2012, 6:03 pm
by KLRichards
Tattyhead64 wrote:
KLRichards wrote:Dont fall into the same trap as i did, and i think others have.

Yes you can add micro SD card, but they become EXTERNAL memory, which is next to useless. You can store media on them but not apps. So as far as i can see the claim you can EXPAND the memory is complete bollo**s.

As for the Extreme a very good under £200 tablet, but if the 16g Elite was out when i bought mine, or even if I knew it would be released so soon, I would have gone for that.



Hi Kevin, I store quite a few apps on my sd card, not sure what you mean?



You think you store apps on the SD card, well on the Extreme, you arent, you cant....

What you are actually doing is storing them on the INTERNAL SD Card, which is just a pationed part of the 8Gb internal memory (Just under 6 Gb in fact). So put a 32 Gb micro SD card in the External slot, you wont be able to move any Apps to it. You can put external media on it, such as video, music, photos, but you cant install Apps.

Look at the Storage options under the Sys Manager, it says you have 2 SD Cards, 1 INTERNAL which will have apps on it (if you moved to SD Card) and the other is EXTERNAL SD Card (if mounted), which is probably nearly empty... Or in my case, full of Suggsys ZIP files and backups...

Sorry to break your bubble, but you are not, on the Extreme storing apps on the External SD card, which is why I say the claim that it can be expanded to 32Gb is total bollo**s.... Unless you have found a way round this limitation, in which case I'm all ears...

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 28th, 2012, 7:29 pm
by madmatt30
KLRichards wrote:
Tattyhead64 wrote:
KLRichards wrote:Dont fall into the same trap as i did, and i think others have.

Yes you can add micro SD card, but they become EXTERNAL memory, which is next to useless. You can store media on them but not apps. So as far as i can see the claim you can EXPAND the memory is complete bollo**s.

As for the Extreme a very good under £200 tablet, but if the 16g Elite was out when i bought mine, or even if I knew it would be released so soon, I would have gone for that.



Hi Kevin, I store quite a few apps on my sd card, not sure what you mean?



You think you store apps on the SD card, well on the Extreme, you arent, you cant....

What you are actually doing is storing them on the INTERNAL SD Card, which is just a pationed part of the 8Gb internal memory (Just under 6 Gb in fact). So put a 32 Gb micro SD card in the External slot, you wont be able to move any Apps to it. You can put external media on it, such as video, music, photos, but you cant install Apps.

Look at the Storage options under the Sys Manager, it says you have 2 SD Cards, 1 INTERNAL which will have apps on it (if you moved to SD Card) and the other is EXTERNAL SD Card (if mounted), which is probably nearly empty... Or in my case, full of Suggsys ZIP files and backups...

Sorry to break your bubble, but you are not, on the Extreme storing apps on the External SD card, which is why I say the claim that it can be expanded to 32Gb is total bollo**s.... Unless you have found a way round this limitation, in which case I'm all ears...


on my momo9 clone (which is still an allwinner a10 chipset same as the scroll) you can edit the /system/etc/vold.fstab file to change extsd & internal flash (sdcard) priotities ,this lets use use whatever size microsd card for installation of all apps instead of the internal flash - worked pretty flawlessly with a 32gb sandisk (28.8gb of useable space) - should be the same on the scroll (cant actually test as at the moment as per my other posts I have no root access at all)
there is a post on xda forums with full instructions

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 28th, 2012, 7:38 pm
by Piers
Do you have a link to the XDA post madmatt30?

Re: Scroll Elite pretty much the same as Extreme?

PostPosted: May 28th, 2012, 7:44 pm
by suggsy89