Listening to its user base, Samsung has brought back the MicroSD card storage with the latest Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. While many Android users are pleased with this comeback, Samsung has removed quite a favorite Marshmallow feature - adoptable storage.
Adoptable storage is a Marshmallow feature that gives your smartphone the ability to consider expandable storage as a partition of its internal storage. If you are one of those who want to use microSD card just like the internal storage, there is a workaround to make it happen, and it doesn't even require rooting your device. Considering the fact that you won't need to root your device to make your device treat the microSD card as internal storage, it seems that the company hasn't actually removed the adoptive storage on system level, but simply disabled it out of the UI.
For users who are okay with a little system-level tweaking of their smartphones, this guide will help you enable adoptable storage on Galaxy S7 or S7 edge. Using Android Debug Bridge and your computer, you can get adoptable storage on Galaxy S7 or S7 edge without having to root your device.
Prerequisites to check before moving forward
- Make sure to back up your microSD card as it will be formatted during the following process.
- In the Settings, tap on build number over 5 times to enable Developer Settings. Once in, go to Developer Settings to enable USB debugging.
How to get adoptable storage on Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
- Connect your smartphone to your PC.
- Open command prompt and type:
- adb shell
- sm list-disks
- The second command will look for the disks available for adoption. Note the disk ID in format 000:000.
- Next, you have to decide if you want to use the microSD card as an internal storage in its entirety, or if you just a portion of the SD card to be treated as a normal SD card. Remember, saving some percentage of the card as the conventional SD card will help you store data like a normal card. You can plug out and plug it into your PC to get access to this data, including your photos or videos.
- Once you have decided how much you want to commit to the internal storage, run the following command:
- sm partition disk:000:000 private (000:000 will be replaced by your disk ID, and private will be used to commit 100% of the SD card as adoptable storage.)
- OR sm partition disk:000:000 mixed 50 (to split your SD card 50/50 between adoptable and regular storage.)
The system will take a while to partition the disk. Once it's done, you can view additional internal storage under Settings > Additional Settings > Storage. The apps will be automatically installed to the storage with the most space available, but you can always move things around.
The above guide was shared by MoDaCo who reports that "for some reason, the total space isn't reported correctly" after you convert your SD card to be treated as adoptable storage on Galaxy S7. However, everything works perfectly.
About the author: Rafia joined Wccftech in 2012 as a tech reporter. She is currently working on stories focusing on people and technologies that are turning Microsoft into a “company to watch” again. She is also responsible for collaborating with tech makers and e-commerce platforms to bring annoying but tempting deals to our readers.
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