Files bigger than 4 GB on SD card?

Help Fairphone 2
1

Hi alltogether,

I just wanted to copy a zim file of Wikipedia for usie with KIWIX on my sd Card. But the current Wikipedia zim file is 4.6 GB. My SD Card is formatted as fat32. As far as I know it is not possible to use exFat with FP2.
Is there any possiblity to use another file sytem where files bigger than 4 GB are possible?

2

Have you already tried to put it on the internal storage? Maybe there isn’t such a limitation…

3

I have the same problem with wikipedia files. The internal storage would get full very quickly with a few wikipedia files.

  1. Any chance to format sd card with ntfs? and use it in FP2?
  2. And I cant get access to internal storage via usb? neither from a windows pc, nor ubuntu. To try and put larger files from the PC. How is that done?
4
  1. I’m afraid there’s no chance. NTFS is a propietary system from Microsoft, the same happens to exFAT (= expensive licences…) :frowning:
  2. Connect you FP2 via USB to the computer and swipe down the notification bar. In the upper left corner, a notification appears where you can change the USB options. Choose MTP and you can access your phone storage and the SD.
5

Ext4 would be an option - In theory android knows how to use ext4 formatted partitions, but it doesn’t detect them on SD-cards automatically as far as I know. Another downside for some people is that ext4 probably isn’t directly supported by Windows. You’d also probably need root and/or some scripting on the phone to get the system set up properly.

Maybe this is something that can be added to the feature request list:
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/fp-os-os-feature-requests-vote-for-your-favorites/12303?u=johannes&source_topic_id=14951

2 Likes
6

I agree that it would be great to use a file system without the 4 GB limitation.
But at least for Kiwix there is a workaround, see “My ZIM file is too big, what should I do?” on
http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/FAQ

1 Like
7

Unix split could work. ZIM seems to use good compression algorithms already. Just try it or fill a bug against the application if it does not work :slight_smile:

8

Thanks for this hint… I’ll try this on the Weekend :slight_smile:

9

If you want to use ext4 on your sd-card and your phone is rooted then try to change the /fstab.qcom (in root of filesystem). There is - easy to find - a line (one line!)
/devices/msm_sdcc.2/mmc_host /storage/sdcard1 vfat nosuid,nodev wait, voldmanaged=sdcard1:auto,noemulatedsd

Try changing vfat to ext4 …
Spielmops

3 Likes