Force micro SD as internal memory: Samsung Galaxy, LG (EJ: S7, G5)

Android 6 introduced the ability to convert SD to internal memory, technically known as “adoptable storage.” However, some manufacturers blocked this feature, including LG and Samsung, the latter basically arguing that it could confuse users, as the micro SD could not be used as it has been doing for a long time. Its flagship devices of 2016, the LG G5 and Samsung Galaxy S7, which have an SD card slot, do not allow such a change.

Fortunately, the Modaco website came up with a solution to force the activation of the adoptable storage in this type of devices, which does NOT require root permissions, although it does need the ADB software, as we explained in the tutorial on using the micro card. SD as hybrid storage, where we explain the steps in detail.

Once you have installed ADB, you should use the following commands, but first make sure to make a backup of your data on the SD card, because they will be deleted after this:

adb shell

sm list-disks (write down the result obtained, which should be something like «disk:179,0»And you must enter the following command)

sm partition disk:179,0 private (you will need to replace the red part with what you got in the previous command)

The process can take a few minutes. Once finished, you will be able to see in Settings, Storage, that under the device or internal storage, you will have the «Internal storage» and «SD card».

Instead of the last command, you can also use the following one, with the aim of only using half of the SD card as internal memory and the other half as normal, portable or secondary SD card, as we explain in detail here.

sm partition disk:179,0 mixed 50

The tutorial of Modaco it was made on a Samsung Galaxy S7, but with the same method and Reddit have shown that it has also worked on the LG G5.

Depending on the source, they can also be used pendrives O OTG flash memory as internal memory of the cell phone. In this case, the command to use would be «adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true” (without quotation marks).

More on adoptable storage

By becoming a part of the internal storage of the device (adopted storage), the user can take advantage of the micro SD as such: in addition to storing files, it could move the applications and games to that micro SD card (with their respective data) which normally cannot or is problematic when using the micro SD card “in normal mode”.

Adopted storage also has its downsides. One of them is that the micro SD card can only be used in the device where it was adopted. It may create problems when removing it from the device, and it could also reduce the performance of apps or games installed or moved there.

When inserting a micro SD, some Android devices provide the option to set it as adopted storage or normal storage (file storage). In case of choosing the adopted storage, the system could indicate if the inserted micro SD is too slow which could degrade the performance of the device. The manufacturer itself could adjust the system to reject a too slow micro SD card, in case the user decided to configure it as adopted storage.

References: Android Source (adoptable storage), Arstechnica (S7), AndroidCentral (G5)

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