[ajwan]

Have you been having a hard time deciding which way to go? A summary of pros/cons for each:

Adoptable:
+ All files are encrypted for security (big one for me)
+ Your internal storage gains extra space to store app data files
- App access might be slower
- Troubles uploading and downloading 10s of GBytes of music, movies, and pictures
- Maybe some "wear" on the sd card

Portable:
+ Files are easily uploadable/downloadable externally on a PC/MAC
+ Card can be used on other devices
+ App access speed is maintained
- Files are not secure (big minus for me)

I've been toying with using both adoptable and portable at times on my Priv. Despite the slight loss in app access speed, I felt that my device was overall much more secure using adoptable storage. The big minus for me was the headache involved in transferring movies/video/music/camera pictures to and from the device when using adoptable mode; my device would constantly time out after a few seconds and interrupting the transfer. Also, transfer speeds are quite low given the additional overhead of going through the chipset.

The solution? HYBRID adoptable/portable storage! Yes, you can have both and enjoy the flexibility either mode affords you. The idea is to partition your SD card into two separate sections, one to be adopted by the device and used as shared internal storage, and the other to be maintained as portable storage. In my situation (below), I have 32 GBytes of my Samsung Evo+ (U3) 128 GB SD card shared with the internal storage, giving me about 61 GB of storage encrypted and accessible to the OS and myself (14.48 GBytes of which is used - of the 14.48, 12.93 resides internally, and 1.55 resides in the SD card as shared internal storage). The other partition of the Samsung SD is partitioned as external with 32.9 GBytes used of 89 GBytes.



To enable Hybrid it is a bit of process be warned. I will assume you will have some working knowledge of installing basic programs on a PC, and know how to enable developer mode on your device. If you're prepared to experiment and try things out, read on.

You will need to have installed on your computer and/or do the following:

-Android Studio SDK Platform Tool (to enable a command interface with the device)
https://developer.android.com/studio...orm-tools.html
-The OEM USB Driver for your specific make of device (in this case, Blackberry)
https://developer.android.com/studio/run/oem-usb.html
-Have developer mode enabled with the following: USB debugging AND USB debugging in charging mode.
-The SD card should be mounted and formatted as "Portable".
-An SDXC card reader.

As I've enabled hybrid on a PC, I'll explain the process on a PC (sorry, I have no knowledge of a Mac!).

Steps:
1) I advise you to install the platform tool in fairly high in your PC hard drive hierarchy. For me I installed it in "D:\ADB".
2) Connect your device to your PC, wait a few seconds. Use "Charge and Data". If a menu pops up to charge device/transfer files/photos/midi, hit cancel. If the USB driver was installed correctly, the PC should detect and use the correct driver automatically.
3) Assuming all is working correctly, if you enter the "adb devices" command, you might get the following result:

"D:\ADB\adb devices"
List of devices attached
*daemon not running. starting it now at tcp5037 *
*daemon started successfully *
1164010624 unauthorized

At this point, the device will show a permission prompt. Give it access.



Try the command again and you should get something like this:

"D:\ADB\adb devices"
List of devices attached
1164010624 device

If you got the above result, then you're good to proceed.

4) To get the current state of your storage, enter the following command and get the following result:

"d:\ADB\adb shell sm list-disks adoptable"
disk:179.64

(if your device is a Priv and is running Android M, you will need to substitute the "," with a ".")

You might get different numbers depending on the SD card you're using.

5) Create two partitions by entering the following command:

"D:\ADB\adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 mixed xx",

where xx is the size of the future portable partition in %. In my case, I wanted my SD card to be 32 GBytes to be used for adoptable storage, and 96 GBytes to be used for portable storage.

"D:\ADB\adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 mixed 75"

The shell terminal will pause for a few seconds to complete the format and will return to "D:\ADB".

6) Unplug the device, go to "Settings\Storage" and you will see your SD Card divided into two partitions. Immediately unmount the two partitions and remove the SD card from your device (if you format any of the partitions at this point, the device will join the two partitions together into one and you'll have to start this process again".

7) Insert the SD card into a card reader on your PC. Your PC will see only one partition (the larger one in my case). RENAME this partition. I renamed mine to "External SD" (see image above).

8) Re-insert the SD card into your device and remount both partitions.

9) Go to the settings submenu of your SD card listed under "Device Storage" and proceed to Migrate Data.

10) Congratulations, you should have a device with an SD card and you can enjoy the benefits of both adoptable storage and portable storage!

Notes/Caveats:

-You can access your files in the Portable partition any time in another device, or your PC using a card reader. You will first need to unmount both partitions.
-When unmounting the internal storage partition, the device will warn you that certain apps will become unavailable. This is normal. By proceeding with the unmount, you're just telling the device to suspend access to the adoptable partition of the SD card.
-If you choose to access the SD card through your device (using a USB cable), the two drives will be listed in your PC Explorer sequentially. Mine is isted as:

Blackberry BBB100-1
-External SD
-Samsung SD Card

-When you use the Camera and choose to use your Media Card to save your photos and videos (in Camera Settings), the device will store your photos and videos in the adoptable partition of your SD card.

-For whatever reason, when the monthly updates arrive (or perhaps major updates for that matter), the update will save onto the SD card portion of the "shared internal memory". When the phone updates, the OS doesn't seem to like the fact that the software update is not in the internal storage; the update will fail. The solution for this is to migrate data back into the internal storage, allow the update to finish the installation, then re-migrate data back out to the SD card portion of the "shared internal memory".


I'll do my best to answer any questions here.

Cheers and good luck.

AW

[ajwan]

Should also work on all other Android BlackBerry devices.