Can I symlink /data?

Question

I have a rooted Google/HTC Nexus One running Android 4.0, Cyanogenmod, and MIUI. These mods were done by the previous owner.

Considering that the amount of internal storage my phone has is really tiny, I'm always looking for ways to free up space. My current idea is to symlink either all or part of /data to somewhere on the SD card where I have lots of free space.

My question is, would this cause any problems? I've got a lot of Linux experience, but I'm an Android newbie. The filesystem seems to be a bit different from what I'm used to in the Linux world.

Also, are there any pitfalls I should be aware of, such as certain data that must be available before the SD card is mounted?

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 18 '12 at 07:44

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Yes you can do that. Scripts like data2sd do exactly that.

edited Sep 18 '12 at 07:44

ce4

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answered Jun 05 '12 at 05:24

roxan

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As in my edit above, are there any pitfalls I should be aware of, such as certain things that must not be moved to the SD card? – Scott Severance Jun 05 '12 at 07:09
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@ScottSeverance I would assume it would be the same behavior as if you installed an app to the SD card: don't do it for widgets or apps that typically run on start/in the background. Those apps/widgets have issues when installed to the SD card. – Bryan Denny Jun 05 '12 at 13:07

eadmaster · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-23T01:08:32.983

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Use data2sd instead of creating the symlink manually from the terminal. Usually sd cards are formatted with FAT32, data2sd creates an EXT2 embedded partition instead...

more detailed explanation here.

edited Mar 23 '14 at 01:08

answered Mar 23 '14 at 00:33

eadmaster

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The first link is broken. – MarianD Jun 17 '18 at 10:46

Can I symlink /data?

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