[Shield Q&A] bzowk:
Hey Guys -

I purchased a Shield about a month ago and love it! I think I have more fun experimenting with it than playing games. Unfortunatly, the Shield doesn't come with a large amount of storage built in. Fortunately, though, there is a micro sd slot (as opposed to my HTC One which doesn't have one :() I got a good deal at New Egg for a 64gb card and got it. After receiving, I inserted it then installed NextApp SDFix so that KitKat could write to it. Since doing so, it's worked very well and can tell no speed difference for apps residing on the Shield vs the SD Card.

Having a 64gb card and not much internal storage, I'm in the habit of installing apps and if above 100mb, opening settings / apps, browsing to the app, then choosing to "Move to SD Card." I've done this for all apps over 100mb and even some smaller ones. Below are the specs for my Shield followed by the issue I'm having...

My nVidia Shield Specs

- OS: Android KitKat 4.4.2

- Kernel: 3.4.10-g73896af

- Build: KOT49H.01.00.17394.0077 (latest public release)

- sdcard0 (Internal) - 11.32gb used / 1.40gb free

- sdcard1 (SD Card) - 45.28gb used / 12.96gb free

- Software Modifications

- Rooted

- Xposed Installer 2.6.1 + 3-4 modules (basically GUI mods - nothing hardcore)

My Issue

Even though I've moved all 100mb+ apps to sd card, have no media, or other files on internal storage; I don't have enough room to install large apps anymore. I have plently of room on my sd card which is where I'd move it to post install, but first must install it before I can move it. Below are full details for the issue I've found after investigating.

If there's a method to have Shield install apps directly to sd card by default, it may work. I've found solutions online - but - my fear is that trying to do this workaround may mess up any existing symlinking or other things. Details for what I'm talking about are below...

Issue Detailed

When I choose to move apps to the SD Card, I do see space around what the app takes up freed from my internal storage as I should. However, I've verified that all 100mb+ apps have been moved (30+gb worth); but my internal storage shows only 1.40gb available! I understand that moving an app probably doesn't move all of the app's files, but I'd think at least the bulk of them.

When I started to investigate the file system, I found files which should be on the SD Card which seemed to be located on the internal storage. Is this due to symlinking? Even though reported as such, I know it's not possible as the total size of these files exceeded what internal could hold. Do these actions give a false-positive for how much free space I actually do have internally?

Example: When I got the properties of root/Android/obb/ on sdcard0 (internal storage) it showed it's size to be 26.0gb. Internal storage is half that!

To investigate, I installed a couple of apps to show disk usage. I bought Disk & Storage Analyzer (root) and let it run. It was able to show space stats for internal & sd separately - but - seemed to not to be able to tell the correct place individual files were coming from.

Overall

Sorry if I got carried away with description - I'm just frustrated. If you understand how my scenario was designed to work and perhaps what my options are (if any), I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for your help and time! Ben