[XDA Assist] XDA Visitor:
Can you please help a noob figure out where this post belongs?

I make no pretense to being a developer, and I was very hesitant to join XDA, but these are questions concerning modding which I have not found answers to, despite posting to a number of other Android forums, so I was forced to "raise my sights."

I have an LG Optimus Fuel L34C (KitKat). I am an Android noob but I have a history with Linux, so I know just enough about what goes on behind the KitKat curtain to make me dangerous. So yes, I also care about the journey. And I'm already heavily invested in this quest, so despite my lack of expertise, I'm willing to do the leg work to make it happen.

My one saving grace is I have a backup fetish. And I want to continue to make Nandroid backups even when the L34C's puny internal storage (1790 MB usable) is maxed out (or nearly so). But I don't want to resort to backups to the cloud because 1) it offends my inner geek that I have to rely on someone else for backup support, and 2) as a delusional paranoid, the concept of "the cloud" gives me the willies. ;)

I'm using TWRP Manager (Root) for Nandroid backups now, but TWRP only can write to the internal SD. Which means that once internal storage is about half full, there's no longer enough space remaining for any more Nandroids. And a bare bones installation with just enough additional apps installed to perform the Nandroid already takes up about 700 MB. So there's no chance of any further Nandroid backups after downloading or installing just two or three hundred more MB.

So my primary goal is to be able to write Nandroid backups to the external SD card (or, pipe dream, to write them to USB). If this also allows me to install apps or store other (internal) data on the external card, so much the better.

I just bought a second L34C because the WiFi on the original L34C pooped the bed. So now I have a new and unmodded L34C to experiment on. I had (towel) rooted the old phone, write-enabled the external SD card and installed the TeamWin open recovery image v2.8. And I replaced the OE 4GB external SD card with a 16GB class 4 card, partitioned half in Fat32 and half in Ext3.

The primary obstacle was that I could never get the second partition on the 16GB card to mount, which prevented me even from experimenting with symlinks. I also installed the latest version of Link2SD, but when I tried to use it to move an app that Link2SD labeled as movable, I got this:

Dunno why it's blaming Apps2SD unless Link2 is built around Apps2.

Curiously, I installed Aparted, too, and it was able to access (and process) the 2nd partition, even though it wasn't mounted. I've not heard this definitively but I'm led to believe this is down to the L34C's lack of support for init.d. So I downloaded a copy of daishi4u's custom boot image, which includes support for init.d, but the old phone crapped out before I could try it.

So with background in place, and a spanking new L34C in hand, on to the questions.

#1. With the current state of L34C/KitKat development, is what I'm asking even possible? Once the internal SD card has got too crowded for a Nandroid, is there a solution that will allow me to continue making

local

Nandroid backups? In particular, I'm thinking there might be another Nandroid backup app that I am unaware of that can write its backups to some location other than the internal SD card.

If this already has been accomplished (and is documented online), please just point me to the details and I'll get out of your hair.

2. I picked daishi4u's custom boot image because the reputation of daishi4u's work is known to me, and because it offered init.d support. If you think another boot image is preferable, please enlighten me.

3. Is Link2SD's problem with the L34C truly the emulated storage? I ask because I know developers typically code apps to make a best guess as to the cause of an error, but despite their best efforts, an app still is liable to be exposed to unanticipated conditions, resulting in a problem that might be beyond the scope of their programming to understand and enunciate.

4. Is the lack of init.d support in fact what prevents an L34C mounting additional partitions on the external SD card? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

5.a. I found a post in another forum that was near three years old stating that the extra partition on an Android external SD card must be no more than 2GB, and preferably just 1GB. If this ever was true, is it still the case for KitKat? And what is the source of the limitation?

5.b. If there is a 2GB partition limit, is there a limit to how many 2GB partitions can be externally mounted? A Nandroid backup of a heavily configured L34C could take up most of 2GB, so it would be especially useful work-around if there were one (additional) partition for the Nandroid and a second (or third, or fourth, ...) for moving apps and random data off the internal SD.

6. Which app(s) would you suggest I try for moving apps/data/folders to the external SD? There are so many available, and I have not been able to find any comparisons/contrasts of their relative merits, so I would appreciate your recommendations to avoid having to resort to the 'shotgun' approach. This is presuming I'm able to get more than one partition on the external SD card to mount.

I've not lost sight of the fact that some of these apps do not require a second partition on the SD card (creating something functionally akin to an iSCSI partition on it?), but I'm not counting on finding a solution in one of them.

Thank you for taking the time to read my long-winded post. ;)