[G Tablet General] TheJesus:
I'm going to go ahead and tell you to re-read the title, this is

ADVANCED

Now, I shall start with the traditional warning:

I am in no way responsible for any damage this information causes your device or anything else. This will absolutely void your warranty. Proceed with only the most extreme caution possible.

Thanks:

ejhart - Thank you for your advice and wisdom on IRC, always helpful.

t3h_g3n3r4l & floatpoo - Thank you for your teardown pictures and advice on disassembly.

Myself? - I thought a section of thanks with three people seemed silly.

Right, on to the information.

I liked the 16GB internal storage, but I knew we could have more. But how? That's what this "guide" answers.

So, how much extra storage would you like? 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, even 256GB?!?! Well, it's all up to how much you're willing to spend.

We know from the thread in Android Development that USB hubs are supported on our tablets. We also know that USB flash drives are supported. You might get the picture now...

There are two ways to go about this: The "Easy" method or the "Oh My God Why Do Soldering Irons Have to Be So Mean!?" method. We'll start with the Easy method.

Easy Method

1. Open tablet. (Told you it was easy, JK)

2. Acquire soldering iron, USB flash drive, 20-26 Ga. wire, solder, wire strippers, and steady hands.

3. Now find the USB connector on the tablet's motherboard. Solder a wire to each of the 4 points, leave enough length for routing.

4. Disassemble USB flash drive. Remove the USB connector on the drive (depends on drive, they tend to be too tall to fit inside the tablet).

5. Now, this is a little tricky. Figure out which pins on the USB drive touch which pins on the USB connector on the motherboard.

6. Solder the wires to your USB flash drive matching the pins like I said in step 5.

7. Now place the USB drive safely in the tablet, I suggest the spot that is an empty square (I think its where a 3G modem would go, image below). Route the wires so they don't get smooshed.

8. Voila! You now have a bunch more internal storage!

Issues caused by this method:

1. This will most likely disable use of the USB port :/

2. Will decrease battery life minimally.

Now, if that didn't seem too scary, go for it or keep reading to see if you can handle the second method.

Oh My God Why Do Soldering Irons Have to Be So Mean!? Method

1. Take a deep breath.

2. Open tablet.

3. Acquire soldering iron, USB flash drive, 20-26 Ga. wire, solder, wire strippers, USB hub (I suggest Belkin Ultra Mini USB Hub sold at many places, http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-4-Port-Ultra-Mini-F5U407/dp/B000Q8UAWY Its the perfect size), tweezers, and steady hands.

4. Disassemble USB hub and USB flash drive. Remove the USB connector(s) on both.

5. Unscrew motherboard from tablet and disconnect all cables to remove it. Be very careful, the tiny wires in the connectors rip very easily and are pretty much impossible to repair.

6. Draw yourself diagrams of how the USB pins are laid out on the tablet's connector, the hub's connectors, and the flash drive's connector. These will come in handy, trust me.

7. Take a deep breath, this is where this method gets its name.

8. I suggest a friend help you with this step. The pins leading directly to the motherboard need to be desoldered and lifted from it. Hold the pins with tweezers or pliers while your friend applies heat to melt the solder so you can pull the pins out.

9. Attach a wire to each pin and solder it on. Leave enough wire to route it. Mark which wire is which. (You can also use an old IDE ribbon cable to keep the wires tidy and organized, thanks to TheQuicksilver for that idea!)

10. Now place the motherboard back where it was, running the wires underneath it (that's my suggestion for tidiness, but you can also route around the metal sheath for ease) and out the corner of the large square that I mentioned earlier. Go ahead and screw it on, you don't need the bottom side anymore.

11. Now take your de-connectored hub and place it in the empty square I have mentioned. It fits perfectly :D Attach it to the board in whatever fashion you wish, just avoid shorting any connections.

12. Solder the wires from the USB connector on the board that you routed on to the USB hub in one of the connectors spots, making sure to match pins.

13. Now the hub should have a USB cable coming from it, take that and cut off the connector, leaving you with 4 cables (if there are 5, the 5th is extra ground and I don't believe its needed since this isn't fully powered). Attach the cables according to their corresponding pins to the holes that the tablet's USB connector was attached to with solder.

14. Take a breath, you have successfully added an internal USB hub to your tablet!

15. Place the disassembled flash drive wherever you believe is best. Attach it in whatever way you see fit, glue or electrical tape, whatever.

16. Attach a wire to each of the pins on the flash drive and run them to a second connector on the USB hub.

17. Congratulations, you are pretty much done! You can plug it all back in and test it before closing up if you would like.

18. Route wires to avoid crushing and protrusion on the back of the tablet. Make sure all installed items are safely attached.

19. Make sure all connections are firm.

20. Boot tablet.

21. Open favorite file explorer program and browse to usbdisk. If it shows the contents of the drive you are a master of soldering! If not, check all your connections and pin layouts.

Issues caused by this method:

Will decrease battery life a little more compared to Easy method (shouldn't be very much, the hub and drive don't take much power).

Burnt fingers from soldering iron :P

You understand why the methods are called what they're called.

If you were to drop a 32GB SD card and a 64GB USB flash drive in the tablet, you would have 112GB (closer to 106GB because of rounding and other stuff)!!!! A 256GB flash drive would be about 300GB!!!!!!!!! (but those cost hundreds of dollars :/ ) Suck on that iPad.

If you have questions, post them. If you have suggestions, post them. Good luck!

Also, feel free to join #tegratab. I'm Winnah9000 on there.

EDIT: PS, I am in the middle of the second method. My soldering skills are not exactly up to par, especially with this awful iron. If someone else finishes this before me, post up how its working and if you have any, pictures :D

EDIT 2: I don't know if I'll actually finish this, I don't have the patience unfortunately. Hopefully TheQuicksilver will let us know how it goes for him :)