Is there a file size limit on Android Honeycomb?

Question

I wanted to know if there was a size limit to the data files an android app can use or a size limit depending on the SD card (or internal memory) filesystem ?

Cheers

Olivier

Parasite

Answer 1

The file size limit is determined by the filesystem. FAT32, for instance, cannot handle files larger than 4GB. Unfortunately, it is fairly likely that your microSD card is formatted in FAT32.

For Android 2.2 and older, the internal file system is YAFFS. The author, Charles Manning, states in this mailing that the maximum file size is 512 MB. It has been announced that Android 2.3 will use ext4.

It might be possible to format your SD card to this format as well, but I haven't tried it. Bear in mind that you won't be able to read the contents under Windows or OS X.

See also the answers in this topic.

Durstin

Thanks ! :) So no way to play most HD movies without another encoding... :( – Parasite

On external storage, it's only a problem if it's greater than 4GB. I'm not sure if Android supports NTFS file format, but if it does, you could try it with an empty microSD card; format the card to NTFS and put a >4GB video on there. – Durstin

It seems that Android doesn't support NTFS. The suggestion there is to use the ext3 filesystem. – Durstin