Source: Xda developers

Wondering  how to partition your SD card for an Android installation. Users who have been running Android  operating system on their Windows Mobile phone will prefer to run their Android builds off the SD card then flashing directly onto the internal ram of the device. This is a safer approach, since nothing is perfect and if something goes wrong, you will not end up with a crashed Android phone. However running off an SD card has its disadvantages; the speed of the Android will be significantly slower and laggy .

Luckily, the android developers have a solution for computer geeks so that they can partition their SD card to contain the ext3 and swap partitions to speed up the Android operating system by a huge margin. In fact, it is said that the overall performance can be comparable to flashing it direct into the internal ram. This is a huge improvement in android development. It is not really exactly identical but pretty close. This concept will work well with any microSD card that is 2 gig or larger. If your SD card is smaller then that, it will be quite meaningless since after creating 2 partitions for swap and ext 3, you won’t have a lot of storage for the Android build.  In this example, you will use your SD card as a whole.  Ignore the brown “other” partition that I have created in the screen shots because in the example below, I did the partition for an SD card that was used for the Windows Phone 7 installation.  Therefore, only people who want to do a dual boot between Windows Phone 7 and Android will get the outcome you see below.

 

60% off cell phones

Step 1

 

Create a Fat32 partition

According to the android developer, these partitions must be created in a fixed sequence; you cannot skip the cycle and create the other two partitions first. Assume that you have only one partition in your SD card. For some reason if you have partitions in your SD card, delete all your partitions in the SD card until the whole SD card is a single partition on it’s own. Use the partitioning free software to create a single Fat32 partition if required.

 

Using this partitioning free software, right click on the SD card’s partition and select “Re size”. Drag the slider to re size your partition to

your desired value. This will be your main drive where the Android and all the rest of the files will reside in.

 

 

Step 2

 

Create an Ext3 partition

Computer geeks who use Linux will not be unfamiliar with the Ext3 partition. But for those who are not sure what it is all about, lets just say it is something like the partition for the Android to load it’s system files for the Android build that is running. Right click on the remaining space in the SD card and create an Ext 3 partition. Choose a value that you find comfortable, depending on your size of your SD card. A good figure will be around 500 meg. But if your SD card is bigger, you can allocate a larger Ext 3.

 

 

Step 3

 

Create a Linux Swap file

The Linux Swap file is like the “virtual memory” that many Windows users will be familiar with. Android development allows the build to run off an SD but lacks the physical “rams”, this Linux Swap file partition will act as rams to speed up the overall performance of your Android build. At this point, you should have only the last bits of your SD card left, right click on the last bit of space and create a Linux Swap file partition.

Finally, click on the “Apply” icon at the top left hand and allow the system to make the necessary changes. After which you can proceed to copy the Android build of your choice onto the SD card which will now show up on your personal computer with only the Fat32 partition visible.

 

 

 

Try loading your Android after you have partitioned your SD card, you should be able to observe some significant improvement in performance. If your Android build is already fast to begin with, of course you will not be able to feel any difference, but builds that are slow and sluggish if you have all the widgets running will now run smoother then before.

I hope readers like this article on how to partition your SD card for an Android installation.