The Windows Phone 7 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 20, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Microsoft
- Mobile
Expandable Storage via microSD
Microsoft supports expandable storage on Windows Phone 7 devices. If an OEM chooses to do so, it can implement a microSD card slot for additional storage. This is similar to what Google allows with Android, however the similarity ends here.
Windows Phone creates a JBOD span across your internal NAND and any NAND on microSD. It’s all treated as one contiguous address space, like a large hard drive or SSD. The benefit is you don’t have to manage where you put your apps, music, movies or photos. The downside is you can’t just remove/replace the microSD card in your phone.
The OS is obviously stored in a known location, however data is written linearly across both internal and microSD NAND. Your phone will still boot if you remove or swap out the microSD card, but you’ll be greeted with an error.
If you remove the card and attempt to read off of it on your Mac/PC you’ll quickly realize that you can’t. By removing the card you effectively break the file system. Microsoft provides you with a couple of other options to get data to/from the phone (which I’ll get to later) so you don’t have to rely on swapping microSDs.
You aren’t stuck with that original microSD card however. If you do a factory restore with a new microSD card installed the OS will format across it and you’ll be good to go. Obviously you’ll have to re-download all of your apps and sync all of your files but it does work.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
125 Comments
View All Comments
AstroGuardian - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Everything is displayed fine. Dunno what to tell younumberoneoppa - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Could have something to do with your reply coming a day after the article was posted. :PKashmire - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
Hardware review website goes political? Good way to irritate your viewers by sneaking in the Obama advertisement (phone's screen on AnandTech homepage). Why make your readers suffer through your political statement to read tech hardware reviews? Wrong place for this.bdattilo - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
That is a Pepsi billboard...dreamlane - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
BeautifulDonkey2008 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
LOL. Seriously, just ROLMAO.earthzero - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Are you serious? You know that is a Pepsi Cola "get out and vote" ad, right? That's a Pepsi logo.lwatcdr - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
I also thought that was a Pepsi bill board.Welcome to the polarization of America.
fernando.gomes@ydreams.com - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Geez... I'm guessing you're the only one who noticed it, and I'm betting you're the only one who gives a crap, let alone accusing the authores of political biasing. Get a life, will ya?Smilin - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
BWAAHAHA. Oh boy what a tool you just made yourself out to be. Do you really hate Obama so much that you have PTSD like flashbacks of him everywhere? You see "hope" symbols where others see "pepsi".