# Can you partition a drive on Android 11? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 11, 2024, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418 "2024-05-11T13:36:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/1 "2024-05-11T13:36:05Z")
Most of the phone manufacturers have eliminated SD cards. Most of this years phones have huge 1TB drives. Has Google caught up and started offering partitioning that monster? I have 60 Gigs of music on a SD card. I’ve moved it twice to new phones. Easy, Peasy. Moving that much data from Google Drive to a new phone will be very tedious and time consuming. I’m worried about phone resets wiping out 100’s of Gigs of data. It needs to be on a separate partition or SD card. I _never_ kept personal data on my Windows root drive. I always had several partitions. Uploading is so painful. I recently uploaded a 600 MB folder to Google Drive. It took 20 minutes. Down loading that Folder to another device is faster, but it took over 5 minutes. Imagine a large music library. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/2 "2024-05-11T13:43:26Z")
It seems you can but I have never tried it. Hopefully this can get you started: > ## Dynamic partitions > > Devices running Android 11 and higher can support dynamic partitions, which are a userspace partitioning system for Android that enables creating, resizing, or destroying partitions during over-the-air (OTA) updates. For details, see [Dynamic Partitions](https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/dynamic_partitions). - [SOURCE](https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/partitions) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/3 "2024-05-11T13:46:31Z")
Thank you. I’m going to try and squeeze another year out of my Galaxy A52 5G. Maybe by then they’ll have any bugs eliminated from partitioning. The prices will drop on the Galaxy S24+ by next year. It’s currently $1,100. Way too expensive for my budget. Btw, I’m on Android 14 now! I hadn’t paid any attention to the updates. That means partitions have been around for awhile. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/4 "2024-05-11T16:55:29Z")
My impression is that this is not a user feature. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/5 "2024-05-11T18:07:18Z")
From the link. It sounds like developers can allocate space for Updates by creating a partition. Then delete the partition after it completes. Freeing up the space. I’m surprised they haven’t given that option to Users. Partitions weren’t needed when phones had small drives. But a 512GB phone needs partitions to organize the file space. You don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I should go ahead and buy one last phone with a SD slot. That will push the problem down the road another 2 to 3 years. > **[Best Android phones with expandable storage 2024](https://www.androidcentral.com/best-android-phones-expandable-storage)** > > You can increase your internal storage on these Android phones. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/6 "2024-05-12T00:32:30Z")
FWIW, since this is FQ and people often appreciate the technically correct - every Android product I’ve worked on has partitions. Often you’ll find a bootloader, a kernel, and a user data partition, for instance. Two of each, likely, to allow for rollbacks on failed updates. Being able to further partition the user data partition… is not something I have experience with. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/7 "2024-05-12T01:57:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It sounds like developers can allocate space for Updates by creating a partition. Then delete the partition after it completes. It’s so the ODM doesn’t have to guess at ship time how big the next OS upgrade is going to be and reserve that much space. Especially because the ODM will have to guess conservatively. I don’t see how a partition helps your use-case any more than a folder would. Your issue is syncing. If you can’t get a phone with an SD card, then transfer your music via USB instead of Google Drive. You can even get a USB adapter for your existing SD card. Or better yet use the Android transfer process, connect your old phone to the new phone with a USB C cable and let it do the transfer. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/8 "2024-05-12T02:02:23Z")
> [@CaveMike](#): > > Or better yet use the Android transfer process, connect your old phone to the new phone with a USB C cable and let it do the transfer. I’ve done this a few times. It is remarkably fast. Maybe 10-15 minutes. YMMV but very tolerable. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-partition-a-drive-on-android-11/1001418/9 "2024-05-12T02:03:38Z")
I"ll look into Android transfer. That sound perfect for moving my music folders. I tried USB and a sd card reader a few years ago. I got connection errors if I moved the phone. The USB plug connection was very sensitive. I corrupted a file that I was trying to copy. Just on the phone. The original was fine.