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blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,972
4,472
Planning on getting the Optimus G Pro when it hits AT&T soon. (Keynote is this Wednesday night by the way.)

I want to have all my music locally stored on my device and the internal storage (32 GB, obviously less actually available) is smaller than my collection (51 GB). I plan on using a 64 GB SD card to have all my music with me.

Okay, so I've never used an SD card with a phone before. I've been using an iPhone for 6 years and a feature phone before that. From my online research, you cannot store music exclusively on the SD card. From what I gather, once I add the music onto my phone, it will be split onto both the remaining storage on my phone plus the SD card. (Right? :confused:) Or can I perhaps place all the music on the SD card?

I'll be using my Mac Mini so I need to download ATF beforehand? Also open to any suggestions as to how to transfer my music. DoubleTwist? Any other suggestions? Thanks.

(Side note: I was listening to the latest episode of the Anandtech podcast and they were absolutely trashing SD cards in smartphones. Are they being nerds or do they have a point?)
 

Krimsonmyst

macrumors 6502
Dec 18, 2012
302
1
Planning on getting the Optimus G Pro when it hits AT&T soon. (Keynote is this Wednesday night by the way.)

I want to have all my music locally stored on my device and the internal storage (32 GB, obviously less actually available) is smaller than my collection (51 GB). I plan on using a 64 GB SD card to have all my music with me.

Okay, so I've never used an SD card with a phone before. I've been using an iPhone for 6 years and a feature phone before that. From my online research, you cannot store music exclusively on the SD card. From what I gather, once I add the music onto my phone, it will be split onto both the remaining storage on my phone plus the SD card. (Right? :confused:) Or can I perhaps place all the music on the SD card?

I'll be using my Mac Mini so I need to download ATF beforehand? Also open to any suggestions as to how to transfer my music. DoubleTwist? Any other suggestions? Thanks.

(Side note: I was listening to the latest episode of the Anandtech podcast and they were absolutely trashing SD cards in smartphones. Are they being nerds or do they have a point?)

Don't know where you're getting your information.

You can store anything you want onto your SD card, music included. I have a Galaxy S4 and before that had an S3 and an S2. I've been using an app called iSyncr to copy all my music across. It has an app for both Mac and PC compatibility, and even a wifi add-on.

Just tell it where you want your music to be stored (internal or SD card) and it will sync everything over from whichever media player you want - I use iTunes. It copies EVERYTHING over, too, including artwork and play counts.

Edit: as for the Anandtech podcaster's opinions - I'm not sure why they'd trash them. They've always worked fine for me, and are a welcome addition.
 

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,972
4,472
Don't know where you're getting your information.

You can store anything you want onto your SD card, music included. I have a Galaxy S4 and before that had an S3 and an S2. I've been using an app called iSyncr to copy all my music across. It has an app for both Mac and PC compatibility, and even a wifi add-on.

Just tell it where you want your music to be stored (internal or SD card) and it will sync everything over from whichever media player you want - I use iTunes. It copies EVERYTHING over, too, including artwork and play counts.

Edit: as for the Anandtech podcaster's opinions - I'm not sure why they'd trash them. They've always worked fine for me, and are a welcome addition.

Thanks for your reply. So do I still need to download AFT if I use iSyncr + iTunes? Do you notice any performance differences versus locally stored music? (Slight delay in music starting?)

Another thought I had was to use the Google Music app (I have my collection in their cloud service and on my computer with iTunes) and just download my collection from the cloud onto my SD card. Not sure if that's even possible and if it is if it would take forever. Might just be easier to go iSyncr + iTunes?
 

Krimsonmyst

macrumors 6502
Dec 18, 2012
302
1
Thanks for your reply. So do I still need to download AFT if I use iSyncr + iTunes? Do you notice any performance differences versus locally stored music? (Slight delay in music starting?)

Another thought I had was to use the Google Music app (I have my collection in their cloud service and on my computer with iTunes) and just download my collection from the cloud onto my SD card. Not sure if that's even possible and if it is if it would take forever. Might just be easier to go iSyncr + iTunes?

Google Play music is a streaming service, and I don't believe you can download from there.

iSyncr + iTunes works well. There are 0 performance issues. iSyncr is just used to copy the music to the phone in an organised manner, you can use any music player you want to listen to it - and it'll play exactly the same as if you copied it.
 

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,972
4,472
Google Play music is a streaming service, and I don't believe you can download from there.

iSyncr + iTunes works well. There are 0 performance issues. iSyncr is just used to copy the music to the phone in an organised manner, you can use any music player you want to listen to it - and it'll play exactly the same as if you copied it.

Android has a dedicated Google Music app that can play locally stored music or your cloud collection. You can also download music from your collection onto your phone for offline use. However when doing so I believe it gets automatically downloaded onto the phone's internal storage and you cannot reroute the download onto the SD card. That last part is the issue.

I will try iSyncr + iTunes. Thank you for your help. I'll report back if I have any issues.
 
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