Glo Memory Upgrade without opening your Kobo

[Lucas Malor]

@davidfor: resizing a disk image has no cost. And I do not see any problems changing specs. I've seen worse cases, for example the Nexus 7. Mine is the second generation, but you can find 4 different models: 2012 wifi, 2012 3g, 2013 wifi, 2013 3g, all of them named Nexus 7. A nightmare. I do not see any problem for the end user for changing the storage specs. The only problem I see is that Aura storage will appear less attractive.

[Anghirrim]

Originally Posted by RoninTech

So make sure you check that you really have a bigger internal card before doing this!

Nothing to check. That's sure. I am familiar with fdisk (at least under Gnu/Linux) and "/dev/mmcblk0" is my whole SD card.

Originally Posted by Markismus

It does indeed.
Sorry that you'll have to open it to upgrade. Every time I opened my Aura HD another tiny plastic catch would break off.

Yep, I did with my original Glo, and the power switch broke off... But finally, even with a 2Gb card, it still has some free space. Except from my Geek side, no real need to upgrade my memory (but I agree that my Geek side is really pushing for it !!! )

[Markismus]

Originally Posted by RoninTech

So make sure you check that you really have a bigger internal card before doing this!

If you haven't got a bigger card, than all you effectively do is a factory restore and gain the knowledge how to enable telnet. No harm, just time spend.

[dboddie]

Just to add another data point, my Kobo Mini came with a 4GB micro SD card inside (see attached image).

[Nix Hard]

Thank you for the tip good people.
Kobo Mini purchased in mid Dec 2013 NZ said 2GB on the box but installed flash card was a 4GB unit on the inside.
Now formatted to 4GB or there abouts

Cheers NH

[Markismus]

@Dboddie and @Nix Hard: In what country did you buy your devices?

[Nix Hard]

Markismus NZ = New Zealand for me.
Cheers NH

[dboddie]

Markismus, I bought mine from WHSmith in the UK.

[RobertJSawyer]

Except that it is indeed cool to take advantage of the full capacity of the built-in Micro SD card, it there any advantage to using the internal card vs. an external one plugged into the normal user-accessible slot (available on all Kobos except the Touch)? Faster access? If so, why? Aren't they both just going into card readers attached to the mother board?

Genuinely curious: for those doing actual hardware upgrades, in what way is prying off the back of the unit and inserting, say, an 8GB card better than just plugging an 8GB card into the user-accessible expansion slot?

I can see one way in which plugging a card into the external slot is better: you get 10GB in this scenario: the 2GB you had initially plus 8GB you just added; obviously, if you instead replaced the 2GB card with an 8GB card, your net increase is only 8GB. (Of course, you could put the 2GB card into the external slot then, but again, what's the advantage of internal slot over the external one?)

Yes, for the Mini, reformatting/replacing the internal card is the only way to add storage, but what's the plus side of doing it this way for Touch or Glo users?

Thanks!

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Except that it is indeed cool to take advantage of the full capacity of the built-in Micro SD card, it there any advantage to using the internal card vs. an external one plugged into the normal user-accessible slot (available on all Kobos except the Touch)? Faster access? If so, why? Aren't they both just going into card readers attached to the mother board?

Genuinely curious: for those doing actual hardware upgrades, in what way is prying off the back of the unit and inserting, say, an 8GB card better than just plugging an 8GB card into the user-accessible expansion slot?

I can see one way in which plugging a card into the external slot is better: you get 10GB in this scenario: the 2GB you had initially plus 8GB you just added; obviously, if you instead replaced the 2GB card with an 8GB card, your net increase is only 8GB. (Of course, you could put the 2GB card into the external slot then, but again, what's the advantage of internal slot over the external one?)

Yes, for the Mini, reformatting/replacing the internal card is the only way to add storage, but what's the plus side of doing it this way for Touch or Glo users?

Thanks!

While this is OT, one of the main advantages to being able to replace the internal uSD card is to have the ability to fix a "bricked" device. Another can be to have the device able to run under different OS, depending on what SD card you insert.

Luck;
Ken

[gong]

Is it possible with a mini, since factory reset is launched through the UI?

[dboddie]

Originally Posted by gong

Is it possible with a mini, since factory reset is launched through the UI?

Do you mean fixing a bricked device? I guess you would remove the micro SD card and replace it with another that has a clean system image on it, copying over any files from the old one as required.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by gong

Is it possible with a mini, since factory reset is launched through the UI?

Try tapping both bottom corners of the screen as you turn it on. Keep tapping them until something happens. And don't ask me how I know

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Yes, for the Mini, reformatting/replacing the internal card is the only way to add storage, but what's the plus side of doing it this way for Touch or Glo users?

If you have a large library then keeping it on the internal card saves time scanning the external card each time it is inserted or the device powers on.

A number of firmware versions have had bugs that only affected books stored on the external card, most recently versions 3.0.x.

But there are fewer advantages in replacing the internal card with recent firmware versions, in earlier versions the main reason was that browsing books on the external card was much slower because their cover images were not saved and had to be constantly regenerated.

[Lucas Malor]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Try tapping both bottom corners of the screen as you turn it on. Keep tapping them until something happens. And don't ask me how I know

This is a barbatrick!