Why Is It Called SD Card When It Isn't?

[rubyfocus]

Does anyone know why the main memory in android is called SDCard even when an SDCard is not inserted? Pretty confusing.

 

[Frederuco]

On some old devices that had no or minimal internal storage, the microSD card would mount as /sdcard/. It has never been changed, and now apps are dependent on this.

 

[Tom T]

Think of the internal sd card as you would the hard drive on your computer. It is just the type of internal storage tablets, for the most part, use. Basically similar to the ssd.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 10.1

 

[rubyfocus]

On some old devices that had no or minimal internal storage, the microSD card would mount as /sdcard/. It has never been changed, and now apps are dependent on this.

So then how can I tell the difference between /sdcard/ and the actual microSD when I'm in the file explorer? What does the system call the microSD when it's inserted?

 

[Frederuco]

You have to know where your microSD is mounted.

On my Asus Transformer my microSD is mounted at /Removable/microSD/

On Acer it is mounted at /mnt/external_SD/

Each device is a bit different depending on where the OEM decided to mount the external storage.

 

[vampirefo.]

It's called sdcard cause Google doesn't add micro sdcard to their products, Google make money by charging for more storage.
You can't add a sdcard to a Google product, but you can buy the same product with more storage for more money.
If Google added sdcard slot they would loose millions, they make 3 or 4 of the same exact products, only difference is amount of storage then jack up the price, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Seeing Google makes android for their products, android will use the naming system on Google products.

 

[RoyR]

Does anyone know why the main memory in android is called SDCard even when an SDCard is not inserted? Pretty confusing.

I agree. On my Coby MID 7127, I wondered why I couldn't seem to find the micro SD card I had installed. Turns out it was called Tflash in the file explorer app. Tflash (or Transflash) was the original name for micro SD cards, so calling it that in the device made some sense, but not many people recognized them by that name! Not sure when MicroSD came out, but here's a brief article from 2004> T-Flash: aka "Yet Another Memory Card Format"
So...perhaps Tflash is also used by other tablet manufacturers to denote an external sd card?

Roy

 

[pedropetz]

This type of tablet is very limiting. I had a coby and he only had 200mb of memory used for applications. I sold it soon.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300TG using Tapatalk 2