Using the missus' old Galaxy Ace as a bit of an Android self-tutorial....

It has, basically, a pitiful amount of memory (181mb total) and, after doing a factory-reset, it can't even absorb all the updates for stuff like Google Maps and Play Store without running out of space.

So, was playing around with it and figured out how to root it, deleted a bunch of the bloatware off it and now it will, at least, install all the current updates and still has a whopping 30mb () free... so it should be okay for a while.

I've stuck a 16bg micro-SD card in it, installed a bunch of stuff onto that and now it actually seems like a fairly useful phone.

Next step is, if possible, to find a way to force it to use the SD Card as system-memory so it'll install updates onto the SD Card or even punt some of the chunkier system app's across to it.

I googled for "Galaxy Ace memory inadequate" and found some interesting threads on XDA-Dev's, Androidforums and AndroidCentral but they mostly seem to be populated with smug Indians who prefer to tell people how stupid they are rather than actually offering useful advice.

So, anybody know how I might convince a Galaxy Ace to use an SD Card as system memory so it'll install updates to the SD Card as if it was onboard memory?

I assume I will, somehow, need to partition the SD Card and then tell the phone to use one partition as system memory.

It may depend on the version of Android how you go about this. If you go to Settings, Applications and select an app, you should have a "Move to SD card" button which will be enabled if a move is permitted.

You can alternatively use an app to move apps to SD card - see link2SD in the Google Play store.

If running an old version of Android, here's a tweak that may allows apps to install to SD by default.

This isn't possible. For various security and engineering reasons Android cannot use external storage in the same way as internal storage.

As above there are some workarounds that may allow you to shift some of the bundled apps to the SD card, but that's all you'll be able to do.

Have you looked into whether or not there are any suitable custom ROMs that would leave you with more internal storage space available?

I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure that it is possible on handsets to re-partition the memory card so that it can be "used" as internal memory. Or it can be used as an emulated drive. This was quite popular with owners of handsets such as HTC Desire.

If you do not have options you can use App2SD.

But beware that some realtime apps (such as GPS tracking) continually write to the SD and can give chance to memory corruption.
Thus you have to pick and choose which to put to SD.
Apps with lots of static data should hopefully play good and allow 'store data on SD card' as an app setting.

Oh good grief , people are totally clueless on here when it comes to something slightly technical.

Right op. Firstly you need to be rooted. Then you need to create a Linux ext4 partition on your sd card (1gb is usually enough). I used an app called Mounts2SD to do the heavy lifting on my Nexus one. The ext4 partition becomes your system memory.

However you need to Google how to do this for the Ace as there are a few steps getting it right. Also I would only do it with a class 10 so card or above as the read write speed needs to be fast.

That's the stuff.

Do you have a link which shows how to do it reliably on the Nexus One, just so I can get an idea of what's involved?

As I said, I have had a bit of a look for methods of doing it on the Ace but most of the threads seem to be posted by people who can't get it to work which're answered by people saying "Well, MY Ace now has 500mb base memory so I know it's possible and you must be doing it wrong".
Yeah, well that's wonderful but how about posting up some advice for how to actually do it rather than just gloating?

I'm actually not that fussed about moving proper system app's across to the SD cards cos I'm a bit worried it might screw things up in the future if the card dies or somebody else does a factory reset.

The main thing is simply to find a reliable way to extend the system memory enough to accept future updates and, perhaps, add a few app's which insist on being installed in the system memory.

It's possible but not easy. At the very minimum requires root.

So getting root is difficult?!

The OP has already rooted the Ace and is obviously confident.

Rooting is a doddle though isn't it. Hardly requires an expert.

Learn to read - particularly where there's a full stop between sentences.

If you want to push the boat out a bit more Si, you can consider
Cyanogenmod 7/8/9 and simple2ext.
I used cm9 and simple2 ext on a htc desire.

As tealady says S2E works great (and only with) CM. I would consider flashing a stable or Release Candidate of CM on your Ace. A video guide to S2E is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ8iLsJv2Ao

As for Mounts2SD, here is how I prepared the ext partition (apologies if you know how to do this and it is an alternative to what is in the video).

1. Go to the Unbutu website and follow the instructions on how to make a bootable usb flash drive.

2. Boot into Ubuntu and mount your sd card.

3. Format it as FAT. Then create a separate partition for your data and format as ext4. As I said 1gb is enough usually.

Now as for Mounts2SD get that from the Play Store. The guide built by the develpoper is here:
https://github.com/SpazeDog/mounts2sd

One reason why Mounts2SD might fail is lack of init.d support in the ROM. This has never been a problem with any device I have used but I don't know about the Ace. There is help in the guide about this. However Cyanogen Mod does support init.d so there is another reason to switch.

I would love to help more but I have sold my Nexus One and Orange San Francisco so I don't have anything to reinstall it on to write a guide.

Does CM9 run OK on your Desire? Cyanogenmod wiki says the Desire is only supported to CM7

I had a Desire and got fed up with the internal memory.

I rooted and partitioned the SD card and used Link2sd with CM7.
The internal memory still fills up eventually, i had 103 apps installed before i got low memory warnings again but it was like having a new phone.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2142844

Ah, sorry, it was CM10.1 , I was running 4.2.2 here it was great.
I decided to get an N4 due to the larger screen size (eyesight) and the OS felt as though I had regressed.