How To Use Sd Card As Internal Storage On Android?

use-sd-card-as-internal-storage

How to Use SD Card as Internal Storage on Android?

If your Android device does not have enough internal storage to store all the apps you need, you can use the SD card as internal storage for your Android phone. A feature called Adoptable Storage allows the Android OS to format external storage media as permanent internal storage. Data on the SD card is encrypted and cannot be mounted on any other device.

SD card is very handy option to store photos, songs and videos. Even if you have a huge amount of data stored on your Android phone, you may need a memory card / SD card to shoot long videos on your phone’s high-resolution camera.

Android still installs apps on the internal memory. So if you are using Android One devices and your phone lacks internal storage, then you are deprived of installing further apps.

What is an Adoptable Storage?

There is a feature called Adoptable Storage on Android. It allows microSD card to be used as internal storage on an Android phone. This way you can overcome the constraint of lack of internal storage.

Google introduced adoptable storage with the release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Other such methods already existed but they were difficult to use.

Some important points

While adopting an adaptable storage; Whether it is an SD card (microSD card) or a USB drive , Android formats it and converts its file system from FAT32 or exFAT to ext4 or f2fs. It sounds great to use your SD card as internal storage, but there is some good and some bad in it –

SD cards are slow

This is the painful reality of these small memory cards. Although they can store a lot of data, they are slow as compared to internal storage. microSD card has a limited Read/Write cycle. Using SD card as internal storage requires more read/write cycle.

Android ensures the performance of the SD card whether it is capable of acting as an internal storage or not. If the SD card is too slow it may also refuse to adopt.

Your Android will fully adopt the storage media

Android encrypts the external SD card to be used as an internal storage, thus, it is tied to a specific Android device. Now it cannot be mounted on any other Android device.

Always make sure that you do not remove the SD card from the device without following the unmount procedure, otherwise, the SD card may get damaged.

Also Read: How Useful is Cloud Computing – Examples & Types

How to Use SD Card as Internal Storage on Android? (Step By Step Tutorial)

It is a simple process to configure the SD card to be used as internal storage on Android. Please note that your SD card will be formatted during this process so be sure to back up your data.

It may also be that this option is not present on your device even if it is running Android 6.0 and above. To make your SD card adoptable storage, do this-

  • Install the SD card inside your Android phone and wait for it to be detected.
  • Now, open Settings
  • Scroll down and go to the Storage section.

Storage-and-USB

  • Tap on the name of your SD card.
  • At the top right corner of the screen three vertical dots (Three Vertical Dots) Tap.
  • Tap Storage setting.

Storage-Setting

  • Select the format as internal option

SD-Card-Format

  • On the next screen, this is your last chance to decide whether you want to format your SD card or not. If you want to use your SD card as internal storage, then tap on Erase & Erase Format.

Formatting

  • You can start the data migration process now or do it later.

Move-data-to-new-storage

  • Tap on Done and finish the storage adoption process of your SD card.

SD-card-is-ready

After the draft process is complete, do not delete it without using the Eject option.

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