If y'all need to use an old phone as a stop-gap, your biggest concern is probably the storage. But that's no trouble, correct? Y'all tin can just throw an SD card into the expandable storage slot, and everything volition be fine.

Except that might not be the case. Using an SD card as your main storage can give ascent to a lot of unexpected issues.

Here are some of the disadvantages that come when using an SD card with Android.

one. Speed Suffers

There's a broad spectrum of SD cards available, all of which have wildly different operation levels. If you lot use a low-quality bill of fare, yous'll rapidly go frustrated with all the delays.

This is especially true if y'all motility lots of apps onto the SD card. Loading times, refresh rates, and sync speeds could all decrease dramatically. Sadly, about people likely suffer from this. They use whatsoever old SD card they have lying around without because whether information technology'due south the best tool for the job.

If yous only plan on storing photos and files on your SD card, either of the two fastest carte du jour types—UHS-I and Grade 10—volition be sufficient.

However, if you plan on installing entire apps on your card, y'all as well demand to look out for the bill of fare'south app performance class. A1 and A2 are the two options bachelor; A2 is faster.

microsd card
Image Credit: Lexar

2. Vanishing Shortcuts and Forgotten Passwords

During my ain recent usage of an SD menu in my Android phone, I ran into a curious issue. Every time the phone's battery died (which, due to the device'south age, was oftentimes), any shortcuts for apps I had moved onto the SD bill of fare vanished from my phone's home screen.

As I like to keep my home screen organized into folders, it was seriously abrasive.

And worse still, some of the afflicted apps—including Twitter, MyFitnessPal, and Reddit—also lost all their saved passwords, settings, and other user information.

I'm non going to pretend to know why this happened, nor can I promise it will happen to yous. It is, even so, indicative of the types of unexpected issues that can arise when you use an SD bill of fare with Android.

iii. Finding Files Is a Nightmare

Although you can format your SD card then information technology becomes adopted internal storage, that doesn't mean that your phone will meet both disks equally a single entity. Therefore, depending on your usage patterns, it might become cumbersome to find the files you need at a given time.

For instance, you lot could terminate upwardly in a state of affairs where different types of information are stored across the disks. You might have photos and local music on your SD card, only your offline Google Docs and downloaded Chrome files on the internal memory. The more apps you utilise, the more problematic this fragmentation will become.

Are you confident you lot can recall which apps save their files on which storage unit, months later on the initial setup?

It could all hinder your productivity. Information technology might go out you with duplicates taking up unnecessary space, and result in a breakdown of your file management systems.

4. SD Carte du jour Failure

SD cards have a limited number of read/write cycles. Every time y'all access data on it, the remaining lifespan decreases. Naturally, the lifespan too varies depending on the quality of the SD card. A SanDisk product will live longer than a inexpensive no-proper name card from eBay.

To further complicate the problem, yous might non know how old a spare bill of fare is. If you use an old SD that sat effectually gathering dust for years, you lot probably take no idea how much use it got in the past. You'll thus not know how long it might keep plodding along.

And remember, unlike traditional hard drives, there might non be any alarm signs before an SD card fails. If y'all don't have backups, you could lose lots of vital piece of work in seconds.

To reduce the chances of issues down the road, check out our list of mistakes to avoid when buying a microSD carte.

five. Migrating to a New Telephone Is Frustrating

Perhaps reverse to many people's agreement, an SD card on Android is non necessarily analogous to an SD bill of fare (or USB flash bulldoze) on a PC. On a desktop or laptop computer, you can move your carte du jour or wink drive between dissimilar devices and access your files without a problem—they are portable.

If yous endeavor to move your Android phone'southward SD card into some other phone or attempt to access its contents on a figurer, you will probably be out of luck. Why? Because when yous set an SD card every bit local Android storage, the card becomes encrypted to its host device.

Thus, if you lot purchase a new phone, y'all cannot simply move your card and carry on. You have to format the card'southward data (losing everything) and kickoff again from scratch.

six. Reduced Gaming Performance

Some of the most significant storage hogs on Android phones are games. This doesn't hateful simple titles like crossword games, simply rather those with high-stop graphics and extensive gameplay. The app's files and your saved games can add upwardly to several gigabytes' worth of data.

Information technology might be tempting to move such games onto your SD bill of fare, but this is a bad thought. Fifty-fifty the all-time A1 Form 10 SD cards will non perform fast enough for mod Android games.

You'll end upwardly with gameplay glitches, missing graphics, and frequent crashes. These are the types of drawbacks you don't retrieve well-nigh when you consider the pros of using an SD carte with Android.

Are You Nonetheless Planning to Utilise an SD Bill of fare?

If yous've read and understood the points we've made, merely you even so want to press alee and use an SD bill of fare in your Android device, then go alee. It might all work out fine. But you need to be aware that bug can occur, and when they do, they will likely accept you tearing your hair out in frustration.

To save yourself the hassle, it might be best to have that you'll have performance and storage bug while using the terminate-gap phone, and just pray for the Amazon delivery driver to plough upwardly ASAP!

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Well-nigh The Writer

Dan Price (1604 Manufactures Published)

Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Accomplish out to him for inquires about sponsored content, chapter agreements, promotions, and any other forms of partnership. You can also find him roaming the evidence flooring at CES in Las Vegas every year, say hullo if you're going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.

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