Help I need more storage space for my games

Joey3155 · Feb 11, 2021

So I need more storage space for my games so I bought a micro SD card thinking I could just insert it into the phone and format it and boost my storage capacity. But after ordering the card and reading some articles it seems I can't insert it without having to remove my SIM card. Worse still even if I could most games can't be placed on the card either because S9 doesn't support adotable storage or because the S9 can't format the card as internal storage. Not sure which it is but that all means the micro SD card is a wash, I need to cancel the order on Amazon. So I am back at square one. How do I boost storage space so I have more space for games? Do I have an other options open to me.

Hadron · Feb 11, 2021

Just to correct one misunderstanding: you can't insert the microSD without removing the SIM card because the two share the same slot. But they share it, so you can put the SIM back in together with the microSD. It's only a problem is you have a dual-SIM model and actually want to use 2 SIMs (because for those models it's 1 SIM + 1 microSD or 2 SIMs).

But yeah, Samsung don't do adoptive storage (i.e. formatting the card as internal), or certainly not on their flagship models. Nothing you can do about that. There may be older-style kludges available if you root the phone (if you can root the phone, and if that won't stop you doing something else that's important to you). Otherwise the one thing you can do to increase storage is to fit a microSD card and move other stuff to it: media storage is what the card is intended for, so photos, videos, music etc can be moved, which will free up space for apps (especially videos, which eat a lot of space). Of course that assumes that these occupy a significant amount of storage on your phone - it won't help if they don't. You may be able to partially move some user-installed apps to SD anyway (Settings > Apps (or App Manager), select an app, look for a "move to SD" button). But that only moves part of the app and doesn't move the app's data, and not all apps support it, so it's impossible to say from here how much this will help you.

Other that using a microSD card in one of those ways, the only way to boost space is to remove stuff you don't need from the phone.

Joey3155 · Feb 11, 2021

Hadron said:
Just to correct one misunderstanding: you can't insert the microSD without removing the SIM card because the two share the same slot. But they share it, so you can put the SIM back in together with the microSD. It's only a problem is you have a dual-SIM model and actually want to use 2 SIMs (because for those models it's 1 SIM + 1 microSD or 2 SIMs).

But yeah, Samsung don't do adoptive storage (i.e. formatting the card as internal), or certainly not on their flagship models. Nothing you can do about that. There may be older-style kludges available if you root the phone (if you can root the phone, and if that won't stop you doing something else that's important to you). Otherwise the one thing you can do to increase storage is to fit a microSD card and move other stuff to it: media storage is what the card is intended for, so photos, videos, music etc can be moved, which will free up space for apps (especially videos, which eat a lot of space). Of course that assumes that these occupy a significant amount of storage on your phone - it won't help if they don't. You may be able to partially move some user-installed apps to SD anyway (Settings > Apps (or App Manager), select an app, look for a "move to SD" button). But that only moves part of the app and doesn't move the app's data, and not all apps support it, so it's impossible to say from here how much this will help you.

Other that using a microSD card in one of those ways, the only way to boost space is to remove stuff you don't need from the phone.

I don't take photos or use my camera much so I won't be able to claim any space that...

I was reading an article about connecting an external HDD to a laptop (I assume a desktop also works) and then turning on wi-fi hotspot on the phone and then accessing the drive as if it was a network drive. Would this allow the phone to use the HDD as storage space? I'd connect the HDD directly to the phone but I hear that's a great way to fry a phone due to the stress and heat an HDD would generate for the phone. My phone supports USB OTG because that's basically would my charger cable is supposedly. I'm new to phones I normally do PC gaming.

mikedt · Feb 11, 2021

Joey3155 said:
So I need more storage space for my games so I bought a micro SD card thinking I could just insert it into the phone and format it and boost my storage capacity. But after ordering the card and reading some articles it seems I can't insert it without having to remove my SIM card. Worse still even if I could most games can't be placed on the card either because S9 doesn't support adotable storage or because the S9 can't format the card as internal storage. Not sure which it is but that all means the micro SD card is a wash, I need to cancel the order on Amazon. So I am back at square one. How do I boost storage space so I have more space for games? Do I have an other options open to me.

Which Galaxy S9, and how much storage capacity did you order? FYI this phone is available with up to 256GB internal storage, which from my experience is more than enough storage for game apps. The SD can be used for videos, photos, music, etc, which can take lot of storage, depending on your content.

Joey3155 · Feb 11, 2021

mikedt said:
Which Galaxy S9, and how much storage capacity did you order? FYI this phone is available with up to 256GB internal storage, which from my experience is more than enough storage for game apps. The SD can be used for videos, photos, music, etc, which can take lot of stage, depending on your content.

I didn't know that. When I got it from T-Mobile they never mentioned that so the 64 GB of internal storage I thought was the device default.

My storage is 99.9% games I very, very rarely use my camera I can actually name all non-game downloads I have so few they are.

Dannydet · Feb 11, 2021

Delete some of the 99% of your games.

Unforgiven · Feb 11, 2021

Dannydet said:
Delete some of the 99% of your games.

I hate to say it, but you may have to remove games you aren't currently playing or prioritize what games you want to keep playing or replay. This is beyond what @Hadron mentioned about partially moving apps to an sd card.

mikedt · Feb 11, 2021

Joey3155 said:
I didn't know that. When I got it from T-Mobile they never mentioned that so the 64 GB of internal storage I thought was the device default.

My storage is 99.9% games I very, very rarely use my camera I can actually name all non-game downloads I have so few they are.

What games are you actually playing? I play mobile phone games, and total storage is no more than 10GB for them.

Joey3155 · Feb 11, 2021

mikedt said:
What games are you actually playing? I play mobile phone games, and total storage is no more than 10GB for them.

Azur Lane, Illusion Connect, Princess Connect Re Dive, FAP CEO, Forge of Empires, Shop Titans, TerraGenesis, ReBless Zwei R, College Life, Goetia X, Versus Tales R, Tavern of Sins, Lewd Soccer League... Goddess I have no shame. Those are the main ones I am playing. what kills storage is the fact they get regular updates over time Azur Lane is my flagship main and it eats up a crapton of space. The rest of my games probably wouldn't clear two gigs.

Dannydet · Feb 11, 2021

Nevertheless, your games need to be removed.
Maybe keep just a few and see if that helps

mikedt · Feb 11, 2021

Joey3155 said:
Azur Lane, Illusion Connect, Princess Connect Re Dive, FAP CEO, Forge of Empires, Shop Titans, TerraGenesis, ReBless Zwei R, College Life, Goetia X, Versus Tales R, Tavern of Sins, Lewd Soccer League... Goddess I have no shame. Those are the main ones I am playing. what kills storage is the fact they get regular updates over time Azur Lane is my flagship main and it eats up a crapton of space. The rest of my games probably wouldn't clear two gigs.

Yeh, that's quite a few games, maybe 64GB isn't enough? As I previously posted, the S9 is available up to 256GB, or 128GB, which should be more than enough for them.

Joey3155 · Feb 11, 2021

mikedt said:
Yeh, that's quite a few games, maybe 64GB isn't enough? As I previously posted, the S9 is available up to 256GB, or 128GB, which should be more than enough for them.

Well for now I guess I really have no choice but to make some sacrifices... But in the long term, actually probably soon, I plan to buy a new phone for mobile gaming. I love my Galaxy S9 and I'd buy it again actually but then it's a phone that's a few years old so end of life is worrying me, also while it seems to support Android 10 since that's what the phone lists the OS as I worry about future software support. Then there's the storage issue. So I have two options I can buy the S9 again and this time get the 256 GB version or I can buy a new phone with new features the problem I see is even when measured against phones like ASUS ROG Phone 3 and Red Magic 5G the other phone has overall better hardware but the S9 seems to come ahead with better pixel density, resolution, and sometimes CPU. But the newer phones have software/hardware features I really want. So what should I do?

Hadron · Feb 12, 2021

Joey3155 said:
I was reading an article about connecting an external HDD to a laptop (I assume a desktop also works) and then turning on wi-fi hotspot on the phone and then accessing the drive as if it was a network drive. Would this allow the phone to use the HDD as storage space? I'd connect the HDD directly to the phone but I hear that's a great way to fry a phone due to the stress and heat an HDD would generate for the phone. My phone supports USB OTG because that's basically would my charger cable is supposedly. I'm new to phones I normally do PC gaming.

I'm afraid this wouldn't help anyway. It would allow your phone to read files on the external drive, so if you wanted to play musics from it then great. It would also allow you to copy files there. But you won't be able to run apps from there (either via WiFi or OTG).

Joey3155 said:
So I have two options I can buy the S9 again and this time get the 256 GB version or I can buy a new phone with new features the problem I see is even when measured against phones like ASUS ROG Phone 3 and Red Magic 5G the other phone has overall better hardware but the S9 seems to come ahead with better pixel density, resolution, and sometimes CPU. But the newer phones have software/hardware features I really want. So what should I do?

How much pixel density do you need? What resolution do you run these games at? The 390ppi density of those 2 phones is not high by current standards, but on the other hand I'm sure that you don't need the 570 ppi density of the S9. Quite often the correct question to ask is "what's enough?" rather than "which is higher?" - though as your phone usage is very different from mine, and your eyes probably are too, I can't answer that for you.

But I'm surprised you say that the S9 ever wins in CPU: both of those phones use Snapdragon 865+, which will handily beat the s845 of the better variant of the s9 (we'll not even talk about the Exynos variant, which lags behind the s845). I can't myself see any contest in the processors, especially if your main use is graphically-intensive games.

But assuming that your reason for considering these options is partly budgetary, have you considered the s10 or s20 series? You may be able to find models there that give you the higher density screen plus greater storage without the price premium of the s21.

Joey3155 · Feb 12, 2021

Hadron said:
I'm afraid this wouldn't help anyway. It would allow your phone to read files on the external drive, so if you wanted to play musics from it then great. It would also allow you to copy files there. But you won't be able to run apps from there (either via WiFi or OTG).

How much pixel density do you need? What resolution do you run these games at? The 390ppi density of those 2 phones is not high by current standards, but on the other hand I'm sure that you don't need the 570 ppi density of the S9. Quite often the correct question to ask is "what's enough?" rather than "which is higher?" - though as your phone usage is very different from mine, and your eyes probably are too, I can't answer that for you.

But I'm surprised you say that the S9 ever wins in CPU: both of those phones use Snapdragon 865+, which will handily beat the s845 of the better variant of the s9 (we'll not even talk about the Exynos variant, which lags behind the s845). I can't myself see any contest in the processors, especially if your main use is graphically-intensive games.

But assuming that your reason for considering these options is partly budgetary, have you considered the s10 or s20 series? You may be able to find models there that give you the higher density screen plus greater storage without the price premium of the s21.

The comparison in which the S9's CPU pulled ahead wasn't the one with the ROG 3 I compared the S9 to several ones on a few websites the S9's CPU beat I think it was the Black Snake or something I can't remember the name. Though that was one of several criteria I was looking at.

As for the Pixel Density now that I am used to the S9 won't I see the drop in picture clarity. I want the superior hardware of the newer generations but I also want my images to look good for reasons...

I ended up with the realization of getting a newer phone and getting better hardware but less sharp images, or getting the 256 GB S9 and getting a better image sharpness at the expense of better hardware and relying on a old phone that is in the beginning of end of life since it doesn't look like Samsung is releasing anymore major updates for it just security patches.

Help I need more storage space for my games

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