And you said not everything can be backed up, so basically if I attach an external hard drive using a OTG cable, would I not be able to back up everything on my device (including apps and their app data)? I would basically only be able to back up or transfer files to it?
Thanks
You can certainly backup all your important pics, videos, docs, music, etc. to external storage using an OTG cable, or to an online cloud service such as Google Drive, or to a computer. Which I strongly recommend that everyone does this anyway. For apps, they'll still be available to install from your Google Play account. As for the app data,
you'll need to check the backup options that might in the particular apps you've got. Some games do sync your progress, achievements, IAPs, coins, tokens, etc. from Google Play itself. You'll know those because they always show the login and sync progress when you start them. Games from Steam and Amazon may have something similar.
Banking and financial apps will always keep a list of your balances and transactions on their own servers. Things like WeChat, WhatsApp, and Telegram have their own backup and restore options.
FYI some mainstream manufacturers, such as Samsung and Huawei, just don't support formatting SD cards as internal storage on their devices. Likely because of the problems it can lead to. And if you have one of Google's own Pixel phones, this problem just doesn't happen, because they don't take SD cards.