Please explain memory to me

[PghLesbian]

Hi.

My phone is sending me a message every 60 seconds or so that my memory is full. But I'm quite perplexed. I don't really understand how memory works so it would be great if someone could help me understand the problem so I can avoid this scenario.

This is what I know

I have an Samsung Stratosphere SCH 1405.

I bought this phone in October I believe.

I run 4 accounts through the "Email" app - all 4 are gmail accounts. I get a lot of email and it is hard to keep up with deleting it so I have twice deleted all email and reinstalled the accounts. That did not seem to help resolve the issue.

The message urges me to delete calendar, contact, messages and email. I deleted all texts, I deleted the phone log. I can't delete contacts & calendar data - I need it.

If I look at my apps running and all of that, I see that my phone is using 739 MG and has 1.5GB free of "system storage" I also see that I have 201 MB used of RAM and 97 MB free.

So I don't really know what this means. But my phone is freezing 5-6 times a day, my battery is draining and I can't get my photos & videos transferred.

It is very frustating when you don't understand the technical language.

Thank you,

Sue

 

[jgreetham]

This may be specific to your phone so I don't know how much I can help with your problem. Most phones have a internal SD card and and external SD card. The internal one is typically where the programs and data are stored and it is split into 2 parts - "system storage" where the programs are stored and the rest where the data is stored. That's a bit of a simplification but OK for now. From your message it seems to me that your memory should be OK but it could be in the details of your phone or maybe there's something wrong with your phone.

The external SD card is one that you buy and insert into a slot somewhere on the phone - typically you have to take the back off to get to it. It doesn't appear that you have one of those.

If you want to store videos, photos, etc. on your phone you should get a micro SD card for your external memory. You can buy 16 Gb micro SD cards at amazon or other online sites for less that $20.00 US. Take a look at the "Moving Stuff Between Android and PC" in this Android Lounge forum.

If you use gmail, I believe all your emails & gmail contacts are stored in the clouds on Google's systems. That's why you can see them from your PC too. I don't know how much is actually stored locally on your phone. You *can* store contacts on your phone too independent of Google. Text messages would be stored locally on your phone.

Hope this helps.

 

[APSoft]

My phone is sending me a message every 60 seconds or so that my memory is full.

Could you post what exactly it says in that message? As you noticed, there are different types of memory, so you might be trying to free up one, but the message is actually about something else.

I don't really understand how memory works so it would be great if someone could help me understand the problem so I can avoid this scenario.

The phone has RAM, internal storage and external storage.

RAM (512MB in your case) - that's where the apps are running. It's fast, but temporary - when the phone is powered off completely, everything is gone from that memory to be loaded again when the phone is powered back on.

The internal storage is where all the applications and their data are stored. It is like a hard drive on a computer. When the phone is powered off (even a battery could be removed), all the data stays intact in that storage memory.

Most of the phones also have the external memory, known as SD card (in most cases it's a micro-SD card actually). It is kind of an addition to the internal storage, but with some limitations. Not all applications or data could be put there as the external card usually can be removed from the phone at any moment. But it's good for music and pictures, for example.

I have an Samsung Stratosphere SCH 1405.

This phone has quite a lot of internal storage memory, so it is strange you get those messages asking to delete data.

If I look at my apps running and all of that, I see that my phone is using 739 MG and has 1.5GB free of "system storage" I also see that I have 201 MB used of RAM and 97 MB free.

The numbers look fine. The first two numbers are internal storage, where all your emails, contacts and other data is stored, and you've got plenty of that storage available.

So I don't really know what this means. But my phone is freezing 5-6 times a day, my battery is draining and I can't get my photos & videos transferred.

I would recommend to do a factory reset.
Backup any data, which you can (some applications have this option). Your emails, calendar, contacts are probably already stored somewhere on the server, which your phone synchronizes to.
Then open Settings - Privacy, and select Factory data reset. All your information will be gone, you will need to setup and synchronize your accounts again, install apps, etc. Try to do it gradually - first setup your mail/contact/calendar accounts, do not install any 3rd-party apps, and monitor the device for some time. If everything is fine, install applications one by one, while still monitoring how the phone behaves.

If you will get the same problems right away after the factory reset, there might be something wrong with your phone, and you might need to bring it back to the store.

 

[Doit2it]

Are you running a custom ROM? I got low memory messages on my Droid X when I tried to run the Liberty ROM.