Android Expandable Storage Limitations (Tab S9) Make MicroSD Less Useful

A lot of people mention Android tablets and their ability to accept microSD cards as an advantage over iPads. While this is true, the OS has also put some limitations in place since years back that limit the functionality of the expandable storage.
Consequently, it's not as useful as it could be and what you can do with it isn't as simple as plugging a card in and functionally having "extra internal storage".
The expandable storage cannot be set as the default app install location anymore, nor do quite a few apps I tried allow you to transfer them to the card after the fact. That's rather hit or miss as far as which ones do, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.
As a gaming tablet among other serious tasks, this could be a bit problematic depending on what you were planning to do.
#galaxytabs9 #microsd #tablets

[@shuflie]

If you feel up to it you can enable developer options the usual way by tapping the build number a few time. In the developer options tab near the bottom you can force allow any program to be moved to the SD card. Just be aware that some apps may not like being there and act strangely, avoid any apps that run at start up to give you notification, and steer away from system apps completely, if you can't uninstall it, don't move it.

[@ramy8700]

Thank you, ive always had these issues but had no clue why. Going forward I can make a more informed decision. Crazy how NO reviewers mention this.

[@meekolot]

I use the microSD mostly for pdf, videos, photos, music. I use it also for my roms for emulation games. Planning to buy a 1TB microSD in the future cause the microSD is almost at 150GB. The only nitpick I have is that read/write on microSD is limited to 60-80mbps. So I treat the microSD like HDD while internal memory as the SSD just like in my pc. Id say its still useful in a way, but hopefully in the future they put better read/write system for microSD cause I used a A2 Extreme and its not that different from regular A1 microSD in terms of read/write 🥹, hardware limitation sucks

[@Digimorphosis]

That's a good example of where it's still useful, and I appreciate that. I'm with you wondering if there will be a breakthrough in microSD technology at some point that would allow for much faster speeds, and possibly something the operating system would allow a bit more in tandem with the system.

[@aliceinwonderlust]

Where has this video been? 😭 so much makes more sense now

[@suzannenewton6565]

Thank you, I learned much of what you speak when I first tried expanding my TabA after purchasing SD card for this very purpose. I wanted to add simple offline games then found other apps to use too but few would run from SD card for while formatted as memory couldn't be used but FAT format did let me move them. Then Samsung started telling us on they had decided to unlock bloatware allowing it to be removed by us giving us additional space to use. The company also informed us they had stopped blocking recognition of memory formatted sd card but let us know not all apps could run from expanded memory SD cards because of their design. Samsung let us know basically that was out of their hands. So now your message has reminded me that while progress has been made no one making SD cards bothered to create ones suitable or if their added cost makes it as costly as getting device with larger memory already installed. I contemplated moving to iPad but price and fact they are even worse for storage expansion, there is none unless you want to trust cloud and I won't. Thanks for excellent summation of current situation

[@yulia-8115]

Big thank you!!!

[@Whit3WolfXArcadia]

Sd card as internal storage suck because the performance of the device takes a hit also the feature was deprecated on devices that launch with Android 11 or higher Samsung phones and tablets never supported the featured but you can move apps to SD card if developer supports it

[@mrcraggle]

Thanks for making this video. It's a great tablet but having the SD card labelled as a feature when it's next to useless feels quite deceiving. I use the tablet mainly for media consumption during travel/work journeys/when the WIFI in a hotel sucks, etc and having Netflix and many other apps just take up all of the internal storage is quite frustrating. As an example, Netflix has an option in settings labelled Download Location and it lets you choose SD Card but it simply reverts back to internal.

[@Digimorphosis]

Yeah that is annoying, and in your case especially because a good microSD card could totally read fast enough for HD and even 4k Netflix videos, so there's no concern of performance hit there and therefore no good reason to limit that being the default storage spot.

[@jasonjayalap]

Here's something: my android tablet can't scan and repair an exfat formatted card. Imagine my surprise when it wanted to format the card on reboot. I had to put it into a windows computer and run a scan/repair. Since format as internal is gone, it only makes since to use the universal filesystem, exfat. Too bad it's prone to needing repair and android can't do it. How does this problem exist in 2024?

[@littlewing2357]

Well explained.

[@buddyboy4x44]

Well said.

[@ricalez4677]

good video !!!!

[@yolielin4143]

You answered so many questions about the SD card in my Tab S9FE+. I found it to be totally useless! When I transferred a few video files over to the SD card, the Internal Storage is still full, and has not deducted the few gigabytes from those videos. Why did this happen? Isn't it supposed to free up some space in the Internal Storage so I can record more?.....

[@salilchaurasiya8219]

Because you copied it , not moved it

[@emmanuellalfakzuala252]

​@@salilchaurasiya8219right? I can understand people complaining bc they can't move some apps but saying you transferred the file but the extra storage is not deducted from the internal storage is just flat out a lie or like you said he copied it

[@martywatkins1398]

They stumble across this video I've been using Microsoft sync toy to sync my favorites my flash drives in my MP3 player funny thing is when I plug in my phone with my microSD card or now this S9 tablet when I try to set up a sink toy to sync my music to the SD card it won't let me do it.

[@luke_1234]

I’m hoping the Tab S10 can handle a 1.5tb sd card

[@andrewschliewe6392]

To me, the expandable storage is for media files, documents, etc so it doesn't clog up the internal storage leaving it to primarily store the apps.

[@Digimorphosis]

That's fair and totally valid. I wanted to make this video like I said, just because too often reviewers make it sound like the simple solution to buying a tablet with very little internal storage is adding an SD card to absorb all of that, which it doesn't totally do. There are plenty of cases where if you got a device with too little internal storage, having the SD card wouldn't actually solve certain problems like people are often told it would.

[@LatrixVerboon]

It's surprising how this isn't a popular enough topic in developed countries, oh well cause Indian XDA gurus and some sort got used to these things

[@tofu_golem]

Honestly, the "restrictions" on using MicroSD on my Galaxy Tab S9+ are no big deal. I'm really happy with it. The restrictions on using external storage on my smart TV with an Android-based firmware on the other hand make me want to pull my hair out. The TV comes with very little internal storage, and none of the apps I would want to run on a smart TV can be transferred to external storage.

[@Digimorphosis]

I'm glad they haven't been a big deal for you. It's a great tablet and there's a lot to like about it. 👍🏻

[@user-xw1wl7nf9y]

It's true

[@jkillah0]

So yesterday I inserted the sd card to my s9. Took out and transfer all my games in my pc. Inserted back on s9 and wouldn’t recognize. Wasted all day transferring roms. Lesson learned Gotta transfer throught cable attach to pc. Reason cause the limitation crap. Lenovo didn’t do this.

[@Digimorphosis]

Aggh I'm sorry that happened to you. I don't know if you selected the option to unmount the Drive from the tablet before taking that out and if that was maybe responsible for scrambling stuff out but I hear you, the limitations are aggravating nonetheless.

[@andyp8464]

There is no good reason android made this change except to get folks to buy cloud storage. In a supposedly more open platform, the user should have the choice. I've used android for 15 years and seen Samsung take some major backward steps in many areas

[@Bc232klm]

And for stuff like media and emulators. It's absolutely perfect for me.

[@Bc232klm]

And for stuff like media and emulators. It's absolutely perfect for me.

[@andyp8464]

@Bc232klm agreed. I might get some emulators. I'm struggling to enjoy mobile games. Both my s9 ultra tablet and s7+ have micro sd storage and I can't see any downside to having it available