If you are running out of free space on your smartphone, you might wonder how you can increase the storage size.
All mobile phones use SIM cards, and you can store contacts on SIM cards in some phone models.
Therefore, you might wonder whether you can increase your phone’s internal storage by using a different SIM card.
In this article, we explain why you can’t increase your phone’s storage by getting a new SIM card.
Does SIM Card Determine Your Phone’s Storage Capacity:
Your SIM card doesn’t determine your phone’s internal storage size. SIM cards can only store a few hundred kilobytes of data at most. So they can only store a few hundred of your contacts at most. All your personal data, including photos, videos, and other files, are stored on your phone’s internal storage or micro SD card.
Can You Increase Your Phone’s Storage Capacity By Installing A Different SIM Card?
You can’t increase your phone’s storage size by using a different SIM card.
Your SIM card doesn’t store your apps, pictures, music, movies, or other files; it only stores mobile carrier information.
Some phones can also store contact information on SIM cards. But SIM cards don’t have enough space to store your personal files.
So a new SIM card won’t increase your phone’s storage capacity.
How To Increase Your Phone’s Storage Size
If you have an Android phone with a micro SD slot, you can add a micro SD card to increase the storage size.
On the other hand, iPhones don’t support expandable storage. So you are stuck with the original storage capacity of your iPhone model.
You can also store your photos, music, videos, and other files on cloud storage services like iCloud or Google Drive to free up your phone’s storage.
You can also store data on a USB external drive to save phone storage for essential apps.
What Type Of Data Is Stored On A SIM Card?
SIM cards store mobile network-related information, like integrated circuit card identifier (ICCID), international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), personal identification number (PIN), authentication key, and local area identity.
In some phone models, you can also save contact information to the SIM card.
However, SIM cards don’t have sufficient capacity to store your photos, music, videos, or any other personal files.
What Is The Storage Size Of A SIM Card?
Different SIM cards can have different sizes. Typically, the storage capacity of a SIM card ranges from 8 KB to 256 KB.
Generally, you can store a maximum of 250 contacts on a SIM card.
What Is The Storage Type Of A SIM Card?
Most SIM cards use EEPROM memory (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory).
They can also use flash storage, like regular USB pen drives.
Why Don’t SIM Cards Come With Large Storage Sizes?
SIM cards should be cheap. Adding large storage will make them expensive.
Users often use multiple SIM cards and swap them to connect to different networks. So getting multiple high-capacity SIM cards is a waste of money.
Also, people who travel abroad use local SIM cards for only a few days. So SIM cards should be cheap and disposable.
Therefore, adding a large storage chip to a SIM card is not worth it.
Conclusion
Your phone’s SIM card doesn’t store your photos, music, videos, or any other personal files. It only has the capacity to store several hundred contacts at most.
All your personal files are stored on your phone’s internal storage or micro SD card.
So you can’t increase your phone’s storage capacity by using a different SIM card.
