Your phone’s processor, display, network modems, and camera consume significant battery power. But what about the storage?
Does your phone’s storage affect battery life?
Here’s Whether Phone Storage Affects Battery Life
Phone storage size doesn’t affect battery life, but a lack of free storage can slightly increase battery drain and reduce the battery life.
Can The Lack Of Free Storage Reduce The Battery Life Of Your Phone?
Your phone’s OS and apps use the phone’s storage to save temporary files, and when the storage gets full, it becomes harder for them to find sufficient space for these caching operations, which increases their battery drain.
The OS and apps might also index the files in your phone’s storage; for example, photo gallery apps rebuild their galleries regularly. So when you have too many files in your phone’s storage, these indexing operations will take longer and consume more battery power.
However, the lack of free storage won’t significantly reduce your phone’s battery life compared to other battery drain sources, like power-hungry background apps.
Will Larger Internal Storage Drains A Phone Battery Faster?
Larger internal storage won’t drain a phone’s battery faster. Phones use flash memory for storage, and flash memory doesn’t consume battery power to retain data. So storage size won’t affect battery drain.
However, having too many files in your phone’s storage can increase battery drain because of OS and app file indexing operations.
Can Memory Cards Affect The Battery Life Of A Phone?
A memory card will slightly increase the battery drain. Every passive electronic component, including microSD cards, consumes battery power.
Memory cards, however, have a low-power mode and consume very little power when not reading or writing. So having a microSD card in your phone won’t increase battery drain unless some app frequently reads or writes to it.
Accessing a memory card requires slightly more power than internal storage, so if you store apps on a microSD card, those apps will increase battery drain.
Your phone’s OS will also initialize a memory card and index its contents after a reboot, but this indexing only happens infrequently and won’t cause a noticeable battery drain.
Therefore, a memory card will consume negligible battery power compared to other components like the mobile chipset or display.
Will A Larger MicroSD Card Drain Your Phone’s Battery Faster Than A Small One?
The battery consumption of a microSD card doesn’t depend on its size; memory cards use flash memory chips for storage, which doesn’t consume power to retain data. So a larger memory card won’t drain your phone’s battery faster.
On the other hand, if you have too many files on a large microSD card, your phone’s OS might have to scan and index those files, which can increase battery drain; but it has nothing to do with the memory card size.
Will A Faster MicroSD Card Drain A Phone’s Battery Faster?
Memory cards consume almost the same power regardless of their read/write speeds. So a faster memory card won’t drain your phone’s battery faster.
When a microSD card is faster, read/write operations will complete quickly, and your phone’s OS will take less time to index it. So fast memory cards can speed up your phone and increase its battery life.
What Components Inside A Phone Significantly Affect Its Battery Life?
Your phone’s processor, display, network modems, and camera consume significant battery power.
The phone’s display drains the battery faster at higher brightness levels.
When you make a call, your phone’s cellular modem transmits your voice to the nearest tower, which consumes significant battery power; this is why the battery drains faster when calling. The same goes for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Your phone’s camera also consumes significant battery power to record videos; the mobile processor has to work hard for video recording, which drains the battery faster.
How To Increase Your Phone’s Battery Life?
You can try a few things to improve your phone’s battery life.
Enable the power saving mode; it can reduce battery consumption by stopping unnecessary background apps.
Also, reduce the number of background apps by putting them to sleep or uninstalling them.
Additionally, lower the brightness of the display to reduce its battery drain. The dark mode can also reduce battery consumption if your phone has an OLED screen.
Conclusion
Your phone’s storage only has a negligible effect on the battery life; other components like the processor, display, network modems, and camera consume the most battery power.
When the storage becomes full, the phone has to work harder to find free space for OS caching and consumes slightly more power.
Also, microSD cards won’t affect your phone’s battery life noticeably.
