Android storage limitations - Why can't I store 500 GB?

[Thomas Kregel]

When I bought my Samsung Note 2 a couple years ago they came in 16 GB and 32 GB internal storage optional. I added a 64 GB SD card to give me 84 GB total. Is 84 GB the limit for the total storage? I live in the country and am not always on the cloud or don't want to use up my 4-G limits for things that could just be on my phone.

I have all my favorite audio books, my latest Audible reads, library audio books, 30 GB of music and a few dozen podcasts stored on my phone so I can listen while commuting or gardening, etc. I constantly have to remove things to free up storage.

I would love to have 500 GB storage.

When I asked the folks at the Best Buy Samsung desk why they could not put in multiple micro-SD slots they said there was no room in the phone to put it. Couldn't they do it for tablets then? There is plenty of space in those tablet bodies. I would also think that a 7" phone would have more space for the device than a 5" phone. Couldn't 2 SD slots use the same controller chips to save space?

Are these limits imposed by the Wireless companies to force us to use more bandwidth?

I remember the early days of Windows and the extended memory managers, when we struggled with 16 and 32 bit addressing issues. So now I am wondering it if Android is having analogous problems limiting them to less than 100 GB of storage.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Depending on the device, you could always try using a 128 GB or 256 GB microSD--but compatibility is not always guaranteed. Before long, I'm sure we'll start having 512 GB or even 1 TB microSD cards, but they'll probably be pretty expensive. Using an external hard drive via OTG cable is also an option, but obviously not a very good one for portability.

 

[Rukbat]

Get an OTG cable (the difference between the $2 ones and the $39.95 ones are the name on the connector - the thing that makes it an OTG cable is a little piece of wire, and the best wire in the world isn't worth $38 per quarter inch, unless maybe it's platinum or a room temperature superconductor) and a USB card reader and a lot of SD cards. You can easily carry 500GB of SD cards in a shirt pocket (that's only 4 128GB cards). You can't access all the cards at once, but the phone can't play 35 songs at once or display 20 maps at once.