Added an SD card to old phone to increase internal storage; Google Play store doesn't recognise it?

[Android Central Question]

- I added a SanDisk 32GB memory card to the Blackview A20. I setup the memory card to be internal storage rather than portable storage (meaning it can hold apps and app data too).

- A wizard in Settings ran, asking if I wanted to transfer photos/videos, and other data over to the memory card. I said OK, and it completed.

- Now, when I try to install apps to the phone, Google Play Store always says it doesn't have enough storage. When I go to Settings > Storage, I see something peculiar: Internal Shared Storage is full at 7.61GB of 8GB, and Sandisk SD card is at 7.85GB of 32GB.

- I can still download large files through other methods - Google Drive synced and let me download a 900MB audiobook even when the internal shared storage is full. But Google Play Store always tells me to delete apps/data when I try to install something.

Can anyone help?

 

[Mooncatt]

Adoptable storage (what this was officially called) is not very reliable. It was a half hearted effort by Google to appease those with low space devices, and further hampered by manufacturers not implementing it properly. These sorts of errors are quite common, and not much can be done about it.

Then again, SD cards are not designed to handle the constant reading and writing that apps perform and can quickly become corrupted. That's why adoptable storage has never been a recommended practice.

 

[mustang7757]

Hello , sd cards are not recommended as internal storage , it can become corrupt/slower write speeds/freeze/performance issues etc ..
I would format it back to portable storage , if your having issues with space I recommended cloud service or higher storage phone.

I'll leave a Link to register so you can communicate here, As a guest account you can only post questions but can't reply
https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=409154

 

[Laura Knotek]

I agree with @mustang7757 that you probably need to get a newer device with more internal storage. The Blackview A20 only has 8 GB internal storage. I wouldn't recommend anything with less than 64 GB internal storage nowadays.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Adoptable Storage is supposed to allow the phone to use the SD card for app installation, but in practice, that's not always the case. I recall many threads in this forum about Moto phones not being able to use the SD card for app installation, even though it was formatted as Internal Storage. Presumably some problem with how their engineers implemented the feature.