Is it better to use a SD card or internal storage for speed and battery purposes?

mhw100

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With 64gb internal storage this is likely more than I will use but I do have a 64gb Samsung Pro+ card I can use though. Does using a SD card use more battery or slow the device down at all?
 

Delirious D

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With 64gb internal storage this is likely more than I will use but I do have a 64gb Samsung Pro+ card I can use though. Does using a SD card use more battery or slow the device down at all?

I have a Samsung Tab A 7.0 and a Samsung Tab A 9.7 both with a 64GB card. I use AppMgr to transfer all my apps to the SD card. Never noticed any lag or battery drain. My 9.7 will sit there for days on the same charge. The 7.0 does lag sometimes but that's due to the tiny bit of internal storage it has avail for the OS to run. Note 7 wouldn't have that issue.

Technically not sure if it drains, just never noticed.
 

Snappy Phoenix

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I put all my personal files like docs, music, pics, videos on the 128GB Samsung EVO SD Card and I install all the apps on the phone and I set the camera to save stuff to the phone for max speed / no lag especially when recording 4K or FHD 60 FPS videos
 

CehowardNote7

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With 64gb internal storage this is likely more than I will use but I do have a 64gb Samsung Pro+ card I can use though. Does using a SD card use more battery or slow the device down at all?

Secondary memory (SD card)is always slower than Primary Memory (RAM) However, it is the slowness enough to affect what you are doing is the question. I think not.
I carry lots of flac music, full movies, lots of personal vids, I need the big SD card. Right now, I have a 200 gb, with 150+gbs on it. Will be transfering that to a 256gb which I will have for my Note 7. IMO, not going to be very noticiable the increase in battery use and slowness. In other words you be just fine. Also, you off load some apps to the sd card, saving all your primary memory.
 

bertsirkin

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When I had the Note 4, I noticed a definite battery drain when using an SD card. My wife started using the N4 when I got the N5 and she noticed the same thing. We both ended up ditching the SD card on that phone. I now have a 64gb Note 5, and obviously don't use an SD card.

I'm on the fence with the N7 - getting a free 256gb SD card means I'll probably try using the SD card, but I don't have high-hopes.
 

Android Optimizer

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With 64gb internal storage this is likely more than I will use but I do have a 64gb Samsung Pro+ card I can use though. Does using a SD card use more battery or slow the device down at all?

As far as speed differences between the two go it will depend what the difference between read and write speeds are for each, and how big of a file you are accessing. I haven't seen any specs on how fast the internal 64 is (depends on what chip they used). The sd cards can vary depending on what the min and max speeds of that chip are. If you're transferring or accessing a small file (smaller than the transfer rating) you shouldn't notice any difference.

Battery life shouldn't be significantly different between the two unless the system continually encounters problems accessing the file, and has to try over and over again.
 

mhw100

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I keep seeing conflicting reports on battery performance when searching the web. Some report that using an SD card will actually save the battery being drained e.g. one of the Blackberry manuals states this. Others report that having to write/read to/from non-internal storage will drain the battery by its very nature.
 

Android Optimizer

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I keep seeing conflicting reports on battery performance when searching the web. Some report that using an SD card will actually save the battery being drained e.g. one of the Blackberry manuals states this. Others report that having to write/read to/from non-internal storage will drain the battery by its very nature.

It takes roughly the same amount of electrical energy and time to send the data over the small metal circuits regardless of if it is sending the data to the sd card or the internal memory and then back again. As a result neither one (given again that their transfer speeds aren't drastically different) should take any more time or power than the other. The longer the data takes to reach its destination (speed wise) the longer power would be in use, and the longer the hardware (memory, cpu, etc) would be trying to read/write, but again we're looking at less than a second on small files, and probably a few seconds at most on very large files. A few seconds of activity have very little effect on battery compared to minutes of activity.
 

njshoremom4gurlz

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Movies music pics are gonna go on memory card- always~ I don't even care I can stick all my music on there lol
Love it
I think battery would run better e less stuff in internal - not positive
 

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