Are there downsides to installing apps on SD card?

[stocktiki]

Loving the 640 on W10M. But the internal 8GB storage is a bit cramped.

So far, using the 16G SD card to save everything - but apps. But now wondering if it makes sense to put everything on the SD card. Are there downsides? What happens to your "all apps" list if you remove an SD card with apps installed?

 

[Maurizio Troso]

Loving the 640 on W10M. But the internal 8GB storage is a bit cramped.

So far, using the 16G SD card to save everything - but apps. But now wondering if it makes sense to put everything on the SD card. Are there downsides? What happens to your "all apps" list if you remove an SD card with apps installed?

There are no problems, but remember not all apps can be installed to a sd card (eg. Facebook, Whatsapp) due to own developer limitations.
Removing a card makes your list fading gray with a Not available notice

 

[XToro]

Apps on SD cards may also load a little slower. But likely only noticeable on newer phones. Older phone probably have a processor bottleneck.

 

[Maurizio Troso]

Apps on SD cards may also load a little slower. But likely only noticeable on newer phones. Older phone probably have a processor bottleneck.

Older phones worked with a 6X too. Newest, better a 10X minumum. Prices are going down and down, unuseful buyin a cheap and cloned sd card

I bought on Amz*** on January an original pro Lexar HDMC 16 GB , 10 € , now you can find the 32 GB one

 

[stocktiki]

If you were to format the SD card or replace it, do you lose your game saves, too? If you replace the SD card, does W10M automatically redownload or simply not work if you click on the fading gray icon?

 

[Allen Rhodes]

950xl, I had issues when force restarting getting a message about the card being damaged and needing to be scanned. Also apps downloading but still showing in downloads. Moved back to internal and voila, fixed. On both Insider and standard release OS.

 

[Maurizio Troso]

If you were to format the SD card or replace it, do you lose your game saves, too? If you replace the SD card, does W10M automatically redownload or simply not work if you click on the fading gray icon?

Yes, as pc usb memory. And if you replace it, you must click on the icon / title for downloading. Windows reload automatically only during apps updates / o.s. restore

 

[Maurizio Troso]

950xl, I had issues when force restarting getting a message about the card being damaged and needing to be scanned. Also apps downloading but still showing in downloads. Moved back to internal and voila, fixed. On both Insider and standard release OS.

Put that card in a sd reader and make a intensive check via pc

 

[hprvez]

Yes! Performance and reliability are tradeoffs I'm not willing to accept, that's why I didn't buy a lagdroid. Bottom-line: I'm not installing apps on the sd

 

[FredBloggs007]

950xl, I had issues when force restarting getting a message about the card being damaged and needing to be scanned. Also apps downloading but still showing in downloads. Moved back to internal and voila, fixed. On both Insider and standard release OS.

I've had that problem a few times on my 950XL. However, I dont think its a card error rather a sofware / OS glitch as it resolves itself after the next reboot

 

[FLTimmyB]

Suddenly getting the same issue on a 830 the phone has been locking up with the glance screen too....wonder if its tied together

 

[Krystianpants]

You can but typically SD cards are there for additional storage for pics, videos and other things. The host controller is still responsible for streaming/buffering the data to the card. Internal storage is usually a lot more reliable and faster. Smaller apps like say imdb or anything not really relying on speed can be put there, but then again they don't take up much room anyways. And even highly rated sdcards may not be as fast as you think. There have been many reviews on cards that are supposedly fast and they did not make the cut. Again I would avoid apps/games on sdcard. In fact, I find it odd that I don't install apps/games on my sdcard but storage shows 5 gigs of apps/games on it. But clicking on it doesn't show any apps. I think jumping between builds has messed it up. Going to have to organize my stuff on it and format it sometime.

 

[Ed Boland]

It's true that the internal storage is faster and more reliable, but back when I was using my 1520 as my daily driver, I had a bunch of apps and games installed on a 64GB class10 micro SD card, and I'll bet you a WC fake dollar that if given a blind Pepsi challenge, I could have you launch two games from my start screen, one installed on internal storage, and the other on the SD card, and you wouldn't be able to tell me which was which.

 

[jdballard]

Are there downsides? What happens to your "all apps" list if you remove an SD card with apps installed?

If for some reason your SD card dies then you'll end up spending a lot of time reinstalling your apps. I always found that my 640 was a bit iffy with SD cards. I installed the most used apps on the phone, others on the SD card to minimize reinstall time.

Performance will suffer a little, but probably not too badly.

 

[dozer167a]

I have a lumia 950 with a Sandisk 200gb sd card, and haven't had any slow down in performance,opening apps, games etc.

 

[Krystianpants]

It's true that the internal storage is faster and more reliable, but back when I was using my 1520 as my daily driver, I had a bunch of apps and games installed on a 64GB class10 micro SD card, and I'll bet you a WC fake dollar that if given a blind Pepsi challenge, I could have you launch two games from my start screen, one installed on internal storage, and the other on the SD card, and you wouldn't be able to tell me which was which.

Sure, apps get loaded into memory and not many have heavy bandwidth requirements, games may be more noticeable depending on the game. But the more apps you run off it and the more switching there is then that may become an issue. There are many factors that come into play. Thing is most phones now have a lot of internal storage so why not take advantage of it? I have 32 gigs on my lumia 950xl and with all my apps/games installed i still have plenty of room. And the reason is I put my pictures/movies on the sd card. App updates could also be slower as hash values are calculated and typically multiple updates occur simultaneously. You can really dive even deeper into a lot of the processes that occur. Simply saying that if you do have the room on main storage, take advantage of the sdcard for other things. I'm glad I did because my SDcard is in a state where I need to format it. I just move my media/documents to pc. Format, and then move it back and I save lots of time.