Does having low storage makes your phone slower?

[noersetiawan]

I only have 200MB left on my Lumia 520, and now I feel my phone is slow, it's isn't lagging, just slow, with 'resuming' and 'loading' screen almost everywhere, even when opening WhatsApp, which was one of the fastest non native apps. And my start screen will redraw for 2-3 seconds whenever I press the start key. Any technical explanation for this?

 

[Wam1q]

I have only 87 MB free on my Lumia 1020 (same processor). No lags.

 

[satrus08]

I only have 200MB left on my Lumia 520, and now I feel my phone is slow, it's isn't lagging, just slow, with 'resuming' and 'loading' screen almost everywhere, even when opening WhatsApp, which was one of the fastest non native apps. And my start screen will redraw for 2-3 seconds whenever I press the start key. Any technical explanation for this?

Yup it does make your phone slower. I'll say this with my limited knowledge.

Normally, programs and stuff run on main mmemory (RAM) but the OS usually stores parts of the program in secondary memory(ROM) as pages. This is called virtual memory. So when there is less free space available, it takes longer and is slower to swap parts of the running programs between main and secondary memory.
I could elaborate a bit more but I suck at typing on my phone

Someone correct me if I'm wrong or feel free to elaborate.

 

[satrus08]

I have only 87 MB free on my Lumia 1020 (same processor). No lags.

But you have more RAM so less need of virtual memory

Doesn't only have to do with processor

 

[satrus08]

Also I don't think it should be getting a lot slower with 200mb left. Maybe just a little. You will notice a bigger decrease in performance when under 50 Mb

 

[Wam1q]

But you have more RAM so less need of virtual memory

Doesn't only have to do with processor

Does a mobile OS have virtual memory, too? I guess only PC's did that.

 

[Wam1q]

I only have 200MB left on my Lumia 520, and now I feel my phone is slow, it's isn't lagging, just slow, with 'resuming' and 'loading' screen almost everywhere, even when opening WhatsApp, which was one of the fastest non native apps. And my start screen will redraw for 2-3 seconds whenever I press the start key. Any technical explanation for this?

Try restarting your phone and leave it for like 10-15 min after the phone boots up. This makes my phone super-fluid whenever it gets Resuming... lags.

 

[Ed Boland]

Yup it does make your phone slower. I'll say this with my limited knowledge.

Normally, programs and stuff run on main mmemory (RAM) but the OS usually stores parts of the program in secondary memory(ROM) as pages. This is called virtual memory. So when there is less free space available, it takes longer and is slower to swap parts of the running programs between main and secondary memory.
I could elaborate a bit more but I suck at typing on my phone

Someone correct me if I'm wrong or feel free to elaborate.

You are correct, except it's not "ROM". ROM is "Read Only Memory" (like a BIOS chip or an Atari cartrige, or CD Rom) where data can only be "read" from, but not "written" to. Virtual memory (or a "page file") can be read AND written to.

 

[noersetiawan]

Yup it does make your phone slower. I'll say this with my limited knowledge.

Normally, programs and stuff run on main mmemory (RAM) but the OS usually stores parts of the program in secondary memory(ROM) as pages. This is called virtual memory. So when there is less free space available, it takes longer and is slower to swap parts of the running programs between main and secondary memory.

I could elaborate a bit more but I suck at typing on my phone

Someone correct me if I'm wrong or feel free to elaborate.

So the storage act as a slower version of ram whenever the ram cant hold everything at once. That's a good explanation, thanks!

Try restarting your phone and leave it for like 10-15 min after the phone boots up. This makes my phone super-fluid whenever it gets Resuming... lags.

Those 2 Gigs of ram on your phone must've helped a lot, and you got faster cpus. I followed your advice, and now resting my phone for 15 mins after restart. Thanks.