One of the great things about Android is how open the system is. Whereas Apple’s devices are a closed ecosystem, which has its own advantages, Android is all about being free and open. This means that there are a whole host of ways that you can expand the available storage for your Android devices – including phones, tablets, and laptops.
Below are four of the best ways of expanding the amount of storage available to your Android devices. Whether you are a professional who needs to back up and edit media while on the go or a power user who needs to be able to bring their most important files with them wherever they go, these are the best ways of expanding your available storage.
SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive m3.0
There are quite a few options for storage devices that plug directly into your phone and tablet and work much like a USB thumb drive does with your PC. However, a number of the best devices on the market are iPhone/iPad exclusives and aren’t any use to Android owners. Fortunately, SanDisk does produce the Passport Wireless Pro for Android devices.
The device comes in two variants, depending on which style USB slot your Android device uses – either USB C or the older Micro USB connection. Bother versions are otherwise identical, consisting of a small thumb-drive style unit with a retractable USB connector. The miniature design makes the device highly portable and perfect for travel. Storage is managed via the Memory Zone app, although you can use just about any Android file manager you like. If you use your Android device for professional work, such as copying hundreds of photos at once, you might find the write speeds to be a little slow.
Overall, this is a portable, affordable, and very easy to use extra storage option for Android. If you need something that you can take traveling with you, the m3.0 fits the bill perfectly.
Western Digital 1TB Passport Wireless Pro Portable Drive
Like SanDisk, Western Digital is one of the biggest and most respected names in their niche. If you’re looking for a small and sleek but high-end hard drive, Western Digital is a fine choice. The Passport Wireless Pro is accessible, well, wirelessly, which is considerably easier and more convenient than a storage device that needs to plug directly into your device.
There are two ways of setting up the WD Passport, you can either connect it to the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device, which is ideal if you want multiple devices in your home to be able to use it. Otherwise, the device can create its own Wi-Fi network, enabling you to connect to it when there isn’t a Wi-Fi network for your devices to connect to.
The Passport Wireless Pro comes with a beefy 6400mAh battery, which should give you around 10 hours of usage. The drive can be left plugged into a power socket while at home and charges within a couple of hours.
Another cool feature is the ability to directly plug cameras into the drive to copy files directly on to it. Copying your photos to the drive and then accessing them from your device for editing is sometimes faster than copying SD card contents directly to the device itself.
Another advantage of using a conventional hard drive for your extra storage is that data recovery is much easier. This is an important consideration for professionals looking for a storage option that they can use for work-related data. For example, businesses like SecureDataRecovery.com can recover data from a seemingly corrupted hard drive. A high-end device like the Passport Wireless Pro is unlikely to fail on you, but if it does then it is good to know that there is a safety net in place.
Kingston MobileLite Wireless G3
The MobileLite Wireless G3 from Kingston is a nifty little device that enables you to turn just about any storage device you have into a wirelessly-accessible option, akin to the Passport Wireless Pro we covered above. This hub has slots in it for USB cables or CD cards. All you need to do is plug in your preferred storage device and you can share its storage wirelessly.
The range on the MobileLite G3 isn’t as great as on a dedicated wireless drive, but it is an excellent way of making your existing storage options a little bit more convenient. If you have plenty of storage devices in your home that are going unused and aren’t directly usable with your Android devices, this hub can make them relevant again.
Finally, the MobileLite G3 also doubles as a portable battery – you can connect your Android device directly to the hub and get a couple of full charges out of it. The standard version doubles as a 5400mAh battery, while the pro version is larger and also offers 64GB of onboard storage. However, the pro model is roughly twice the price.
Google Drive Cloud Storage
Google offers all Android users a small amount of free Google Drive cloud storage, which you can upgrade pretty inexpensively. Cloud storage offers a number of benefits over physical devices – mainly that you don’t have to carry a device around with you and can access your storage from anywhere. The downside is that you will always need to have an internet connection. There are a multitude of cloud storage providers to choose from but using Google’s own service will have some integration benefits if you are using Android devices.
Modern Android devices come with a decent amount of onboard storage. Gone are the days of 4GB and 8GB models; 64GB is the new standard and we have seen a number of flagship smartphones that have 256GB of onboard storage. However, for professionals who work with uncompressed audio, video, or photography, even this amount of storage can be used up relatively quickly. Fortunately, you can easily expand your storage using one of the options above and expand the capabilities of your device in the process.
