Android 15 May Include Storage Health Monitoring
Android 15 May Include Storage Health Monitoring
As reported by Android Authority, Google is currently testing a new feature on the upcoming Android 15 which involves storage health monitoring. This feature is expected to provide users a basic info on the onboard storage’s lifespan, similar to SSDs found on PCs.
If you haven’t noticed, here’s a little fact: the UFS storage chip in your typical smartphone today is technically similar to the NAND packages found on SSDs. They just operate on different protocols, but both use the same kind of chips that, as we know from SSD datasheets, have a limited lifespan. A typical SSD can handle several hundreds of terabytes written (TBW) before it wears out, but smartphones today do not present this kind of data to their users.
Google has documented how it will present this data to end users, and it involves a simple percentage value with increments of 10 (1 if you’re on Pixel devices). This means numbers like 87% will be rounded off as 90% when viewed from the Device Diagnostics app, where this will be visible. However, it is noted that this feature is not guaranteed to be available on all devices for technical reasons, and it is up to each OEM to implement this feature as it is currently not a mandatory requirement.
Pokdepinion: For users who rarely switch phones, this can be a useful metric to determine the smartphone’s lifespan.
