Not too long ago, it was common for flagship Android phones to come with up to 32GB of internal storage. That was considered enough for the time, but is laughable by today's standards.

If you're in the market to buy a new phone, 128GB of storage is the least you can get right now. But is that enough? How much storage do you actually need? Let's find out.

Why Flagship Phones Avoid Expandable Storage

If you've noticed, most modern flagship phones don't come with a microSD card slot which allows you to extend the total storage capacity of your phone. This was really helpful since you can always buy more storage if you needed it; you didn't need to guess how much storage you'll need when buying a new phone.

64gb microSD card from Lexar

Today, this feature is generally only prevalent on budget and mid-range Android phones. Why? The short answer is that it allows brands to entice you to upgrade to a higher storage variant out of fear that you'll run out of it if you choose the base model.

This way, instead of buying a third-party microSD card of 128GB for less than $20 later on as per your need, you're forced to pick the 256GB variant of your desired phone from the get-go. The latter adds about $100 more to the final price of the device.

Is 128GB of Storage Enough?

128GB is the least you can get on any smartphone right now which makes it the cheapest option possible. Do note that a portion of the total internal memory is reserved for the system itself. Also, it's advisable that you don't use all the remaining storage and leave some "breathing room" for your phone to function smoothly.

Knowing all of this, you're only getting about 100GB as your actual disposable storage. This is still enough for regular use, though. But depending on your needs, your phone can start filling up quickly if you don't regularly clean old media and delete apps you no longer need.

It's easy to calculate how many photos, videos, or apps your phone can store. For instance, assuming an average file size of 5MB, you can store 20,000 images with 100GB of storage. Similarly, one minute of 1080p video at 30fps is roughly 100MB, so that totals more than 16 hours of video.

Is 256GB of Storage Too Much?

It depends on the type of user you are. 128GB is usually enough for most people, but a big reason why many still consider upgrading to 256GB is simply to get some peace of mind. After all, you don't want to have to bother freeing up storage space all the time. If that peace of mind is important to you, 256GB will do the job.

However, for content creators, gamers, and power users, 256GB is most certainly not a matter of peace of mind but rather of actual necessity. If you take more photos and videos, download more files and documents, and install more games than the average user, you're going to need more than average storage space as well.

For instance, if your phone takes 12MB per image by default, 256GB will allow you to take roughly 20,000 photos, or up to 14 hours of 4K video (at around 300MB a minute) or 40 hours of 1080p video.

512GB and More Is for Future-Proofing

man checking out smartphone specs in store feature
Image Credit: Dusan Petkovic/Shutterstock

Most people will never need up to 1TB of storage on their phones. This is exclusively for those who either shoot a lot of 4K RAW videos, download dozens of movies and TV shows, or similar. Unless you're one of those people, you definitely don't need that much storage.

That said, 512GB can be good to future-proof your phone. But it's only reasonable under two conditions: one, you're a power user, and two, you don't upgrade your phone that often and carry it for at least five years. If that's you, then 512GB of storage is worth the extra cost.

Only Buy More Storage If You Actually Need It

Your instinct might tell you to upgrade to a higher storage model just to be on the safer side, but that's not always necessary, and not to mention doing so can be quite expensive.

The easiest way to know how much storage you're going to need on your new phone is to just look at how much storage you've already used on your current phone. If you often find yourself running out of space, it's probably best to upgrade to a higher storage variant next time.