Help system data

[SheetMusic]

alrighty guys so I just got this new phone, an LG K7, and I'm pretty content. Or, was, until I check my storage for kicks and find out "System Data" is taking up 3.74 GB in my phone. Now, the phone has 8 GB which is great and all but not when something is taking half of it up. My apps take up about 2GB (more than 2/3s of which I don't use and are just pre-installed) and then everything else barely takes up anything.

So, my question is, what is system data? How on earth do I get it to not take up so much storage?

That's about it. And, I really don't want to restart anything.

 

[psionandy]

Android is installed on your device.. which takes up a big chunk of that 8GB... and you're pretty much stuck with that...

 

[svim]

It makes no difference if you have Android or an iPhone, or a Linux, Windows, or Mac computer even, there needs to be an operating system. Take away that 3.74 GB and your LG turns into an inanimate object that does nothing. If you want to go through the process of rooting your phone you might be able to slim that down a bit using a third-party ROM but it won't be a significantly smaller, and keep in mind as far as storage space the system partitions are separate from the user storage anyway so it's not like you'll gain more space to store more photos, music, etc. anyway.

 

[Hadron]

Yup, most of that "system data" is the partitions that the operating system, radio firmware, recovery module etc are stored in. Since free space in those partitions isn't accessible to you they will count the whole partition size as being used for "system data".

Phone storage is always quoted as total on the device rather than total available to the user. If there are only 8GB to start with the fraction used by the system will inevitably be large.

 

[AZgl1500]

a different phone:
my first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy 'S' and it only had 350 mB of user available memory.

now that is what I call 'tight', you got rid of pictures in a hurry, take a snapshot or 5, and copy them to the PC, and delete them now...

It would only handle one or two apps "running at a time", I had to "Clear ALL" after every app was exited or the phone would crash.

 

[chanchan05]

a different phone:
my first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy 'S' and it only had 350 mB of user available memory.

now that is what I call 'tight', you got rid of pictures in a hurry, take a snapshot or 5, and copy them to the PC, and delete them now...

It would only handle one or two apps "running at a time", I had to "Clear ALL" after every app was exited or the phone would crash.

I think you might have had something else and not a Galaxy S. That thing had 4-16GB versions. I had the 4GB version and it had way more than 350mb user memory.
I had that thing running Go Launcher Prime, Go SMS, Llama (sort of like Tasker lite) with 3 home pages full of widgets.

 

[Slug]

my first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy 'S' and it only had 350 mB of user available memory.[...]

I think you might have had something else and not a Galaxy S. That thing had 4-16GB versions.[...]

Regardless of whether it was (or wasn't) a Galaxy S, discussion of it is kinda off-topic to the OP's question. Not meaning to be a party-pooper, but AQ is supposed to be a specific support forum.

 

[Deleted User]

LG devices suck cuz u can remove a system app that system doesnt need and boom after reboot ithe phone is now a paperweight

 

[Hadron]

LG devices suck cuz u can remove a system app that system doesnt need and boom after reboot ithe phone is now a paperweight

Is this a "secure boot" thing? I think we have to expect that to become the norm, unless you take specific steps to disable it.