Galaxy Note 9 storage: How much of the 128GB is available for use?

Phone

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

When it comes to storage capacity, the Galaxy Note 9 is special because it has 128GB of storage on the base model. But anyone who has used electronic devices probably knows that the actual usable storage capacity of a disk is always a bit less than the rated – or raw – capacity. So how much usable capacity does the Galaxy Note 9 offer? Well, for the 128GB version, around 111GB is available out of the box.

Nearly 110GB usable storage on the 128GB Galaxy Note 9

Pre-installed apps take up around 1GB, along with a few megabytes of data such as pictures and audio files. 16.8GB of the total 128GB is assigned to the system and is inaccessible by the consumer (unless they root the device, which we don't endorse). All of that leaves around 109GB of usable storage for the user (the screenshot below says 107GB, but that's because we had already restored some of our existing data using Samsung Smart Switch). 109GB is still plenty of storage for the average user, and the microSD slot will ensure most folks are never left wanting for space on the Galaxy Note 9.

We're not sure about the usable space on the 512GB model. But even if you took away 50GB, you will have upwards of 400GB available for personal use. That's a lot any way you look at it, and thanks to the microSD slot, you are looking at nearly 1TB of storage if you have the money to buy a 512GB card.

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.

Phone Samsung Galaxy Note 9