Virtual memory is only as good as your storage<\/p>\n
Virtual RAM is most common on budget phones with slow storage<\/p>\n
Memory is useful because it is fast. While flash and solid state storage solutions are quicker than, say, spinning hard drives, they are slower compared to RAM. For instance, Samsung’s UFS 4.0 storage uses V-NAND flash chips to deliver 4,200Mbps read speeds and 2,800Mbps write speeds. That’s pretty fast, and much quicker than older storage solutions, like lesser UFS versions or eMMC flash chips. Compared to Samsung’s LPDDR5X memory, though, UFS 4.0 storage is paltry. Samsung’s LPDDR5X memory can hit theoretical data processing speeds of up to 10.7Gbps, which is more than double that of UFS 4.0 storage. <\/p>\n
For the most part, UFS 4.0 and LPDDR5X are the best storage and memory standards you’ll find on smartphones and other kinds of mobile devices. As such, the speed gap between storage and memory here is perhaps the narrowest it’ll ever be, and it’s still massive. Since memory needs speed above all else, virtual memory is only beneficial if a phone’s storage is fast. Flagship phones have pretty quick storage, so virtual memory can be helpful. <\/p>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/phone-placed-on-a-mat-with-the-epic-games-logo-being-displayed-on-screen-1.jpg\"\/){kind=logo}
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Related<\/p>\n
\t\t Certain settings can silently drain your phone\u2019s performance.\n<\/p>\n Flagship phones also have an abundance of physical memory, though. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has 12GB of RAM (with an optional upgrade to 16GB) and the Google Pixel 10 Pro offers 16GB RAM as standard. There’s little need for extra virtual memory when you have high-speed physical memory, and plenty of it. That’s why virtual memory is most useful on budget phones with small amounts of physical memory. The catch is that these phones usually have smaller and slower storage types, which is a problem for virtual memory. <\/p>\n Say your phone only has 4GB of physical memory and 128GB of UFS 2.2 on-device storage. Those are the exact specs of the Motorola Moto G 2026, a $200 current-gen smartphone. Using virtual memory eats into your phone’s already small storage capacity, and the speed dropoff between RAM and UFS 2.2 storage will be major. You’d assume that virtual memory would help budget phones with small amounts of physical memory, but it’s the opposite, because their storage is too slow to be successfully used as virtual memory. <\/p>\n Android is excellent at memory management<\/p>\n Your phone will do just fine with its physical memory<\/p>\n Android is designed to intelligently manage memory<\/a> on devices that don’t have a lot of it, making virtual memory redundant. Take the minimum system requirements for Android as an example. Android 15 had a 4GB RAM requirement, while Android 16 bumps that to 6GB. Both versions offer “Android Go” alternatives for low-power devices with RAM amounts as low as 2GB. In other words, Android is not an operating system that demands an abundance of memory \u2014 it’ll work fine with what you have<\/a>. <\/p>\n Virtual memory is great in theory, as it can keep apps and processes stored in your device’s storage when physical memory runs out. In reality, it can be slower and more resource-intensive to move memory data between physical RAM and virtual RAM than it would be to let Android manage physical memory itself. Android can learn your usage patterns, decipher when to keep something in RAM and when to discard it, and it does this regardless of how much physical memory is available on your device. If you use virtual memory, you’re wasting the benefits of Android’s automatic memory management features.<\/p>\n Virtual memory could also wear down your device’s hardware quicker. Most users will never run into this issue, but all storage types have a usable lifespan. Lower-tier storage solutions, like eMMC flash<\/a>, have usable lifespans of between 3,000 and 100,000 cycles. That’s a wide range, but within it, a storage block might start to degrade and eventually become unusable. When you use virtual memory, you’re putting more stress and usage on your device’s storage, hitting those lifespan constraints sooner. <\/p>\n \u200bRAM Plus and RAM Boost aren’t worth the trouble<\/p>\n It’s better to load apps from scratch \u2014 and it’s probably faster, too<\/p>\n If you have a high-end flagship phone with fast on-device storage, virtual memory like Samsung’s RAM Plus or Motorola’s RAM Boost might actually come in handy. These phones have so much physical memory that you’ll never need it, though. Instead, RAM Plus and RAM Boost are commonly used on budget or midrange devices to justify low amounts of physical memory, and that simply doesn’t work. The gap between the slow storage in these devices and physical memory is enough to significantly impact daily use. You’d be better off letting Android manage the 4GB or 6GB of memory<\/a> your budget phone actually has than trying to simulate memory on slow storage chips. <\/p>\n The good news is that it’s easy to turn off RAM Plus or RAM Boost. On Samsung phones, you can find the toggle under Settings \u2192 Device care \u2192 Memory \u2192 RAM Plus. You’ll need to restart your phone after turning it off. Motorola users can disable RAM Boost by navigating through Settings \u2192 System \u2192 Performance \u2192 RAM Boost and flipping the toggle off. Chances are, you’ll see your phone work quicker as it relies solely on fast, physical memory. <\/p>\n As with any performance-based feature, the results will vary greatly based on your phone’s specs and your usage habits. When in doubt, try using your phone with RAM Plus or RAM Boost on and off to see which works best for your needs. In my case, I find avoiding virtual memory results in a quicker and more stable smartphone experience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are two smartphone components that contribute most to whether your phone feels fast or slow \u2014 processor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,48,190,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-523943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\tThese Android Settings Are Slowing Your Phone Down
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Memory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/android-virtual-ram-2.jpg\")
\n Credit:\u00a0Brady Snyder \/ MakeUseOf<\/p>\n![\"RAM](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/android-virtual-ram-4.jpg\")
\n Credit:\u00a0Brady Snyder \/ MakeUseOf<\/p>\n