Android and data storage space?

Question

Im wondering how much data storage is available for my application in android?

I need to cache lots of files, and i was thinking to store it inside the sharedpreferences

Answer 1

If you are planning to store MBs of data then try to use the sdcard to avoid filling the often limited storage built into the phone especially on the G1.

If you do store data on the phone, each app has its own storage area which will also be deleted when the application is uninstalled.

See http://d.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html#getDir(java.lang.String, int)

For cached files you can use File cacheDir = getCacheDir(); which returns the path to the application specific cache directory on the filesystem. These files will be ones that get deleted first when the device runs low on storage.

See http://d.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html#getCacheDir() for more information

Answer 2

What is the purpose of the caching you want to implement?

If you want to avoid downloading files from Internet multiple times, the SDCard or SQLiteDatabase should be good options, depending on the type of the files, you are working with. If you want to keep the files up in the memory (for example, you want to keep some decoded bitmaps in the heap), it will be best to implement your own Cache class.

SharedPreferences can be used only with some basic types (boolean, int, String, long, float) - so Parcelable can't be put in your app's preferences.

This would pose a problem for saving files there.