Electronics

[Kachina624]

I use a Samsung A6lite and I bought an SD card when I bought the tablet.  After a couple years of use its getting sluggish and balky so I figured its time for the card.  I got the slot open and out comes a tiny tray.  I fit the card into the tray and reinsert it with gold contacts down.  Shut the slot door. 

Nothing happens.  Shouldn't the device recognize that something has been added?  How do I get it to start working?  No instructions anywhere, of course and no change in anything with the tablet.

[SilleeMee]

You need to activate that SD card in the tablet settings, select Storage.

[gadgetgal613]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

I use a Samsung A6lite and I bought an SD card when I bought the tablet.  After a couple years of use its getting sluggish and balky so I figured its time for the card.  I got the slot open and out comes a tiny tray.  I fit the card into the tray and reinsert it with gold contacts down.  Shut the slot door. 

Nothing happens.  Shouldn't the device recognize that something has been added?  How do I get it to start working?  No instructions anywhere, of course and no change in anything with the tablet.

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I would recommend you back up the tablet to the cloud or computer, format the tablet then restore it from your backup.  You'd be surprise how many files are left behind when you update, install or otherwise use the tablet.  These orphan files can reduce the amount of free space and have a negative effect on performance.  Restoring can breathe new life into an older device and often delay the need to buy new.  Go online and find the specific instructions for your device.  

[gardenman]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

I use a Samsung A6lite and I bought an SD card when I bought the tablet.  After a couple years of use its getting sluggish and balky so I figured its time for the card.  I got the slot open and out comes a tiny tray.  I fit the card into the tray and reinsert it with gold contacts down.  Shut the slot door. 

Nothing happens.  Shouldn't the device recognize that something has been added?  How do I get it to start working?  No instructions anywhere, of course and no change in anything with the tablet.

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Does the micro-SD card show up when you check storage in the menu? If so, then it's recognized and ready to go. Things like micro-SD cards can be a bit finicky also, so you may have to pull it out and reinsert it a time or two to get the device to recognize it. Think of the micro-sd card as an old Nintendo-style game cartridge that you'd have to load several times to get it to work. The contacts inside the phone and on the card are similar to the contacts on those old game cartridges.

The micro-sd card may not help with the device being sluggish and balky though. I would suspect that you have multiple apps running in the background that are hogging resources. If you Google "How to stop android apps running in the background?" you can check that.

If that's not the case and given that the tablet is several years old, it could have been updated into obsolescence. Tablets that were lightning fast when new are often later so burdened with new updates designed for faster, more powerful versions that the old peppy tablet becomes a clunker. Those with a suspicious nature think this could all be planned by the manufacturers. If a tablet lasts five years, then the consumer won't be buying a new one for five years unless forced to do so. How can they force you to buy a new tablet every two to three years? Create updates that make the old one so slow that you have no choice but to replace it.

[Kachina624]

@gardenman   @gadgetgal613   @SilleeMee    I want to thank you for your help.  I've been read and fiddling since last night.  No mention of the SD card in any function in Settings but I finally found a reference in My Files.  It said it was incorrectly inserted so I took it out and reinserted and it seems to be okay now but I haven't determined how to get data on it. 

I would love to use cloud storage but have no idea how to get my stuff in that either.  I'm not able so far to find a lot of online info on it, as much as the computer companies push it.  I never see any reference to it in the normal course of using devices. 

[Nuttmeg]

@Kachina624

You have an S6 Lite. I saw information about installing and using an SD card with your tablet on YouTube.

You can learn about Google cloud on YouTube. You can learn what cloud storage is an how to move files. 

Your Samsung tablet may have a Settings >Device Care where you can optimize your tablet little.

[gardenman]

Cloud storage can be very easy, even automatic. I use three clouds, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. I have a Microsoft 365 subscription that gives me 1TB of cloud storage on OneDrive. All of my word files go there on autosave and I never have to worry about them. It also grabs copies of all of my photos. I use the Amazon Photos app on my phone and that sends copies of my photos to Amazon's cloud. I can also send Word documents there if I want to. And I have a Google One account that also backs up everything automatically. For me to lose everything would require my computer and all three major online clouds to fail simultaneously. It's overkill, but it keeps my stuff safe.