You’re at the right place if you’ve been trying to find out how to increase the storage on a Chromebook. We’ll go through everything you can do to upgrade your Chromebook’s storage and add extra gigabytes to it using simple procedures.
Because of their simplicity, Chromebooks have recently gained popularity among consumers, but that popularity has a price. Many Chromebooks with lesser specifications have meagre amounts of storage that you can use.
As they are mainly designed to operate with the web, it is often not a disadvantage. But sometimes you may need extra storage. Fortunately, finding some more space when you need it is fairly simple.
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In This Article
How do I add more storage to my Chromebook?
Using a cloud storage service like Dropbox or Google Drive is the easiest method to add more storage to a Chromebook. If you often transfer between devices or share files with others, cloud storage is fantastic. The drawback is that longer uploads of huge files might occur.
How to add more storage to a Chromebook
Use cloud storage
The future of contemporary computing seems to be cloud storage, which has the potential to take off.
It seems to free users from the constraints imposed by the standard of local storage and provide them with a unique means to carry their essential, private, and personal data with them.
Many businesses provide cloud storage, which is a very expensive service, with many subscription options.
You’ll quickly learn that Google has also put up a cloud-based storage application called Google Drive. It provides customers with 15 GB of storage to work with when they first log in for no cost.
Therefore, the 15 GB amount alone is significant enough for you to dig into even if you don’t add anything additional to your device’s storage.
We advise you to aim for pCloud as your next software choice following Google Drive.
Another top-notch, very secure platform, it offers free customers 10 GB of storage to carry out their data storing activities.
Therefore, have a look at the subscription plans provided by each of these alternatives, beginning with Google Drive, if you want to increase the capacity of your Chromebook to store your private data.
To throw you off course, Google now prefers to group all of its cloud-based services under the umbrella title Google One.
The latter includes Gmail, Google Drive, and other Google-made applications. Here, you can check out Google One’s “Plans & Pricing” or find out more details. You have the option of selecting a monthly subscription or a yearly payment schedule.
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Get an SD Card
Since many Chromebooks include MicroSD card slots, using one of these is an excellent way to increase local storage.
If you want to use Android applications on your Chromebook, they are also helpful.
For instance, when you don’t have an internet connection, you can download it to your smartphone if you use media applications like Netflix.
Videos take up a lot of space on a smartphone, so this is a fantastic use for SD storage.
Open Settings, choose Device > Storage management > External storage options, and your SD card should be displayed under the Available Devices section. This will allow Android to access the SD card in your Chromebook. Ensure that it is turned on.
You must now allow certain programs to use your SD card. Select your app from the list under Apps > Manage Your Apps. Under permissions, enable Storage. Your app’s settings may need to be changed to allow usage of the SD card.
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Use a USB drive
The USB drive is another tried-and-true device. At home or work, you most likely have one or many laying around.
Because you can store them apart from your Chromebook, they are excellent for storing backups. Similar to other systems, USB sticks operate in the same manner.
To access the files, just insert them into a USB port and use the file manager. If necessary, you can also use USB hard disks and optical media.
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Change the Chromebook’s SSD
Although this approach is not recommended for beginners and you shouldn’t use it without any previous expertise, it is nevertheless important to discuss.
Many enthusiasts and tinkerers have developed a technique to replace the SSD in their Chromebook with a larger one.
You may remove the 16 GB SSD that comes standard in your Chromebook and swap it out with a 128 GB or even larger SSD.
Having said that, we must caution you: Doing so would probably invalidate your warranty, so you won’t be able to return your Chromebook to the manufacturer to get a replacement if anything goes wrong.
Additionally, completing the procedure will need reinstalling ChromeOS, which must typically be done through the Chromebook Recovery Utility.
You’ll need to choose if it will be worthwhile to replace the Chromebook’s SSD yourself after going through the risk assessment. If not, you can always use a microSD card slot, a USB drive, or Google Drive for your convenience.
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The bottom line
You should be concerned about your computer’s storage if you don’t have the extra bucks since you probably won’t be purchasing one of the high-end Chromebooks anytime soon.
That is to say, there are methods to increase the storage on a low-end Chromebook with basic hardware.
Fortunately, there are several ways to increase a device’s storage space; we’ve covered the greatest ones in this tutorial.
Our view is that the two most practical methods to make sure you always have enough storage are to have a microSD card and a USB device connected. You can also check out this simple guide from Google on how to free up space on your Chromebook.