Low Memory Slows Performance?

[-BigMac-]

Hi guys,
Have a 64gb iPhone 4S, and recently noticed after filling it to the brim with about 55gb of music among other things, that performance seems a little slower.
I have about 2.7gb left of free space.
My question is, do 'low memory' situations decrease the performance of the iPhone? - in particular: loading times of apps/music.

Thanks

 

[Kashika]

Yes. Same principle with any computer.

 

[-BigMac-]

Yes. Same principle with any computer.

what % of free space is generally recommended?

 

[Bojan]

Bumping this thread, as I am interested in this topic as well. I didn't notice any slow downs on my iPhone 16 gigs, but I always keep around 1 gig free.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Bumping this thread, as I am interested in this topic as well. I didn't notice any slow downs on my iPhone 16 gigs, but I always keep around 1 gig free.

I do the same thing with my iPhone.

 

[TacticalDesire]

I always like to keep 1gb free on my devices. Perhaps something like else is causing the slow down? Or maybe its in your head?

 

[Mlrollin91]

I could be mistaking, but I'm pretty sure 10% open is the threshold. Regardless if I am right or wrong, thats what I do.

 

[quietstormSD]

Since the phone is flash memory, wouldn't lack of hard drive space not effect effect it that much since it doesn't it have a hard disk drive to spin and find files. Much like a solid state drive vs hard disk drive. So you can't really compare iPhone disk space to a computer's hard disk space.

 

[Spidder]

Treat your iPhones memory like a SSD for a computer. That means you should have at least 10% free space.

16GB = 1.6GB
32GB = 3.2GB
64GB = 6.4GB

 

[chambone]

The comparison to a PC is flawed because, unlike a PC, iOS doesn't swap memory to disk. What it does when running out of memory is first deleting static files that it can pull from storage if needed. If that doesn't suffice it starts deleting apps from memory, unused the longest first. So no, filled up storage doesn't make the phone slower.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

My question is, do 'low memory' situations decrease the performance of the iPhone? - in particular: loading times of apps/music.

No. And I'm serious.
I have 421MB free on my 16GB iPhone 5 and the performance is not affected.
It's a phone, enjoy it. Sooner or later it will become outdated and the performance will decrease.
Do a geekbench test with 2GB free and another with 200MB and the score will be almost the same. (I say almost because the score isn't precise in every test)

 

[katai]

I have a 32gb iphone 5 and have 65mb left. Haven't had time to clean my songs. I don't notice any slow performance.

 

[takeshi74]

Bumping this thread, as I am interested in this topic as well. I didn't notice any slow downs on my iPhone 16 gigs, but I always keep around 1 gig free.

No need to bump. This is a common topic. The OP doesn't understand causality. As pointed out above, low space doesn't affect performance in the same way as it does on a PC -- not only because (current) IOS devices don't swap out to disk but they also don't use hard drives that slow down as they fill up.