Lineage OS
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AFAIK LineageOS updates supply the whole system every time, that's why it's always so large. You should be fine skipping a couple. (fine in this way anyway)
That being said, I really doubt you could ever write enough data to harm the mass storage or RAM of your device before you have to switch phones because it stops being supported, or you drop it on concrete, etc.
I am almost forced to use my phone for as long as possible because of financial reasons. This one was bought used and it's 3 years old already but I'm planning to use it for at least 2 more years. That means keeping the memory in good condition is important for me. Same goes for its overall condition and structural integrity (lol) too
Sources vary, and admittedly I didn't research this thoroughly, but even old articles say that flash memory (which is what almost all smartphones use, I think) is expected to work for 10,000 or 100,000 complete writes. That is just sooo much data, even if your phone only has 16GB or something
You should research more on this, and decide if it will be fine for you for the next X years you wish to use this phone.
https://superuser.com/questions/17350/whats-the-life-expectancy-of-an-sd-card#17377
Agreed. This is not a concern worthy of modifying your behavior over. Update or don't, but don't worry about the max writes of your phone storage unless you happen to be serving Wikipedia or running a public DNS server out of your pocket.
My phone is over 5 years old and I don't have any reason to change devices.
My brother had a Motorola from 2014 until 2020. I gave a friend a smartphone from 2017 that I used daily until 2022 and he's using it now. I'm sure you'll be fine.
Also, the updates are weekly. I think they ship the latest commit or something, so skipping a few may not be a big deal.
Edit: answering the question, yes, you only need to download the latest
Hmm I know the worst thing that can happen is bootloop which is fixable by clean flash. I'm mostly scared of an unnoticeable weird breakage that creates privacy and security vulnerabilities. Is such a thing theoretically possible? I know it's a ridiculous question but still
I'm no authority, but I don't see how it could happen
Yes, you can absolutely skip updates and just install the most recent one and it will be fine. As long as there's no Android version jumps, that takes special work.
Fuck it, I'm on the last LineageOS 18.1 release available for my phone, zero updates.
Not great for security but its no better than stock
I don't think your storage can be worn out or at least it can't be worn out easily.
As far as updates go there is no reason to update right away. There are sometimes security fixes but most of them are not anything you need to stress about
There is a type of memory called eMMC. It's used in the absolute cheapest phones and it can wear out in like 30 formats afaik
I could be wrong but I've never heard of a phones internal storage wearing out. Also eMMC can take a beating and certainly can take 30 formats. If it wore out so quickly downloading apps and using files would be a problem.
It's not about read/write cycles but about formatting partitions smh. Idk how it works. Tbh I don't really believe in such quick wear either