I recently had to purchase a new MBA after owning a 2007 MacBook. I liked the old laptop mostly because I had a 500GB HD in there that could take care of all my high-resolution photographs and music. Sadly, my new MBA is limited to 128GB. So, for those of you who were in a similar situation, what are your best storage tips and/or techniques for keeping these big hard drive hogs nearby but not on your MBA's SSD?
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MBA Converts: Where did you put your music and photos?
- Thread starter DarumaBlue
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I bought a 1TB portable external drive and partitioned it into two parts. I have 600GB for movies/pictures/etc and 400GB for Time Machine.
Music I listen to daily is on my 160GB SSD. Same for very important photos of my family that I like to look at every so often for nostalgia. Other than that, I still have about 80GB on the SSD to spare anytime I want a movie or two on the SSD when I'm traveling and don't want to carry the drive with me.
One last thing, try downloading an app that shows you disk usage. I use GrandPerspective. http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
It works great on OS X Snow Leopard. A quick Google search says it works on Lion too. Best free disk app and helps you free up the SSD anytime you slowly run out of space. Of course you could try Daisy Disk ($9.99 on the Mac App Store). Just remember to always keep about 20-30GB of space free.
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I've Got The 256
I compromised, transferring my most played music, and kept the HD photo's down to a minimum. I bought the MBA for it's speed, and it's used for transfer / backup of recording sessions. I then put the files on my iMac for working on.
I have now ordered a MBP 17" so will have more space for personal stuff. When the new SSD's appear I will buy one for the Air, but for now, it's backed up to an external 500GB USB hdd....Got one for my iMac, and one for the MBA, just swap them over as required using a Lindy caddy.
I compromised, transferring my most played music, and kept the HD photo's down to a minimum. I bought the MBA for it's speed, and it's used for transfer / backup of recording sessions. I then put the files on my iMac for working on.
I have now ordered a MBP 17" so will have more space for personal stuff. When the new SSD's appear I will buy one for the Air, but for now, it's backed up to an external 500GB USB hdd....Got one for my iMac, and one for the MBA, just swap them over as required using a Lindy caddy.
I got the 256GB, so music and photos are on my MBA.
Movies, on the other hand, are on a 1TB external USB drive (WD Passport).
Movies, on the other hand, are on a 1TB external USB drive (WD Passport).
I've used Tunespan to rather successfully split my Itunes library between my MBA and an external HD - my tv and dvd rips and stuff I don't listen to very often are on the external, my core library of favourite tunes and photos are on the MBA.
Neat little App.
Neat little App.
Most of my photos get sync'd to flickr so that's kinda where they "live", but everything is on an Airport Extreme that is accessible everywhere I have network access. That volume is backed up by my MacPro and pushed to the cloud every so often just in case.
Hello.
I was faced with the same concern as you. I posted this thread earlier that gave suggestions on usb storage systems: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1178009/
These are sort of permanent solutions.
I was faced with the same concern as you. I posted this thread earlier that gave suggestions on usb storage systems: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1178009/
These are sort of permanent solutions.
A 32 GB micro SD card is not a valid solution for most peoples digital collections. That won't even fit many peoples music alone, let alone visual media. I too have a 128 GB Air but I also have a 2011 MBP with 500 GB HD. THat is my mothership that houses all my media. It has TWO time machine backups and I rotate small doses of media through my Air. Others have mentioned keeping all your pictures on a partitioned harddrive and using a remote file solution for your itunes library. These are good ideas but you have to remember that external harddrives fail. NEVER keep all you media and memories on a single device. TWO at a minimum, three is even better.
Perhaps iCloud or Dropbox could serve you well as a backup solution as well.
Perhaps iCloud or Dropbox could serve you well as a backup solution as well.
i have a 32gb microsd and also a 64gb full sd. let me tell you.. i tried to transfer 12GB iphoto libary over to my 64gb sd.. it said it was going to take 4+ hours. yeah F that. between the slow write speeds and also slow read speeds (itunes would take 2-3 seconds between songs, sometimes even 5) im over that kind of storage. my air has the 256 so i just manage space accordingly. no more full albums of songs i dont listen to. i filter my music now. because lets be honest its rare you enjoy every song on a album now a days. you are lucky to enjoy 6 tracks out of 15 on average (at least for me of course)
1TB external USB drive. I also nearly bought the 256 air, but couldn't justify the price and waiting time.
I have the music I need "on the go" on my mobile phone. At home I have a fileserver where iTunes just connect to the library on the server.
The server is just a very old dell optiplex sx280 (ultra small form factor) with a new 1.5TB drive and another USB drive hooked up. It doesn't have a keyboard or screen or anything, so it doesn't use much power either.
I got it for free from my employer a few years ago when they changed computers at work.
The server is just a very old dell optiplex sx280 (ultra small form factor) with a new 1.5TB drive and another USB drive hooked up. It doesn't have a keyboard or screen or anything, so it doesn't use much power either.
I got it for free from my employer a few years ago when they changed computers at work.
you THINK it doesnt use much power. i bet it being on 24/7 runs you an extra $30-50 on your bill per month
I have only my iPhone playlist on the MBA which is not very large. From memory about 3 - 4GB only, out of my 50GB music library (small I know compared to some). Likewise there are a couple of iPad / iPhone resolution HD movies on there...
Photos, the only photos that are ever on the MBA are those that I take when in transit and want to backup of the CF card. They also get copied to an external HDD at the same time. All get transferred to my NAS when I get back home and don't stay on the MBA for a great length of time.
Photos, the only photos that are ever on the MBA are those that I take when in transit and want to backup of the CF card. They also get copied to an external HDD at the same time. All get transferred to my NAS when I get back home and don't stay on the MBA for a great length of time.
do you live in a shack? im not even trying to be funny bout that.. i have an apartment and my bill runs 30-40 a month. where do you live that its so cheap?!
Within my home, no problem. Almost all of my media sits on a 20 TB raid. I've got the applications on my air, but not the data.
When I'm out and about I use a 3g (?) modem and access my media through the air using zumocast.
So basically, no issue.
Tom
When I'm out and about I use a 3g (?) modem and access my media through the air using zumocast.
So basically, no issue.
Tom
Different prices as it's the UK, but my MBA + 24" LED monitor costs 95p (about 65 cents) a month to run at 8 hours usage a day.
I wouldn't have thought a full tower would cost more than $6 a month, even though it uses much more power than a MBA and it would be on 24/7.
According to http://www.sust-it.net/energy_saving.php?id=20&tariff=9&company=58
does the Optiplex 760 use 38w idle. The SX280 has same case and same psu, it's a bit older tho, but I guess it's about the same.
That's about 0.9kWh a day. I live in norway where we have cheap water generated electricity and it costs me about $0.2 pr kWh.
Thats about $73 a year and i can live with that. As for power consumption I'm much more worried about heating and and my desktop, which uses about ten times more. (Desktop with 750w psu, gtx285, 2 7200rpm has, ssd, two screens.)
According to http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp my setup will use 85w at 90% load, which i never do. I guess the machine sits idle for 23 hrs a day.