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How do I break my hard drive addiction so I can switch to an Air?

jackrv said:
Seagate goflex drives (among others) are USB/fw bus powered external drives that can fit in a jeans pocket. USB is available now and TB to FW800 adapters are reportedly coming soon from Sonnet technologies. Keep it in your laptop bag and you'll always have up to 2 Tb at your disposal.
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If this were true it would be sweet only because I switched everything from USB 2.0 to FW 800 as the TB drives are way too expensive for now, I am sure they will drop in price as more stuff comes to market.
 
For those wanting internal storage, I suppose you could pop in a 64GB SDXC card in the card slot. I know it's not a TB, but it's a pretty big jump up from 128 GB.
 
jclardy said:
I see my files the same way I see physical objects. I don't drive an RV to work because I want to take everything in my house with me, I have a small car that can carry my bike, a bag, some CD's, and whatever other tools I need for the day. The other stuff I own is stored at my house where it is safer and less likely to be lost/damaged/stolen.
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I dont like the car analogy either, but since you started it... :D

When people go car shopping they buy a car that fits their whole family, but most of the time a car is being used solo to get you to work or groceries. So while it would be ideal to have multiple sizes of cars in the garage that would fit your specific task of the day, to most people it makes more sense to just buy one big car that can do everything because its safer to have too much than have too little.
 
xkmxkmxlmx said:
Why? I have seen them as low as $80 on sale sometimes.

Actually, you *could* buy a 128 card for about $200 and still save $100.
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A 64GB SD card for $80? Must be crap. You get what you pay for. Lexar is the cheapest I'd dare use, and that's $120. I'd prefer Kingston or Sandisk. A-Data, Ridata, and some of those other brands are pure garbage.

The transfer rate of the SD cards is also painfully slow compared to the SSD. For what you could save its really not worth it. If you need the space, its best to get the bigger SSD. If you already have several SD cards you can use, that's gravy. But planning on buying SD cards instead of spending that money on the bigger SSD is just not a very good idea. IMHO.
 
ZBoater said:
A 64GB SD card for $80? Must be crap. You get what you pay for. Lexar is the cheapest I'd dare use, and that's $120. I'd prefer Kingston or Sandisk. A-Data, Ridata, and some of those other brands are pure garbage.

The transfer rate of the SD cards is also painfully slow compared to the SSD. For what you could save its really not worth it. If you need the space, its best to get the bigger SSD. If you already have several SD cards you can use, that's gravy. But planning on buying SD cards instead of spending that money on the bigger SSD is just not a very good idea. IMHO.
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Well, I do somewhat agree. And the card was a kingston. I believe it was newegg that had them on sale.

At any rate, the point is, if you're going for the absolute cheapest route, you *could* save a hundred or two.

And don't forget the people who went low and now regret it. They would have to go some route like this.
 
I use Spotify and offline sync for the playlists I listen to the most. Keeping 200 GB of music on disk is so 2008. $9.99 a month is a small price to pay for instant syncing to all your devices and Spotify's social functions (share playlists with Facebook friends).

I've got the 11" Air and after a couple of weeks use I still didn't use more than about 20GB. And what a sweet machine it is, never going back to a bulky 13".
 
I'm surprised people are still resorting to the old method of ripping and listening. Perhaps downloading too.

I listen to all my music over grooveshark and spotify. My playlists in there represent my purchased music collection and it streams wonderfully, even to my mobile.

3G charges can be an issue, as is reliable streaming access, in this case, i have a realistic iTunes library syncing with my phone to listen to as a back up, mainly on the go and normally in my car. Even if you don't use spotify etc, i don't see why you need all 300GB of music on your PC for example. You will never listen to it all. Keep it on a back up drive and just manage your library when you need to.
 
How do I break my hard drive addiction so I can switch to an Air?
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Is breaking a hard drive addiction even possible? Being a packrat I find that I chew up free disk space as fast as I can add it. I must have over 10 TB worth of data (media, backups, asst. cruft) on external storage at this point. And I need more space.

(Sadly, finally deleting those papers I wrote in Word Perfect for college twenty years ago probably won't free up much space.)

Virtual hoarding can be just as bad as the real thing. :(
 
I thought I would have the same problem with my wife's 11", so I found this on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/ELAGO-Mobile-Reader-World-Smallest-EL-RD-012/dp/B002K7EJDK/ref=lh_ni_t

It takes microsd cards (you can get a 32gb card for under $50 on Amazon, I'm sure you can get a beter deal if you hunt around), and sits almost flush against the side of your Air. That could go a long way to alleviating your problems. Plus, as microsd cards go up in storage capacity and down in price, you can always upgrade.

(Even though I'm recommending this as a solution, I ended up going with the 256GB upgrade- I want this laptop to last a while, and I want it to be a daily driver without any compromises.)
 
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I think your best bet is the GoFlex Slim which is REALLY thin, has a 7200RPM HDD, USB2.0/3.0, and 320GB of space. Its $90, and its really light.

There is a balance/sacrifice between portability and big storage needs. You cannot have more than 250 GB of stuff on any MBA, thats the way it is I guess.. You can also prioritize things to be available On-demand.. for example, its more important for me to have 2 VM machines at 20GB for both than to have 20GB of music and videos. I would also be happier to load tons of apps rather than tons of movies.. If you think about it, 120GB is actually quiet a lot, considering that its much faster than a regular HDD.

I would get the 256 SSD in this case, and if needed, get the go flex slim for another 320GB, thats about 500GB total. On the flex you can put all the music, videos, and large files, and leave the rest on the SSDs for immediate access... If not the MBA is not for you...
 
I got the 2010 11" Air with 128Gb. On the computer itself I have OS X (naturally), all the programs I use for personal things and work, the games I play, a copy of my work projects folder and some music (mainly a local offline cache of my spotify list). I can do just about everything with all this - work, play games, listen to music, or just leisure surfing.

I usually download things to my iMac, and I use a tiny 32Gb USB memory stick (looks quite exactly like the Elago one pictured above) to bring them with me when travelling and such. 32Gb video will last you quite a while, trust me.

At home I got my entire music / movie / work files on a 3Tb NAS server. These are files I don't use that often, so it works fine to read/write directly to the NAS, or copy them to the computer when going for a trip.

I have about 30Gb free on the computer (a bit less now since I imported a ton of photos on my last trip), but 128Gb works really well. I wouldn't say no to 256Gb ofc, but my point is that it works. It can all be handled with a USB memory, a plug'n play USB harddrive, a NAS server at home or similar.
 
This storage thing can get so out of hand, that I figured there's not going to be much difference between 128GB and 256GB, as i'm going to always want more. So I just move it to external, that way I can control the addiction. One day at a time, is what I say :)
 
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