Is 64 GB storage enough for iPad Air (2019) for note taking and casual drawing?

[Propine]

Hi,

I already own an 128 GB iPhone and 128 GB MacBook Air. I deliberately upgraded iPhone to 128, because I knew photos and especially videos are quite heavy. And since I have a computer I don't need to load all my tasks and data into iPad.

I am not planning to take photos or videos on iPad though, but I will be taking a lot (like up to 5-10 pages of A4 format a day) of notes with Apple Pencil, reading PDF documents, casual drawing in Pixelmator (which is iCloud enabled afaik), maybe color correcting some photos taken on iPhone again with Pixelmator.

No movies (in the last 12 months I downloaded Netflix shows to my phone for off-line only once). No games (I have just one causal game that I open once in 3 months).

However, I do not know how much handwritten notes taken with apps like OneNote or GoodNote can be in size. Of course I won't store offline copies of all notes I will write in the next 5 years, but most probably I will need the most recent (6 months) with me.

What I feel is that 64 GB shall be enough for years to come for this scope of tasks, but I want to make sure those handwritten notes won't be like super high res PDFs 50 megabytes each. I owned a 32 GB iPad in the past, now my mom uses it, and it always had and still has about half of storage utilised by apps and the other half she uses for a few movies on the road.

Upgrade to 256 GB will cost 160€ and I don't feel like it's worth for my workflow.

 

[0128672]

I think 64GB will be fine based on your usage description. You seem to be very careful and aware of managing your device storage, so I don't think you'll have a problem. You can also use iCloud Drive for storage if things do eventually get tight on the iPad.

 

[muzzy996]

I think you’ll be fine too. Your handwritten notes even with some images thrown in aren’t going to be so large that you’ll find yourself clamoring for storage a couple of years from now. The only way I can see you needing more is if your habits change, but surely you could mitigate that if and when you start to run low on space.

 

[tranceking26]

For what you described I think 64GB will be fine for you.

 

[AutomaticApple]

Hi,

I already own an 128 GB iPhone and 128 GB MacBook Air. I deliberately upgraded iPhone to 128, because I knew photos and especially videos are quite heavy. And since I have a computer I don't need to load all my tasks and data into iPad.

I am not planning to take photos or videos on iPad though, but I will be taking a lot (like up to 5-10 pages of A4 format a day) of notes with Apple Pencil, reading PDF documents, casual drawing in Pixelmator (which is iCloud enabled afaik), maybe color correcting some photos taken on iPhone again with Pixelmator.

No movies (in the last 12 months I downloaded Netflix shows to my phone for off-line only once). No games (I have just one causal game that I open once in 3 months).

However, I do not know how much handwritten notes taken with apps like OneNote or GoodNote can be in size. Of course I won't store offline copies of all notes I will write in the next 5 years, but most probably I will need the most recent (6 months) with me.

What I feel is that 64 GB shall be enough for years to come for this scope of tasks, but I want to make sure those handwritten notes won't be like super high res PDFs 50 megabytes each. I owned a 32 GB iPad in the past, now my mom uses it, and it always had and still has about half of storage utilised by apps and the other half she uses for a few movies on the road.

Upgrade to 256 GB will cost 160€ and I don't feel like it's worth for my workflow.

64GB will most certainly work with your workflow.

 

[glenthompson]

As stated 64 is fine for your case but do you sync photos via iCloud? That could use a moderate amount of space. I keep a lot of books, videos, and photos on my iPad so went with 256 on the new one since I was using over 100gb on the old one.

 

[Propine]

As stated 64 is fine for your case but do you sync photos via iCloud? That could use a moderate amount of space. I keep a lot of books, videos, and photos on my iPad so went with 256 on the new one since I was using over 100gb on the old one.

That's a good question. I have 65 GBs of photos stored in iCloud Photo Library. I use "optimised versions" (aka thumbnails) option on all my devices and in this format they take about 11,85 GB on Mac. So I assume that when I turn on iCloud Photos on the iPad it will take about 12 GBs as well. What I don't know is: will iOS remove some of the thumbnails from iPad if/when iPad storage will get full?