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What do people do with more than 16 GB of storage space?

motulist

motulist

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 2, 2003
4,236
611
---EDIT--------------
I'm very well aware of how much space you CAN fill up by loading your phone with 50,000 songs, or 10,000 high res photos, or several seasons worth of tv episodes, etc. The question is why do you store all that stuff locally on your device instead of just having a few of those items stored locally for the rare occasions when you don't have net access to stream them? Even out in the country where I am, pretty much everyone has DSL with wifi, and in town you even get some cell data. So for the vast majority of the population you're going to have net connectivity that's at least as good as that, and usually much better.

-------- original comment below -------------



I've had a 16 GB iPad for 3 years and a 16 GB iPhone for a year, and I've almost never had a problem of too little available space. I have many many apps installed, including a couple of big games, I keep about 10 music albums and a few podcasts stored for those rare occasion when I don't have cell or wifi net access available, each week I take about 30 pictures and a couple of short videos, I'm running iOS 8 which supposedly eats up over 1 GB more than 7, I only sync with my computer to offload the pics and videos every couple of months, and even with all of that I still have like 4 GB of space free. What are other people storing that eats up so much more space that it requires 32 or 64 GB of space?
 
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I have a lot of audio books and podcasts on my phone. I hate needing the space and not having it so I spend the extra $100-$200 up from to make sure that I don't have a regret in 18 months.
 
I keep all of my pictures and videos on my iPhone and iPad (synced from iPhoto) so I need 128gb of space on both. Also, text messages with pictures can add up as well. I love this technology because I can carry an entire bookcase of photo albums in the palm of my hand.
 
I can similarly ask "how do people survive with only 16GB?"

It's all a matter of differing use cases, which is why there are different capacities.

EDIT: holy crap I can't type today.
 
- Lossless format music (at least 30 gig or more)
- 2 kids and lots of pics / video's
- large apps

I just upgraded to 128Gb 6 from 32gb 5... I was constantly deleting older music and swapping songs around. That gets old fast. And I dont have that extensive of a collection, but I'm moving more toward .wav and lossless which takes up a lot more space.
 
I take a lot of picutres (I have an 8 month old baby) and I listen to a lot of podcasts. I made it by just fine on my 32gb phone, with about 4 gb left to spare. I would have kept the 32gb had it been offered for the 6.

I have a 16gb rMini and it is fine for my iPad usage. It is used mostly for social media and forum browsing. The occaisional iBook doesn't use up much space either.

My wife has always had 16gb phones (and a 16gb iPad Mini) and has never had a problem with storage.
 
Well a lot of pictures,games,apps and a lot of music too.16GB isnt enough storage for me
 
OP here. I think I need to clarify the question.

As I stated in my original post, I have a few albums and podcasts and a couple of tv shows etc. for those rare occasions when I have no net connection, but those times are *exceedingly* rare. I'm in the country right now, like literally farms are here country, and pretty much everyone here has DSL w. wifi, and in town I even get some cell data. So I pretty much always just stream music and tv right from pandora/Amazon prime/Netflix/etc. So if this is the case for me in the country, then that means the vaaast majority of people will have at least as much net connectivity as I get. - So why store any more than a few pieces of audio or video on your device?
 
Because connectivity availability and performance is not guaranteed.

Local storage availability and performance is guaranteed.
 
motulist said:
I've had a 16 GB iPad for 3 years and a 16 GB iPhone for a year, and I've almost never had a problem of too little available space. I have many many apps installed, including a couple of big games, I keep about 10 music albums and a few podcasts stored for those rare occasion when I don't have cell or wifi net access available, each week I take about 30 pictures and a couple of short videos, I'm running iOS 8 which supposedly eats up over 1 GB more than 7, I only sync with my computer to offload the pics and videos every couple of months, and even with all of that I still have like 4 GB of space free. What are other people storing that eats up so much more space that it requires 32 or 64 GB of space?
Click to expand...
I have over 18GB of Honeymooners episodes. None of that includes my apps, the OS and any of my data. 10+GB is sitting up in Google Play, so if I put that on my device there would also be that.

But with over 18GB just in video there's no way a 16GB device would work for me.
 
ZBoater said:
Because connectivity availability and performance is not guaranteed.

Local storage availability and performance is guaranteed.
Click to expand...

Right, that's what I just described, which is why for those rare occasions I have a few albums and a couple of tv episodes stored locally. But 10 albums, 10 podcasts, and 5 good quality tv episodes altogether don't take up more than 5 GB at max.
 
Can't beat the quality of an HD movie playing off your phones storage. No buffering issues / frame rate drops ever. While you can stream everything nowadays, I still like storing media on my phone.
 
motulist said:
Right, that's what I just described, which is why for those rare occasions I have a few albums and a couple of tv episodes stored locally. But 10 albums, 10 podcasts, and 5 good quality tv episodes altogether don't take up more than 5 GB at max.
Click to expand...

And that's great. 100 albums, 100 podcasts, and 50 TV shows don't.

Why would I leave myself at the mercy of connectivity performance and availability when I can have it locally? :confused:
 
eyoungren said:
I have over 18GB of Honeymooners episodes. None of that includes my apps, the OS and any of my data. 10+GB is sitting up in Google Play, so if I put that on my device there would also be that.

But with over 18GB just in video there's no way a 16GB device would work for me.
Click to expand...

I understand that videos take up space. But you haven't answered my question, which is why do you need several seasons worth of tv shows stored on your phone at all times?
 
the OTA for iOS 8 required something like 6GB free, I know you can update via USB, but the way things are trending 16GB fills up fast

and dont forget a 16GB device is really closer to 11GB
 
~5 GB iOS
~8 GB Music
~4 GB Photos

Totals 17GB. And that's pretending the 16GB model has 16GB of actual storage once formatted and converted to base 2. I'm not anywhere near a power user, but I don't want to have to delete and re-add music every other day, and my photos aren't much good if I don't have them around to show people.

Frankly, I don't know how anyone manages to get by these days with *only* 16GB.
 
I like taking a lot of pictures and recording video. That's pretty much the extent of my need for device storage.

I deleted all music from my phone since I got iTunes Match and that freed up a ton of space. Can now listen to my entire iTunes Library without having to waste my device storage on it. So I use a 32GB 5S.
 
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