Sep 2, 2012 | blog, featured
‘Transformer Prime’ by John Biehler
I’ve been thinking about mobile devices and storage space recently. After a great conversation over lunch with @CloudScout last week, I concluded that 32GB is probably the perfect amount of storage space for mobile devices today.
Here’s my thinking:
16GB is just too small, it can’t hold the data we need. Add a couple dozen tracks, a few hundred pics, and you’re just about there.
64GB on the other hand is overkill. It’s the initial size for an SSD for a full size computer or laptop. It does give you room to grow, but by the time you fill it up, you’ll be upgrading devices anyway. On top of that, you’re going to pay a premium for that storage.
I consider myself to use a bit less local storage than the average person on my mobile devices. I’m also a techy geek, so I tend to buy devices with more storage than I could possibly need.
In the past 18 months, the two tablets and the two phones I’ve had range wildly on storage. The Google Nexus One I had only had an 8GB microSD card, and I was constantly around 2GB free. When I replaced that phone, with the HTC Sensation 4G, I made sure to add a 32GB microSD – which I’ve not used over 18GB of data yet.
My Apple iPad 2 that I bought upon release in 2011 had 16GB, and, while I was always worried of running out of space, I never used more than 12GB. When I replaced the iPad 2 with the Asus Transformer Prime, opted for the 64GB unit. Again, I’ve yet to top 20GB of data used so far.
What I see here from my own experiences is that we tend to worry too much about running out of space. However that limits us from really reaching the full potential of the devices we carry. Also, in the last 18 months, online storage and the amount of time our mobile devices are constantly connected to the cloud has increased dramatically.
Currently, I can count up to 125GB of free storage space that I have at my disposal between my two mobile devices. Along with that, the automatic uploads of pics to Google+ (Apple has a similar feature) allows me to not have to think about uploading or syncing pics. In addition, my Asus tablet has a great feature (Asus bundled software) that allows selected folders to automatically be synced to the cloud.
It’s these new services and features that will reduce our dependence on local storage for mobile devices and allow us to have a much more seamless experience across computing devices. Bring Google Drive/Docs and Microsoft Skydrive/Office Online into the mix, and you’re quickly covering much of what we need for storage AND productivity.
So if you’re trying to decide between the 16/32/64GB versions of a product, pick the middle option. 32GB is likely to fit your needs quite well.
Mar 14, 2008 | blog
It’s time has come, or passed rather… at least for me. I’m sure I’ll cross paths with my favorite email client and PIM in the future. I’ll either have a change of heart (unlikely) or a future client will insist that I use it for internal email at their location (very likely).
For all those anti-Microsoft folks that love to hear things like this, I simply have to say that it has little to do with the product. It does have everything to do with the way I work. As I transition much of my work online, I’m finding that I use more than one or two computers. Since it’s much harder to sync all the data on all these machines, and the fact that I simply can’t do this on some, leads me to world of cloud computing.
This is nothing new for me, I’ve been an advocate of leveraging the cloud for years, but it’s the first concerted effort to simply migrate my data and shift my app usage online. Yes this includes office productivity solutions as well. I’ll be using a lot of both Google Apps and Zoho Office. Both have their strong points and I’m aiming to leverage both for different reasons.
I’ve got most of my data on either XDrive or SkyDrive for differing reasons, and use Box.net as well for some always accessible drivers, tables, code snippets, and such.
I’ll keep MS Office Pro installed, but it’s use is limited to supporting my clients – nothing more. So join me, if you wish, and see how well this works out! I’ll share my frustrations and my wins equally with you.
Have you been thinking of doing the same? What are your directions on how you work, looking into the future?
Mar 9, 2007 | blog
Well I’ve finally found the article that I was interviewed for by the Wall Street Journal – though I found it at The Baltimore Sun instead. The article by Jessica E. Vascellaro details the current crop of available online storage options from Box.net to XDrive.
WSJ interviewed me for my experiences using XDrive, though I also use Box.net as well. There are differences between them in usability and performance, but the simple ability to get at your most critically important files from anywhere is very powerful.
Link to The Online Storage Wars (at The Baltimore Sun)
Link to The Online Storage Wars (at The Wall Street Journal) subscription required
Technorati tags: Online Storage, XDrive, Box.net
Nov 14, 2006 | blog
I’ve blogged before about Avvenu, the on line storage provider. Well, if you’re a current customer, you should be getting an email from them about an upgraded service offering available to you. It is a pay-for service but upgrades your account to 5GB.
Avvenu is unique in that they allow you to access your home computer hard drive in addition to online storage. I’ve been using them for some time and enjoy the ability to get to files on my home computer.
However, I use another service for my on line storage. Currently I’m actually using AOL’s XDrive for my data. Personally, I’m not fond of paying large sums each month for a service – it has to be a really good service, or something that I can’t live without. I can live without access to my home computer, but not to my on line files.
If I can access my files on the ‘net for free, why would I pay $20 or $30 per month for the privilege? If I have to pay, Amazon’s S3 service is looking more and more appealing to me.
I’ll take a closer look at this new Avvenu service later, but at first blush it doesn’t appeal to me.
Log into your Avvenu account for more details.
Mar 15, 2006 | blog
I’ve been telling people over the last few months that the next real important piece of Web 2.0 will be online storage. Had actually contemplated how a person could go about jumping into the fold and building a site and service – but alas it would not be (I have not the skills nor the investors neede:)).
However, I am glad to see new online services start to pop up. Like Box.net for example.  They have crafted a nice AJAXy interface that is simple to use and easy to see what you have stored there. With multiple pricing plans starting at $5/month for 5GB, it looks like a nice service to try out.
You can sample the service yourself with a free 1GB account. I’m currently filling up my new account with a number of files I’ve been meaning to back up for months now (no really I have meant to…). The process was simple, the results as I expected. You can upload by browsing with a standard Windows file browse dialog, or their Drag-n-Drop window that allows you to copy whole folder structures at at time – very nice.
Good luck guys, I’m going to continue to use the service and see if I can find enough data to upgrade to a larger account.
Also, check out Russell Beattie’s post on Box.net!
