‘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.