Storage woes, storage pitfalls

Guy Martin.

This article mainly pertains to the newer Apple Macbooks. I wanted to touch base on this topic as I've had several conversations about it with some of my Mac customers.

Here is a scenario: One of my customers called to complain that they were almost out of storage space on their Macbook/Macbook Pro laptops, and were wanting to upgrade their hard drive, possibly a 1 or 2TB drive. After looking up the specs of their Macbook, I unfortunately had to inform them that it is not possible to upgrade the storage space, as it is integrated on the motherboard of the laptop in what is called flash storage. In older Macbooks, there was a hard drive that could be replaced if it failed, or if they wanted to upgrade to a larger capacity drive. This type of option is no longer available.

Here's a couple of reasons why. First, both Windows and Mac are pushing for users to start storing data online. For Windows they offer Onedrive, and for Apple, iCloud. There are huge benefits for online storage, and it has become safer and more stable since online storage first began. Let's say you are out of town on vacation, visiting family or away on a business trip without your computer. You can always use another computer to login to your cloud storage and access your files. So, this is a huge benefit and use of the online cloud solution. There are other options out there for online storage including Carbonite, Google Drive, Mega and Dropbox, just to mention a few. Each offers free storage up to a certain size. If you need more than allotted, then you can pay for the space you need.

Another reason for the Macbook storage issue, is that you can always use external storage options like external hard drives or Solid State Drives (SSD) to save your information. That way you can buy a drive with ample storage space for all your needs, and can safely store the data just in case of a Macbook failure. Flash Drives (sometimes called Thumb Drives) are an option as well, but are a much slower method to save large amounts of Data.

The third reason I'll point out is the sales aspect. When you shop for Macbooks, you'll see that they offer a range of prices. These costs reflect what each Macbook offers, from the size of the flash storage to the amount of memory it offers. For those who are not aware, memory does not store any physical data such as your pictures, documents, etc., where-as the flash storage does. Typically, flash storage is 256GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB. As the storage goes up, so will the price. So, choose wisely when deciding what will be the best option for your type of computing and storage needs.

This topic is another that could be written out over several articles. However, since the majority of computers are Windows based, I recommend for anyone with more questions regarding this article to contact with any questions. Please, feel free to call, email or come in and visit my shop if you need help or have questions. I sure would love to meet you, even if just to shoot the breeze for a few.

For more information call Guy Martin at (661) 972-0448, email [email protected] or visit 20424 Brian Way, Unit 4 Tehachapi.