Data storage is one of the biggest challenges of modern life. There are no easy solutions to the ever-growing problem of what to do with all the things we need to digitally store. Compounding the problem is that the more technology marches on, the bigger the files are that we need to store and share.
How exactly do you share a 50 GB 8K home movie you shot on your Samsung phone with your friends and family? If you don’t get it off of your phone, you will quickly run out of space. So you have to park it somewhere, then find some means of transferring such a large file. Then, there is the problem of what the recipient is supposed to do with it.
Most of the good solutions are going to require you to throw money at the problem. So when it is time to upgrade your tech, you will need to opt for the variants with the largest amount of storage. You will have to pay more and it might take something like a Western Shamrock loan to make up the difference. Going from the bass model storage to 2 TB could cost you hundreds of dollars more than the initial asking price. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. It just means you have to plan better and include the extra cost in your technology budget going forward. Once you have secured the funds, here are some of the storage monsters you will need to address:
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Games
Gaming is one of the most common uses of high end computing resources. Shooting down fake monsters is creating a real life monster that is not so easily defeated. If you are lucky enough to get one of the new Steam Deck consoles, be sure to get it with the max amount of internal storage you can. Some Steam Deck games will eat up your internal storage like a ravenous beast.
A game like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an absolute monster. It requires 25 GB of internal storage just to boot it up. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is 5 times that size. The reason you bought the Steam Deck is that you enjoy playing triple-A titles on the go. Those titles are monstrously large. So when you purchase the device, be sure to grab the largest micro SD card your unit can handle. You’re going to need it.
The Big Picture
The 14 megapixel camera on the iPhone 14 Pro is legit according to reviewers. But beware, those legitimately great photos are legitimately large and difficult to store. You could definitely think of them as storage monsters that need to be tamed. On a smartphone, the first line of defense is moving up to the higher storage levels when you first buy the iPhone. It is not something that can be expanded later. So if you are a shutterbug, you need to buy the largest amount available.
It is hard to convince people to pay more money for something they can’t see. You can’t see your storage. You only become aware of it when you are close to running out. By the time you see those low-storage warning messages, you have a real problem. Unlike the low-battery warning, you can’t fix the storage problem just by plugging it in.
Start by going through your drive and deleting things that are unimportant and are just taking up space. You can optimize large photos for storage. And get in the habit of offloading photos from your phone to your computer. Then use an attached storage backup device to keep everything up to date.
All Those Disposable Apps
When the App Store first became a thing, apps were tiny. You could have loads of them and never worry about how much space they consumed. Now, apps are monstrous, especially the good ones. You can no longer just download apps as if they didn’t take up any space. On iPhone, you can turn on a setting that automatically removes apps from your phone until you are ready to use them again. The better solution is to only download apps you intend to use.
Data storage is a consumer problem that only gets bigger over time. Until we have better data compression protocols, you have to deal with games, photos, and apps as if they were valuable assets. Opt for larger storage options. And only download and keep the things that really matter.
