How to manage the limited disk space of laptops?

January 13, 2006 11:35 AM

How to manage the limited disk space of laptops?

I need to buy a new Mac, and I'm having trouble deciding between the new Intel-based iMac or MacBook Pro. The main sticking point for me is disk space.

On my current PowerMac, my /Users directory alone is 80GB between 2 users, and my 120GB hard drive is always nearly full. About 40GB of that is MP3s, which I don't want to offload onto an external drive.

I'd really love to get the MacBook, but I fear I'd have to sacrifice my media hoarding ways. Does anyone else have this affliction, and how do you deal with it?

posted by howling fantods to computers & internet (14 comments total)

About 40GB of that is MP3s, which I don't want to offload onto an external drive.
Why not? If you did that, you would at least have a moderately portable solution. You can also easily add another internal hard drive to the PowerMac.

Portable computers have limited hard drive space. If you use your laptop in a network situation, you can keep your mp3's at home and reach that network for access to them remotely. If you must travel with all your music untethered, you have two choices - an external drive (or a high-capacity player - 60 gigs is the largest battery-powered one I have seen) or a travelling library of music ripped at lower quality on the internal drive. You can also upgrade the internal hard drives of laptops, but 120 gigs is about the upper limit right now.

I agree it's a pain, but life is compromise.
posted by mzurer at 11:49 AM on January 13, 2006

Also, if you need a new laptop right now, you probably should buy a powerbook or an ibook. If you want a shiny new bleeding edge 'puter, go for it. And be prepared to get it later than you thought, and have it in the shop sometime in the next six months when the first rev hardware problems start rearing their ugly little brushed-metal heads.
posted by mzurer at 11:52 AM on January 13, 2006

if you put data in an external drive and like to move your computer around, YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN. it's like burning data CDs!
posted by soma lkzx at 11:58 AM on January 13, 2006

if you put data in an external drive and like to move your computer around, YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN. it's like burning data CDs!

That's silly. You're silly.

howling fantods, good external drives are fantastic for laptops. When I play shows, they are the solution to my need-access-to-large-volumes-of-media problems.
posted by Jairus at 1:12 PM on January 13, 2006

Every year, I offload my entire laptop to some external storage. Then I reformat my hard drive and reinstall all my apps. As I need them, I slowly put things back. It's like having a new computer every year.
posted by CrazyJoel at 2:32 PM on January 13, 2006

Is there a Mac program like Sequoiaview? It inventories your disk and gives you a graphical representation of what's sitting on your HD and how big it is/how much it's taking up.

I find it very useful for determining what to delete ("oh... wth? What is *this* still doing on my disk?").
posted by PurplePorpoise at 2:56 PM on January 13, 2006

That's silly. You're silly.

I have a refutation to that, but it's somewhere on my external drive.
posted by soma lkzx at 3:13 PM on January 13, 2006

Is there a Mac program like Sequoiaview?

There's Disk Inventory X. Personally I prefer a less graphical view, as provided by WhatSize or OmniDiskSweeper.
posted by chrismear at 4:18 PM on January 13, 2006

In buying an iBook, I intentionally chose the smallest hard drive possible. I now have all my data stored on a 250GB external hard drive. When I'm at home, I still use it to listen to music, but my portable music solution is my MP3 player, so I really have no need to take up all that disk space on my machine.

With the ease of mounting and unmounting drives, the speed of transfer to and from the drive (iTunes runs off of the external drive, which has a faster rate than my internal drive), and the larger capacity of the external, this solution has been really easy.
posted by themadjuggler at 4:55 PM on January 13, 2006

If you don't have a sensitive ear, you might want to consider transcoding your MP3s to aacPlus 48kbps/64kbps. The quality is really good considering the size.
I don't have a Mac, but you can do it using the trial version of Sorenson Squeeze, and if you google around I'm sure you can find something free.
posted by Sharcho at 5:57 PM on January 13, 2006

Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately the PowerMac is out of the equation. It's a borrowed computer and I have to return it. Hence my need for a new one. Waiting until February shouldn't be a problem.

Upon further consideration, I guess it does make sense to keep my MP3 collection on an external HD. I can easily sync my iPod to that, and make sure I always have it with me. I could also stand to be more prudent when it comes to photos, and keep the RAW images on an external drive or DVD backup.

Can anyone recommend a good external drive and/or enclosure? Does it make sense to get a networked (for example) external drive? That would give me the flexibility to access it whenever I'm on my network, but they're probably much more expensive.

As to seeing what's what and how much space things are taking up, I use the ol' fashioned 'du' command in the terminal.
posted by howling fantods at 7:05 PM on January 13, 2006

howling fantods, network drives are pretty silly if you have the ability to share the drive via whatever PC it's plugged into.

The WD Caviar is the only general-purpose HD I'll buy for home or professional use. For enclosures, I've had great success with Vantec's products, specifically the NexStar 3 line.


posted by Jairus at 8:00 PM on January 13, 2006

network drives are pretty silly if you have the ability to share the drive via whatever PC it's plugged into.

Except that if my only computer is the laptop, it would be nice to have the freedom to not have to be plugged into it at all times.
posted by howling fantods at 9:39 PM on January 13, 2006

Ah yes, in that case, a network enclosure would be pretty useful indeed! Bytecc makes a pretty nice one.


posted by Jairus at 9:49 PM on January 13, 2006