February 11th, 2008
MacBook Air Diary-Day 12: Tackling the storage issue
Being somewhat of a data packrat, the MacBook Air’s tiny 80GB hard drive was probably its biggest problem for me. I got accustomed to having a fairly heavy Aperture (20GB) and iTunes library (30GB) at my fingertips on my MacBook Pro’s spacious 320GB HDD. The teensy MBA hard drive makes this impossible.
Read more about data thinning strategies:
- Putting your HDD on an 80GB diet (Redux) 06 Feb 2008
- Putting your HDD on an 80GB diet - 16 Jan 2008
The reality is that, just like Apple taught us with the advent of flash-based iPods, you don’t need to have all your music with you all the time. The same is true for photos and data, and heck, applications for that matter. I’ve already gotten used to the MBA’s small storage capacity (I’ve got 25GB free!), but I’ve enlisted some help.
As I mentioned in my “80GB Diet” pieces, I archived the contents of my Movies, Music and Pictures folder to an external HDD, and I also made a reference copy of my Applications folder and only installed my mission critical applications on the MBA.
A good, high capacity, lightweight external USB drive is a nice addition to the MBA and I am really digging the Western Digital Passport 320GB (Model: WDXMS3200, US$199). The passport is a perfect companion to the MBA because it’s USB 2.0 only (no need to waste money on those pesky Firewire and eSATA interfaces), lightweight (3.7 ounces/104 grams) and ships with the same snappy, 320GB, 5400RPM, SATA Scorpio mechanism that I used to have in my MacBook Pro (I reviewed “the mother of all notebook drives” on 16 Nov 2007).
The WD Passport also available in 250 (US$170), 160 (US$110) and 120GB (US$99) capacities and you have a choice of enclosure colors (red, pink, white or black)–but only on 250 and smaller capacities. The 320GB Passport is only available in black only, which is fine by me.
The Passport is bus-powered so there’s no need for a power brick and it has a round blue LED power/read/write indicator on the side. The position of the LED (right rear) is somewhat curious, but I can live with it. The icing on the cake is the sweet neoprene case that comes with the drive. It’s just big enough for the drive itself and the side pocket is perfect to tuck away the included USB to mini-USB cable.
It took everything in my power to not velcro the Passport to the lid of my MacBook Air (anyone remember the Ricochet modems?) but that would be tacky. If your looking for a high-cap companion drive for the MacBook Air (or any computer for that matter) I’d highly recommend the WD Passport.
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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