besttravelgear

Hi there, I'm about to buy a Macbook Air (128 GB). Air users--do you recommend an external hard drive too? I'd use it mainly for word docs and photos. (I've been backing up photos on iPad while traveling). I know it's a good idea to use an external hd at home for back-up regardless, but those of you using an Air--do you travel with an external hard drive as well? Thanks!

shawbridge

I don't use an external hard drive when traveling. I have DropBox as a backup (it's DropBox for business, which has versioning).

I love the MacAir.

bpratt

I really really wouldn't. The whole point of an Air over a MacBook Pro is size and weight. Don't spoil that by adding an external drive. Either get a big enough SSD to hold what you need while travelling, use a cloud service as suggested by Shawbridge, or if you must have separable storage get one or more big usb sticks.

And if you're worried about data loss, SSDs can take a lot more abuse than traditional magnetic discs with floating heads. You would have to work quite hard to trash the SSD in an Air and make it unreadable.

Bob

davie355

For photos, would Flickr's free 1TB suffice?

besttravelgear

Thanks for the ideas and thoughts. Bob, that's what I was thinking as well, it does kind of negate the point a little. I've just been reading so much about people getting external hard drives with the Airs, it made me wonder if that was going to be necessary. Will definitely look into the USB stick option and Flick's 1TB.

LtKernelPanic

While I don't use an Air (MBP here) I guess it depends on your needs. You can get 128GB flash drives for 50-75 bucks now which should handle just about any backup needs while on the road. Of course for a little more you can get a much bigger HD but it takes up more room in your bag, adds weight, can be easily damaged if it gets dropped or banged around, etc. On the other side of the coin cheap flash drives tend to be slow to write to and are easily to misplace or lose compared to a standard drive. If it were me I'd probably go with a 64 or 128 GB flash drive to use as a backup while on the road until I can make a permanent one at home and have another that's bootable with all the apps and stuff I normally use just in case something happens to my main system.

f0xx

Why not get a low profile USB drive? They go as high as 64GB.
I have 32GB one and it sits out as far as a USB mouse dongle.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer...le+flash+drive

JohnnyColombia

I use a Time Machine 3TB with Back to Mac turned on. Store your important stuff in a data folder on your Time Machine and you have mini cloud storage. Making the folder bigger just eats up your oldest backups so no need to partition.

You really want a local version for editing photos but it is perfect for storing RAW files to edit later. I tend to have 40GB free for photos but its a bit little for serious editing

Flickr 1TB is great but its an increasing number of clicks to get your photos back down and if you want to upload to subsequently download and edit then that?s a chore

fmastr

I upgraded my MBA to the optional 500gb drive to avoid needing external storage ..... I do use Spider Oak and carry a 64gb USB stick for quick file transfer though ......

TRAVELSIG

No- I have 256 GB drive and it is fine. If you are using a ton of photo space you can also use Google Drive or Dropbox for example.

I do have external drive backup at the office and home as well- do not need when traveling.

besttravelgear

Thank you for this--I'll get one and try it. Along with Dropbox (which I already use for some things). I'm buying refurbished on the Apple store, so not sure about being able to upgrade space, but I'll check into that too.

I kind of got stuck in between not having enough capabilities traveling with my iPad and having too much (and too much weight) lugging around my MBPro. I think the Air will be my sweet spot, just need to figure out the storage details. Appreciate everyone's helpful suggestions!

nmenaker

I use one like these with my macbook pro. Fits totally flush, and I backup most things to this as a regular backup location when travelling. TimeMachine will backup to it just fine.

There are versions for the MBA and a new one from Transcend came out recently from another third party that writes much faster


this is the one I use which is 128 GB. The 64GB versions often sell for 35-40$

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DC9U2Q8/...ter_B00E3Q4ETA

These above have been as low as .50 a GB

f0xx

You're welcome!

I was going to suggest this too. Though I have a MBP and not a Air, so I wasn't sure if it had a SD card slot or not.

besttravelgear

Which do you think is the fastest, most reliable option? The card or the USB flash? And the most straightforward with the least amount of reformatting and fussing? Apparently, the 13 inch Air's have the sd slot, but not the smaller ones. I'm pretty sure I'm getting the 13" (any opinions on which size is optimal on the MBA are welcome). Thanks!

f0xx

According to some quick Googling.
The SD card does beat out a USB drive.
So you're going to have a SD card that can read and write much faster.

However, I see some fitment issues on some macs viewing the pictures.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-me...mg_see_all_txt

The USB drive I posted gets

The PNY SD Card