storage

[jmm]

hello, my straight-A son wants his reward in the form of an ipad2 and claims he needs a 32-GB as his mother wants him to share it with his sister...
The 16-GB costs 500 $, the 32-GB 600; therefore i'll pay 100/16 = 6.25 $ a GB, which i find outrageous since a 500-GB external HD costs around 40 $, i.e. 40/500 = 8 cents a GB!!! I'm trying to convince him that the 16 would be enough as he can always connect it to his PC to load whatever he needs at any given time - am I not right?
The extra 100 $ is not really what matters but I'd hate to be a victim of Apple's questionable business on that particular issue, on which i'd appreciate hearing your opinion...
thank you

 

[iPadCharlie]

First of all, greetings and welcome to the forum!

You can't really compare the price of an external hard drive with the cost of an iPad since the iPad is much more than just raw storage space.

Yes, iPads are expensive, but so are its competitors. Before you go complaining about being a "victim" of Apple's business practices, the 32gb Xoom with 3g is $800, which is $70 more than the 32gb iPad with 3g!

As far as the actual storage space, the one thing that takes up the most room is videos. An average theatre-type movie can easily be 1-1.5gb or more so this can fill up an iPad quickly. As far as music, I have nearly 1000 songs (some of which are full classical symphonies) on my iPad and that only takes up right at 5gb. I also have over 800 photographs and that barely takes up .28gb. I also have 111 books and that only takes up .21gb. As far as apps, I have 67 and those take up just a shade under 3gb.

So even with all this stuff, I still have room left! I hope this helps.

 

[jmm]

You can't really compare the price of an external hard drive with the cost of an iPad since the iPad is much more than just raw storage space.

i'm not questioning the 500 $ for the machine, just the 100 $ for extra storage...
so let's say my son has 1000 videos on his TB(terabyte)-HDD - can't he temporarily load any given movie onto his ipad when he feels like watching one?

 

[Gabriel1]

hello, my straight-A son wants his reward in the form of an ipad2 and claims he needs a 32-GB as his mother wants him to share it with his sister...
The 16-GB costs 500 $, the 32-GB 600; therefore i'll pay 100/16 = 6.25 $ a GB, which i find outrageous since a 500-GB external HD costs around 40 $, i.e. 40/500 = 8 cents a GB!!! I'm trying to convince him that the 16 would be enough as he can always connect it to his PC to load whatever he needs at any given time - am I not right?
The extra 100 $ is not really what matters but I'd hate to be a victim of Apple's questionable business on that particular issue, on which i'd appreciate hearing your opinion...
thank you

You can't use external HD costs as a comparison anyway, the on board storage in an iPad is solid state technology, an external drive of the capacities you are talking about is an, dare I say it, old fashioned spinning disk. That type of memory is way cheaper and is not like for like.

The Archangel

 

[iPadCharlie]

can't he temporarily load any given movie onto his ipad when he feels like watching one?

Absolutely! He can still have a handful of videos on his (and his sister's!) iPad and still have plenty of room!

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

hello, my straight-A son wants his reward in the form of an ipad2 and claims he needs a 32-GB as his mother wants him to share it with his sister...
The 16-GB costs 500 $, the 32-GB 600; therefore i'll pay 100/16 = 6.25 $ a GB, which i find outrageous since a 500-GB external HD costs around 40 $, i.e. 40/500 = 8 cents a GB!!! I'm trying to convince him that the 16 would be enough as he can always connect it to his PC to load whatever he needs at any given time - am I not right?
The extra 100 $ is not really what matters but I'd hate to be a victim of Apple's questionable business on that particular issue, on which i'd appreciate hearing your opinion...
thank you

As 1991-C4 points out, this is a difficult comparison.

You quote a 500 GB external HD at $40, but that is 'rotating disc' technology. The iPad uses solid state flash discs, which are much more expensive. If you look at the Amazon.com site you'll see that a 256 GB external solid state HD is close to $500 and that makes the solid state memory close to $2/GB. OK - the $6.25 still doesn't look good, but it's not quite as bad....

Having said that, as 1991-C4 points out, it really depends on what your son and his sister are going to use the iPad for.

Congratulations, anyway, to your son on being a straight 'A' student - and to you for being such a kind and generous father. I wish there'd been iPads when I was a kid.

Whatever you finally decide, I'm sure your son and his sister will have a great time with their new iPad.

Tim
Scotland

 

[Hasty]

Sometimes a parent just has to bite the bullet.
He deserves it and they both will benefit from it.

 

[tzimisce]

I wouldn't quibble over the price difference between a 16 and 32GB device, either. With 16GB you do have to watch the volume management on the device, because it will fill up much faster than something with twice the capacity.

Bearing in mind that if there's a 1 terabyte "source" to be copying files from, that's about 17+ 64GB iPads worth of capacity of data, so even with a 64GB device you'd end up having to do lots of file copying back and forth constantly, depending on how often the content needs to be changed.

 

[Rlarson_mn]

I look at it from a resale standpoint also. Most likely the next generation IPad 3 will start out at the low price point at 32gb (example iPod history). When you or your son get ready to sell your Ipad 2 it will be easier if it's a 32gb version rather than the 16gb. My original IPad wifi is a 16gb version. I have plenty of room left in it's capacity at this time. When I ordered my IPad 2 I took the 32gb wifi version for just the reasons listed above.

 

[Chakatajaca]

I had a 16gb iPad 1 and when I upgraded to the 2 I chose the 32gb because although yes you can load new material when needed I found it to be annoying to be constantly watching the amount of data I had on my iPad. With 32gb it allows me to have most of my mp3 collection and still have plenty of room for many movies.

If the $100 really doesn't matter then I'd opt for the 32gb.

Either way good job for your son on getting all A's.

 

[jmm]

thank you all for your very good points! i might satisfy my son's request for a 32 (after all he's the straight 'A', i wasn't...)

 

[jdag]

Another $100 jump...but isn't the 64gb more "economical" than the 32gb version? The jump from 16-32 is 16, while the jump from 32-64 is 32. All for the same $100 difference.

I have 2 original iPads in my household: 64gb 3g and 32gb 3g. In terms of relsale (using eBay Instant Sale as a guide), the 64gb is now worth $149 more than the 32gb model.

 

[Wolfpuppies3]

Flash storage is greatly more expensive than

harddrives. Greatly quicker, smaller physically, and cooler as well which is why they use it in iPads. They use it in MacBook Airs as well - check the price differences on upgrading the flash storage (only at time of purchase) on them!

I don't share my iPad and have a bit more than 40 gig filled on my 64 gig storage. I need 64 gig but I read, have 3000 songs, a dozen or so videos and a thousand or so photos. If I shared this I would need a lot more than the available 64 gig option which is what I ordered on my iPad2.

 

[PhoneService]

30 PIN to USB Hub to Flash Drives???

Why can't I just use the 30 PIN to plug in 30PIN/USB adapter and then either use that to plug in a flash drive or plug it into a USB HUB that I have flash drives plugged into?

Heck Flash drives are cheap and I can take a handful with me when traveling. Shouldn't that work?

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

Why can't I just use the 30 PIN to plug in 30PIN/USB adapter and then either use that to plug in a flash drive or plug it into a USB HUB that I have flash drives plugged into?

Heck Flash drives are cheap and I can take a handful with me when traveling. Shouldn't that work?

I'm afraid not. The iPad - if it's not jail broken - can only read movies and photos from a card plugged in via the optional camera connection kit. You cannot write to the card or read any general files. Indeed, during the latest iOS operating system update, the current drive capability of the 30-pin connector was reduced meaning that only a small number of flash drives will work even with a jail broken iPad.

Sorry - flash drives don't help the iPad. The only storage you've got available to you is what's inside the iPad - cloud storage - such as Apple's MobileMe iDisk can be a 'sort of' solution, but basically there's nothing.

Tim