Making External Storage Usable

As most of us early adopters of technology have realized, our devices have gotten smaller and more portable. While it is much easier to move around with these smaller devices, we ultimately must become accustomed to smaller file storage availability. I wonder how many people are delaying the adoption of thinner, lighter devices in an effort to retain the large amounts of storage available in the two inch thick ten pound clunkers that they lug around every day? Well, I think I have a convenient and dependable solution. 

In my case, I have both moved away from the large and heavy laptops as well as deserted the Windows operating system for Mac OS. I now use an Apple MacBook Pro 15" with the Retina display. It was actually a difficult decision between the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and the MacBook Pro. After all features were considered, the deciding factor that sent me down the left sidewalk to the Apple store instead of the Microsoft store to my right was the few extra inches of screen size (I also didn't need a touch screen).

So, I get my new MacBook Pro home and begin the transition process. Everything was great... that is, until I began my foray into the Mac OS application testing process. Slowly, but surely, my 250Gb SSD began to lose its free space. I could see that I needed to make a decision. I was either moving everything to the cloud or to external storage or both. I decided to start with external storage.

My largest storage consumer is my music library. I quickly moved my iTunes directory to the external drive. Additionally, as my son expands his venture into the DJ and music production hobbies, what was originally a large library of MP3 files is now organized next to an equally large library of .WAV files, music stems and sound packs that work with Ableton Live and Serato DJ. I have found that this is ultimately a great solution. And since I've implemented the solution, I've also discovered a few tips to make the solution even more convenient.

First of all, I chose the Toshiba Canvio Slim II Terabyte drive. It is a very low-profile external USB 3.0 hard drive that is actually very quick and responsive to file requests. The only negative experience was the fact that I had to remember to remove it from the special pocket in my laptop bag and plug it in before attempting to play music in iTunes. That became a bit irritating. My fix for this involves three items:

1. A plastic cover for the MacBook Pro. This cover is a two-piece DOW polycarbonate material that provides great protection to the aluminum surface of the MacBook. The case is the iPearl mCover, and can be found on Amazon.
2. Velcro! A strip of Velcro on the external drive and a strip of Velcro on the back of the MacBook Pro iPearl cover is all you need to keep the Toshiba Canvio firmly and securely in place.
3. Finally, you need a USB 3.0 cable that is not 3' to 6' long with a standard connector. While the USB cable that comes with the hard drive will work just fine, it can actually get caught on a laptop sleeve or laptop bag during the packing and unpacking of your device. The more it gets caught on something, the less secure the USB cable is in the USB port. I found that a 90 degree down angle USB 3.0 cable, at a length of 1', works great for this purpose.

Now, I have a long-term solution for the smaller SSD drives that come standard in the lighter and smaller computing devices popular today. Until cloud storage becomes as easily accessible as an $80 Terabyte external drive, I am perfectly happy with my configuration. Hopefully, this will help someone else that may be in a similar situation.

Here are a few pictures of my solution: