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iPad How much storage is enough for you?

The Game 161

The Game 161

macrumors Nehalem
Original poster
those who have iPads now what storage did you go for and has that been enough? will you get a higher capacity iPad for your next iPad?
 
I have the iPad Air 3 with 64GB storage, and 53.87GB remaining. I make heavy use of iCloud Drive so I don't usually keep things that I'm not using on a regular basis.
 
I have 6th gen iPad with 128 GB and I use 81.2 of them. To be honest I could have used even more but I know that I don't have the storage for this. The way I see it if I decide at later point to upgrade to another iPad from this one it will be eat least 256 GB. This is my first iPad and I have been using it for a year and a half and for now I am for the most part happy with it (happy with the pencil stuff, for the most part the hardware (2 GB RAM is not enough for me) but not happy with the iOS bugs). This is why I am saying if I decide to upgrade as I don't know what I will think in 2 years time.

Anyway back to the point. I personally do not like to rely on cloud services as I have WIFI version and do not always have internet when I use the iPad. Nevertheless I would like to use my iPad. Also I use OneDrive for cloud services and for some reason the Files app considers the files in OneDrive as storage consumed on the device itself. It is really weird. It seems that it is caching something and it is quite a lot. Kind of negates the purpose of using cloud service.

I also needs lots of space for Books. Currently I have almost 12 GB just for books.
 
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256 iPad Pro 11 but it’s not even half full.

I don’t feel a need for keeping my whole movie library locally but my biggest reason I don’t go for large storage is resale. It’s impossible to recoup the cost of LTE and large storage when you sell it. But on the flip side, when buying used then you can usually get a huge storage bump for only a few bucks extra.
 
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I had an iPad Mini 2 128gb Silver (my first iPad ever), then went to iPad Pro 10.5" 256gb Rose Gold in 2017 and finally to an iPad Pro 11" 1TB Silver. I got this to replace my 2013 MacBook Pro which ended up kicking the bucket after Catalina (dont know if it's a coincidence or not, but it literally stopped working after the update and was fine before then). So the more storage the better for me as I intend on keeping it for a long time and if I need to have movies downloaded for viewing when I'm not near wifi I won't have to limit myself to the amount of films I want, just as an example. I always try to go for the highest storage because i do keep my iPad for a long period of time and the more storage the more it will last for me.
 
IPP 12.9 - 256 and not quite half full but nice to know I can put a few movies for a flight etc and can sync a large photo album if I want - 128 would be not enough for my use

I use my IPP often where I cannot access wifi / icloud so having files I can access directly with out updating and connecting to iCloud is important for me
 
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I think 256GB is the sweet spout for me. I have 256GB on both my iPad mini and iPad Pro and i find that to be comfortable. I had the iPad Air 2 before I had my iPad Pro and it was 128GB and it wasn’t enough for me.
 
If I had only 1 ipad, at least 256. But I am a multi-ipad guy. So my first gen pros (12.9 and 9.7) have 128 (max for the time) and my 10.5 has 256. However for the mini I went with 64, since the mini is the one I use more rarely, only when travelling and sometimes at home (and when I travel I also have at least 1 laptop). I also bought a 2nd cheap pro 9.7 with 32GB just for youtube, some browsing and remote desktop (including remote audio from my pc) so on that I don't need local files, only apps. My 10.5 is half full and most space is taken by locally synced folders on Google drive, Onedrive. Dropbox and Sugarsync, by local videos, local files and some large music apps an games
 
Probably 1TB on next upgrade. I can get by with just 256GB on the daily driver but that's only because I have a 12.9" dedicated to larger format content.

For videos on long overseas trips (e.g. 1 month), I still carry a portable router, laptop with Plex server and 4TB portable HDD (Netflix on the go for the family).

I always keep 10-20% free as iCloud Photos starts complaining about not enough storage if free space goes below that point. System+Other occupies 10-25GB of the numbers below.

Air 3 256GB: ~200GB used
  • apps
  • ebooks
  • favorite+TBR manga ~150GB
  • iCloud Photo library (originals)
  • no music or videos

Pro 10.5 512GB: ~300GB used
  • apps (curated)
  • ebooks
  • favorite+TBR manga (duplicate of above)
  • some American comics ~20-30GB
  • some videos, no music

Pro 12.9 512GB: ~400GB used
  • apps (curated)
  • ebooks
  • favorite+TBR American comics ~200GB
  • iCloud Photo library (originals)
  • Movies and TV shows ~150GB
  • no music
 
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For me 2TB is more ideal cause my current is 256GB and I always want to have a local copy of all cloud storage contents. For example, if I have 2TB OneDrive cloud storage, I will need at least 2TB on my laptop/MacBook to match that storage.
 
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I have an 11 Pro with 64gb. I use iCloud heavily so I have about 30 gb of leftover space. If you're not working with media files(photo, video, lots of drawing) I think you don't have to have a ton of storage. Looks like the base iPad has only two options: 32gb and 128gb. Take the 128gb. Anything below 64gb is dumb. But ultimately only you can decide how much you need.
 
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Ever since I've had an iPad ( from the earliest ones ) I've gotten 128 - 256GB. Even on my iPhones I got those sizes. One thing I grew tired of with the smaller ones, was juggling all the stuff I wanted to keep on my devices. With the most recent iPad Pro I had saved up for a year or two and promised myself, ...no more juggling. I went with 1TB, and love that I don't even worry about how much space is left on it.

When I go on long flights, the night before I just sit there loading ANYTHING that comes to mind and not worry about it. I have two comic book collections on it, crap load of Pages of files, and things from various drawing apps.

It's a luxury I saved up for, since I decided on passing getting a Macbook Pro, and have appreciated ever since. I'll be doing the same with the iPads Pros that come out next year.
 
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Shirasaki said:
For me 2TB is more ideal cause my current is 256GB and I always want to have a local copy of all cloud storage contents. For example, if I have 2TB OneDrive cloud storage, I will need at least 2TB on my laptop/MacBook to match that storage.
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For me, all that matters is actual storage used.

I think I get 2TB on my Dropbox plan but I'm using less than 50GB. Honestly, filling that up seems impossible with my 10 Mbps upload speed.
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EEzycade said:
Looks like the base iPad has only two options: 32gb and 128gb. Take the 128gb. Anything below 64gb is dumb. But ultimately only you can decide how much you need.
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The latter statement is definitely correct. For a handful of apps, small data files and streaming only, 32GB can still be fine. We have one that's mostly just used for web and Facebook and without the large pre-installed Apple apps like GarageBand, etc, it's still got 15-20GB free.
 
I have a 256 GB Air 3. Currently using 70GB. 128 GB would probably be my ideal capacity, if that was offered for the Air 3.
 
iPad Pro 64GB in use for photo editing mainly. It’s enough, since everything is stored in the cloud and only the shoots I am working on are locally stored. I got my pro at 670$. The 256G was a 899$. 200G of iCloud storage is 2.99$/mo. Easy math for me.
 
I have the 64GB Mini, have only got close to filling it when loading extra media onto it for trips. The 64GB is something of a luxury with some videos/music on there that I never had on my last iPad.
 
I hope the new iPPs come with 128GB base, that would be enough for me. But if/when video editing apps get more capable, I'd go for a bigger storage size for working files.
 
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