iPad Actual Storage Space.

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Level 1

5 points

iPad Actual Storage Space.

I am making a decision now as to whether to buy a 3rd party media device which I need immediately or to wait for the iPad. I have 57 gigs of PDFs and music I need to take around. Will the 64GB iPad fit them after we discount the space needed for OS? Given that it will run the same iPhone/iPod Touch OS + Adding in the apps featured on the iPad microsite at apple.com (e.g. Safari, iWork port, etc), can anyone estimate just how much space will really be available?

iPad, iPhone OS 3.1.3

Posted on Feb 7, 2010 9:45 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Tamara

Level 6

13,738 points

Feb 7, 2010 10:01 AM in response to iPodiatrist2

It should fit but you'd be cutting it close. You might want to shave the music portion down some to give yourself more room.

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Answer 2

iPodiatrist2 Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 9, 2010 1:35 AM in response to iPodiatrist2

Thx. As you know, data storage needs naturally increase with usage, so it is really important to approximate just how much breathing room one has before maxing the iPad out. You know how this industry is, I cannot wait for a 128GB iPad or then I'll keep waiting for the next thing forever.

On Apple's iPad microsite it of course confirms "actual formatted capacity less" but not how much of course. The site does however list that the following are the applications that will be included with the iPad:

Safari
Mail
Photos
video
YouTube
iPod
iTunes
App Store
iBooks
Maps
Notes
Calendar
Contacts

Now a lot of these are the same as iPhone/iPod Touch (except maybe iBooks). I don't have an iPhone/iPod Touch, so I don't know how much these actually take up. I'm hoping someone with one of these devices can estimate how much these take up including the OS and reserved memory. Would it go over 200MB? 500MB? 1G?

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Answer 3

Tamara

Level 6

13,738 points

Feb 9, 2010 5:10 AM in response to iPodiatrist2

The Photos app depends on how many photos you have.

On a brand new iPhone out of the box, if I recall correctly, about 250mb was used up by the OS and core apps.

With music, you can create and sync playlists to your device instead of dumping your entire music library on it. There are also a lot of music apps in the App Store so it's not even necessary to sync music if you don't want to.

I have an 8 gb iPhone and after 18 months, I still have about 6 gb available. For music, I create playlists and just sync what I want for the day/week.

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Answer 4

Feb 9, 2010 7:06 AM in response to iPodiatrist2

It also depends on how the 64GB storage is speced. On a typical computer hard drive, the actual amount of usable storage space is only about 93% of the stated GB capacity. So the 64GB on the iPad would be reduced to about 60GB.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

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Answer 5

Tamara

Level 6

13,738 points

Feb 9, 2010 7:40 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

It's not reduced. The difference is binary vs decimal. For most devices, the drive size printed on the box represents decimal math while the drive itself displays binary math which makes it appear that you have lost space.

With Snow Leopard, Apple switched to using decimal math. For example, my MB has a 60gb hard drive in the decimal system and when I look at the capacity in disk utility, it tells me I have a 60 gb hard drive.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2419

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Answer 6

romad

Level 3

887 points

Feb 9, 2010 7:58 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

I have a 32 GB iPhone, but the actual usable capacity is 29.33 GB, or 91.6%

On it the used memory bar shows "Other" as using 311.7 MB "Other" is where the OS, Contact data, etc. is kept. So using these approx. numbers, "Other" uses about 1.5% of the available memory.

Now using Tom's calculation of 60 GB usable, that means about 900 MB - 1 GB of the usable memory would be taken up by "Other" leaving about 59 GB for apps, photos, music, movies, etc.

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Answer 7

Tamara

Level 6

13,738 points

Feb 9, 2010 8:26 AM in response to romad

romad wrote:
I have a 32 GB iPhone, but the actual usable capacity is 29.33 GB, or 91.6%

You're confusing decimal math with binary math.

In binary notation, your 32gb iPhone has 32,000,000,000 bytes. In decimal math, one gigabyte is 1024x1024x1024 (1,073,741,824 bytes). Divide 32,000,000,000 by 1,073,741,824 and you're answer is 29.8gb of usable capacity in the decimal system. You have not lost 9.4% of your capacity.

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Answer 8

romad

Level 3

887 points

Feb 10, 2010 7:40 AM in response to Tamara

A byte here, a byte there, soon you're talking real numbers.

Yes, I know the difference between base 10 and base 2; I was just trying to keep it reasonably simple. The point was to see how much "Usable" space might be on a 64 GB device. If we just double either the 29.33 or 29.8 values, we have between 58.66 and 59.6 GB as a result. HOWEVER, this is all theory since we won't know what the actual "usable" space of a 64GB iPad will be until they are released next month. I also suspect that there'll be a slight difference between the WiFi & 3G models.

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Answer 9

Tamara

Level 6

13,738 points

Feb 10, 2010 8:21 AM in response to romad

You weren't keeping it simple though. Reading your post made it appear that he would lose 3gb of space when this is not the case.

On my MB, I have a 60gb hard drive, Snow Leopard tells me that I have a capacity of 59.67gb available. If I was still using Leopard, it would tell me that my capacity was somewhere around 57/58gb. I'm hoping that they'll apply the same information display when the iPad is released.

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Answer 10

romad

Level 3

887 points

Feb 10, 2010 3:08 PM in response to Tamara

Actually you DID gain more space with SL since Apple stripped out all of the software needed to run on PPC machines. Since I'm running Leopard on a PPC iMac, I could use one of the utilities available to strip out the software that is only needed for Intel Macs and also gain a little more space.

But we'll have to see what they do with iPhone OS 3.2 when it is released with the iPad. Be interesting to see if it'll be a "universal" type usable on either the iPad or on the iPhone/iPod or if there will be separate versions for the old and new platforms.

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Answer 11

romad

Level 3

887 points

Feb 10, 2010 3:17 PM in response to romad

Here is an interesting change:

I just updated my iPhone from iPhone OS 3.1.2 to 3.1.3 and my "Other" usage now reads 402.3 MB vs the previous 311.7 MB reading.

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Answer 12

iPodiatrist2 Author

Level 1

5 points

Feb 21, 2010 10:42 PM in response to iPodiatrist2

Thanks for this guys!! I think the iPad's iPhoneOS update will need more space than the current one, considering the extra functionality Jobs hinted to in the presentation (better multitouch etc). This is a good enough indication for me. We will really know of course next month when people start getting iPads in their hands. And I'm in line to be one of them.

(P.S., A healthy debate... Tom you were the first to give me a specific answer on this, and Tamara I tend to agree more with you about how the bytes are calculated, though it's always safer when estimating to err on the less conservative side. Sorry Tamara, I know you are a workhorse on these forums but Romad really went the extra mile checking on his iPhone. Thanks again to all)

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Answer 13

MarknDC

Level 1

0 points

Apr 4, 2010 5:14 AM in response to iPodiatrist2

You probably know this already but the 64GB ipad has 59GB of usable space.

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Answer 14

Apr 4, 2010 5:35 AM in response to iPodiatrist2

Why do you get MobileMe from Apple. You get 20G more that makes you iPad total memory 84G
That should do it

Have fun

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