Is the 256GB flash storage enough for me? Can I install a bigger SD?

firebox is only $30 at walmart, if you dont have a safe deposit box.

theft is more about HIDING IT than vaulting it, buy a fireproof SLEEVE on Ebay for $30 and hide it under etc etc something, very easy to do.

you can buy your own private website, which is what I do, I have several Cost is roughly $120 per year unlimited storage..

(see godaddy.com or otherwise)

However safety has to be put in place to prevent others from accessing your data, also very easy.

Its all about redundancy #1 and #2 longevity (DVD professional archival) for very important information that cant degrade over short term and rated for at least 60+ years.

All these points are explained in detail in the link I posted you as User Tip.

Online archives

Drawbacks:

1. Subject to server failure or due to non-payment of your hosting account, it can be suspended.

2. Subject, due to lack of security on your part, to being attacked and hacked/erased.

Advantages:

1. In case of house fire, etc. your data is safe.

2. In travels, and propagating files to friends and likewise, a mere link by email is all that is needed and no large media needs to be sent across the net.

3. Online archives are the perfect and best-idealized 3^rd platform redundancy for data protection.

4. Supremely useful in data isolation from backups and local archives in being online and offsite for long-distance security in isolation.

5. *Level-1.5 security of your vital data.

As for hard drives, dont make the HUGE mistake others make, only having ONE off computer copy on a HD, thats a tragedy in waiting, 2 copies is 1, and 1 is none, ....and the data on the computer doesnt count in the 2-copy scheme.

Hard Drive Warning (all makes and models)

Ironically but logical, new hard drives are far more fragile than one that has been working for several months or a couple years. So beware in your thinking that a new hard drive translates into “extremely reliable”!

⚠ Hard drives suffer from high rates of what has been termed "infant mortality". Essentially this means new drives have their highest likelihood of failing in the first few months of usage. This is because of very minor manufacturing defects or HD platter balancing, or head and armature geometry being less than perfect; and this is not immediately obvious and can quickly manifest itself once the drive is put to work.

Hard drives that survive the first few months of use without failing are likely to remain healthy for a number of years.

➕ Generally HD are highly prone to death or corruption for a few months, then work fine for a few years, then spike in mortality starting at 3-4 years and certainly should be considered end-of-life at 5-7+ years even if still working well. Drives written to once and stored away have the highest risk of data corruption due to not being read/written to on a regular basis. Rotate older working HD into low-risk use.

The implication of this is that you should not trust a new hard drive completely (really never completely!) until it has been working perfectly for several months.

Given the second law of thermodynamics, any and all current mfg. HD will, under perfect storage conditions tend themselves to depolarization and a point will be reached, even if the HD mechanism is perfect, that the ferromagnetic read/write surface of the platter inside the HD will entropy to the point of no viable return for data extraction. HD life varies, but barring mechanical failure, 3-8 years typically.

Hard drive failure and handling

The air cushion of air between the platter surface and the head is microscopic, as small as 3 nanometers, meaning bumps, jarring while in operation can cause head crash, scraping off magnetic particles causing internal havoc to the write surface and throwing particles thru the hard drive.

⚠ Hard drives are fragile in general, regardless, ... in specific while running hard drives are extremely fragile.

PDF: Bare hard drive handling generic instructions

hard drive moving parts

Some of the common reasons for hard drives to fail:

Infant mortality (due to mfg. defect / build tolerances)

Bad parking (head impact)

Sudden impact (hard drive jarred during operation, heads can bounce)

Electrical surge (fries the controller board, possibly also causing heads to write the wrong data)

Bearing / Motor failure (spindle bearings or motors wear during any and all use, eventually leading to HD failure)

Board failure (controller board failure on bottom of HD)

Bad Sectors (magnetic areas of the platter may become faulty)

General hard drive failure

Yes, any portable HD needs a at-home redundant copy

If you DIDNT have ANY HD, your computer would still be stolen, same results.

HD are cheaper than dirt, grab a couple, one for packing around, and one for a fire box at home. at MINIMUM

all such info is here:

Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

You can export your Iphoto library, very simple.

No computer is a storage device, Dell or Apple or anyone, so it doesnt matter either way

Never consider any computer a data storage device at any time under any circumstance, rather a data creation, sending, and manipulation device. Anyone who thinks data is safe on any computer, even copied upon multiple partitions is making a mistake that will, without fail, strike.

The B.A.R. “rule” (backup-archive-redundancy)

Backup: Active data emergency restore. Backups are moved from backups to archives; or from backups to the computer for restore or data retrieval.

Archive: Active and static data protection with the highest level of redundancy. Archives are only moved from itself to itself (archived copies). Generally a “long-term retention” nexus.

Redundancy: A fail-safe off-site or protected and “frozen” copy of your vital data and foolproof protection against magnetic degradation and HD mechanical failure. A likewise failsafe from theft, house fire, etc.

Redundancy has two points of premise:

A: redundancy (copies) of data archives.

B: redundancy of data on different platforms (optical, online, magneto-optical, HD).

Send your backups to your archives (as often as possible), and your archives to self-same redundancies.

*When referring to backups and archives here, this is in reference to your data saved/ created/ working on,... not your OS, your applications, and your system information / settings,...which is the idealized premise for use of Time Machine as a system-backup after internal data corruption or HD-failure.

Here we are referring to data backups and archives, not system-backups for restoring your OS-system.

If your data on your hard drive is the cash in your wallet, a backup is your bank account/debit card, and an archive is a locked safety deposit box.

Its easy to get your wallet emptied (corrupted) or stolen, your backup checking account is somewhat easy to get corrupted/drained or damaged, but your bunker security is in the lockbox inside the vault, where your vital data and archives reside. In the premise of preventing data loss, you want as often and as much as possible one-way transfers from your “wallet” to your safety deposit box archives; and further still a minimum of two copies of those archives.

Highest priority (archives) requires highest redundancy. In the premise of often copying data from backups to archives, backup redundancy plays a minor role.

Long-term active file backups (a book, a major time-involved video creation etc.) requires double-active redundancies, preferably a minimum of Time Machine and an autonomous external formatted HD, so there are at least three copies of this data: internal drive, Time Machine, and secondary non-TM HD backup.

Park it!

75% of the data that's stored on someone’s computer from countless studies has not been accessed for more than one year. Keeping this ‘dusty’ data on your computers HD/ SSD is bad due to:

1. Internal SSD/HD bloat.

2. Encourages the dangerous and lazy practice of pivoting important data on the most untrustworthy and likely to fail point, your internal drive.

3. Such data needs to be parked immediately into passive archives.

~~~but I've only transferred 1 year of pictures over to my MAC

Thats the mistake.........Your Macbook isnt a mass storage device (no notebook is really)

~~Does flash storage not hold as much as regular hard drives

Yes and no, SSD are incredibly expensive, a 1TB SSD costs nearly as much as the entire Air does.

1TB external HD is $65

Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb

Best for the money the "tiny giant" 15.2mm thick 2.5" HD

2TB drive (have several of them, LOT of storage in a SMALL package) $99

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba

128gig is plenty for most people, you need an external HD regardless for backups / TM and large media files.

yes,.......I see...., youre using your AIr as a mass media storage device, you need a superslim portable HD to pack around.

if you arent using a file every 2 weeks or so, does it really need to be ON the Air? Likely not.

Offload giant media files (pics / vids / most music)

In the case of a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro Retina with ‘limited’ storage on the SSD, this distinction becomes more important in that in an ever rapidly increasing file-size world, you keep vital large media files, pics, video, PDF collections, music off your SSD and archived on external storage, for sake of the necessary room for your system to have free space to operate, store future applications and general workspace. You should never be put in the position of considering “deleting things” on your macbook SSD in order to ‘make space’.

Professionals who create and import very large amounts of data have almost no change in the available space on their computers internal HD because they are constantly archiving data to arrays of external or networked HD.

Or in the case of the consumer this means you keep folders for large imported or created data and you ritually offload and archive this data for safekeeping, not only to safeguard the data in case your macbook has a HD crash, or gets stolen, but importantly in keeping the ‘breathing room’ open for your computer to operate, expand, create files, add applications, for your APPS to create temp files, and for general operation.

You can install a larger SSD yes, however its impractical given what youre trying to do which is directed in the wrong place. OWC sells SSD upgrades, but theyre very expensive.

A 1TB HD is far cheaper and only 12mm thick.