Take Control of Your Digital Storage

by Jeff Carlson

The Mac user's guide to mass storage

As the amount of data we store continues to grow, figuring out where to put it and how to access it becomes more complicated. It's not just that we need to find space for our increasingly large collections of photos, videos, music, and apps--we want it to be available whenever we need it, and be sure that it's safe from hackers and thieves.

Every Mac includes internal storage in the form of a hard drive, SSD, or Fusion drive. But you may also have one or more external devices (such as hard drives, flash drives, SD cards, or RAID devices), not to mention network-attached storage (NAS) devices or cloud storage (like Dropbox or iCloud Drive). Making sense of all your options, managing your stored data, choosing new devices or services when you're running out of space, or even just figuring out what's where can drive anyone to distraction.

Fortunately, Jeff Carlson has a book with all the answers! After decades of working with Macs and accumulating massive collections of photos and videos, Jeff has pulled together a wide-ranging book about Mac storage that contains just the help you're looking for. Among many other topics, this book covers:


How to choose a new (internal or external) hard drive, SSD, or hybrid drive
Determining how much storage space you need
What you need to know about APFS, Apple's new filesystem
Formatting and partitioning disks using Disk Utility
How to repair a misbehaving disk
RAIDs: what they are and how different types compare
What to do with a hard drive when it has outlived its usefulness
When to use a flash drive or SD card
How to create and use disk images
Deciding among local, network, and cloud storage for various types of files
What a personal cloud is and why you might consider using one
Strategies for freeing up extra disk space
NAS devices get special coverage, including:


How to choose a NAS--and when it's a better idea than an external hard drive
Using a NAS with your Mac for a wide variety of purposes
Special considerations when using a NAS for digital photos
Jeff also digs into details about numerous storage-related technologies:


How to tell if your third-party SSD needs to have TRIM enabled (and what to do if the answer is yes)
How to create a software RAID using Disk Utility or SoftRAID
What you need to know about filesystems--and how to choose among APFS, Mac OS Extended, FAT, and ExFAT
Why and how to encrypt a disk using FileVault or the Finder
Using iCloud Drive's Optimized Mac Storage feature
If you've ever been stumped at the difference between a volume and a partition, need help figuring out whether to buy a big external hard drive or a NAS for extra storage, or wonder whether Apple's new APFS filesystem is right for your needs, this book will tell you what you need to know.

124 pages, ebook

Published July 13, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Author and photographer Jeff Carlson is a columnist for the Seattle Times, a contributing editor for TidBITS, and writes for outlets such as Macworld and DPReview.

He is the author of numerous books, including Take Control of Your Digital Photos; Take Control of Your Digital Storage, Take Control of Lightroom CC; Aurora HDR and Aurora HDR Professional: A Photoversity Guide; Photos for OS X and iOS; Apple Watch: A Take Control Crash Course; The iPad for Photographers; iPad and iPhone Video.