Scarcity of Disk Space

Part of this text has been used for the OP=OP publication.

Scarcity of Disk Space

Scarcity of Disk Space is a small experiment I conducted specifically for this collaboratively created publication around scarcity. Scarcity in the broadest sense of the word; scarcity of resources, food, attention, space, etc.

'Your startup disk is almost full!'

The reason for this experiment originates mostly from personal frustration. Often I encounter the problem that the hardware I'm using is running out of disk space. Messages like 'Your startup disk is almost full' and 'Not Enough Storage, this iPhone can not be backed up because there is not enough iCloud storage available.' are a daily reccuring phenomenon for me. What about you? How often do you get the warning 'Your startup disk is almost full'? What do you do? Surely I'm not the only one?!

Last Christmas 2015 I'd had enough of my files scattered all over the place, both offline and online, and bought a NAS (Network Aattatched Storage). Only since recently (November 2016) I managed to set it up and approach it as a remote file server from anywhere. But who else is able to access it? The installation was quite a challenge for me, and as mentioned I'm not even sure if it's well protected. Using Shodan^{<a href="#fn:1" rel="footnote">1</a>} - a public search engine to discover which of your devices (printers, webcams, televisions, external hard drives) are connected to the Internet, where they are located and who is using them - I discovered that my NAS was protected properly. The latter is not something I want to research further though.

Fig. 1 Hard disk analysis user starlight

Fig.1 Hard disk analysis user starlight

Nothing is infinite, this is also true for disk space. My phone (iPhone 5S, 16GB) and laptop (MacBook Pro, 250GB) are so called borrowed hardware devices from my employer. Their disk space size are average (appeared from the questionnaire). So you are probably wondering: what am I complaining about and when does one truly have enough disk space? An interesting link can be made here with Jim Henson's 'Paperwork Explosion' (1967) which is a four and a half minute film shot for IBM's Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter ^{<a href="#fn:2" rel="footnote">2</a>}, that was used to promote digitization in the first place. The film features a number of office workers and other employees placing an emphasis on the innovation of machines in the workplace: 'Machines should work; people should think'.

But, yet scarcity forces us to make choices. So I would like to ask; what choices do you make to increase your disk space? Are you using merely offline or online services and if you are using one of the former ways to save your material, how is your storage divided?

A small survey (n=42) was conducted in which I hoped to find some of these answers. Questions asked include;

• What kind of operating system are you using?
• What kind of hardware are you using?
• What kind of offline/online storage are you using?
• What kind of data do you have you stored?
• And what tactics do you use, if you run out of disk space?

Underneath you will find some visualations showing what kind of hardware the respondents use. Most use a laptop in combination with a mobile, and that photos and movies are taking up the most space.

Fig. 2 What kind of hardware you use?

Fig. 3 Most used external disk space and its amount.

Information scattered all over the place

I find that I am overwhelmed and struggling with all the online (Google Drive, Dropbox, Owncloud, etc) and offline (usb’s harddrives, NAS, etc.) storage possibilities available.

Figure 4 and figure 5 give an overview on how the respondents’ storage is divided on their on- and offline disk space.

Fig. 4 How is the storage of your offline disk space divided?

Fig. 5 How is the storage of your online disk space mainly divided?

Fig. 6 Online services used to enlarge disk space.

If you run out of local disk space and don't want to invest in a NAS, online cloud services could offer a solution. But what do you think of online services like Dropbox offering you extra space in exchange for free promotion?^{<a href="#fn:3" rel="footnote">3</a>} And what is the cloud actually? Chris Watterson (creator of sticker "There is no cloud, it's just someone else's computer") breaks it down as following;

it’s basically a computer that is located in a mostly unknown location that is connect to you via the internet which you’re able to store you personal data on it. Wow!^{<a href="#fn:4" rel="footnote">4</a>}.

From my research it appears that Google Drive is the most used online service (31%). After that come Dropbox and Apple iCloud with respectively 29.2% and 19.5%. Together with OneDrive the aforementioned cloud storage providers belong to the four major cloud services for file storage and access across platforms ^{<a href="#fn:5" rel="footnote">5</a>}. They all ask $9.99 for 1TB a month.

Get a hug in return for free disk space

On asking whether people let themself be seduced by services like Dropbox offering extra space in exchange of promotion, 13 out of the 43 respondents answered 'Yes, only this way I can get extra space without paying', the others answered with 'No way'. When asked 'What would you do to get more free space?' people are willing to take part in questionnaires more, and give someone a hug in exchange for free disk space.

<thead> </thead> <tbody> </tbody>

Answer (31 responses)	Amount	Percentage
Give access to contact details	5	16.1%
Send a tweet	9	29%
Wear a t-shirt	3	9.7%
Get naked	1	3.2%
Take part in questionnaires	19	61.3%
Give someone a hug	14	45.2%

Table 1 Output of question 18. What would you do to get more free space?).

An example of a tweet, tweeted to get extra space would be something like: 'I had to write this tweet to get more extra space.' 'I wouldn't tweet for data.'

How to clear space

One method is to delete unnecessary files, file history versions, to uninstall apps you don't need, find and remove duplicate files (mainly photos), delete previous versions of your operating system, empty your trash on a regular basis, clear temporary files, remove ebooks you are not reading or remove language files.

Mac OS X

• Gemini^{<a href="#fn:6" rel="footnote">6</a>} is a paid application, but the demo version allows you to search for and find duplicates, but not remove them. If you didn't want to pay, you could use the demo to find duplicates on your Mac, locate them in Finder, and then remove them by hand.

Windows

• DupeGuru^{<a href="#fn:7" rel="footnote">7</a>} can be used for finding duplicate files on Windows. This application is both open-source and cross-platform. It’s simple to use — open the application, add one or more folders to scan, and click Scan.

• Windows includes a built-in tool that deletes temporary files and other unimportant data. To access it, right-click one of your hard drives in the Computer window and select Properties.

One last piece of advice from Kenneth Goldsmith, founding editor of UbuWeb ^{<a href="#fn:8" rel="footnote">8</a>};

"If you work on something for an hour a day for 17 years – 2 hours, 3 hours – you come up with something really substantial. The web is very ephemeral. So if you find something on the Internet that you loved, don't assume it's going to be there forever. Download it. Always make your own archive. Don't ever assume that it's waiting there for you, because it won't be there when you look for it. Fuck the cloud. I hate the cloud."

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1. Shodan is a search engine for Internet-connected devices. https://www.shodan.io (Retrieved October 2016). <a href="#fnref:1" rev="footnote">↩</a>

2. Paperwork Explosion, by The Jim Henson Company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IZw2CoYztk (Retrieved October 2016). <a href="#fnref:2" rev="footnote">↩</a>

3. The Ultimate Guide to Getting Free Dropbox Space. http://trendblog.net/get-free-dropbox-space/ (Retrieved October 2016). <a href="#fnref:3" rev="footnote">↩</a>

4. There is no cloud by Chris Watterson. https://www.stickermule.com/marketplace/3442-there-is-no-cloud (Retrieved October 2016), https://www.chriswatterston.com/blog/my-there-no-cloud-sticker (Retrieved October 2016).<a href="#fnref:4" rev="footnote">↩</a>

5. Cloud Storage Comparison: iCloud Drive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive vs. OneDrive https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/cloud-storage-comparison-icloud-drive-vs-dropbox-vs-google-drive-vs-onedrive/ (Retrieved October 2016). <a href="#fnref:5" rev="footnote">↩</a>

6. Gemini. http://macpaw.com/gemini (Retrieved October 2016). <a href="#fnref:6" rev="footnote">↩</a>

7. depGuru. https://www.hardcoded.net/dupeguru/ (Retrieved October 2016). <a href="#fnref:7" rev="footnote">↩</a>

8. Ubuweb. http://ubu.com (Retrieved October 2016), and http://artwarez.org/projects/GWYDH/goldsmith.html (Retrieved October 2016).<a href="#fnref:8" rev="footnote">↩</a>

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