Frank and the 16 gig of other

[fbhjr]

I was very worried about my phone. When I checked it’s storage space it
seemed far more full than it should be.
When I connected it to my computer at home it told me that there was
16gigabites of “other” stored on the phone.
It holds up to 64gig, so it wasn’t an emergency, but I also didn’t like ¼
of the phone’s storage being “other”.

I fished through all the applications. None of them seemed to be doing it.
I checked the photos stored on it. Theoretically they were listed under
“photos” not “other”, but I dumped a whole bunch just in case.
I erased music I don’t listen to.
I took out apps I don’t use.
I took off notes for things I had kept.

My known usage for that stuff dropped. The “other” didn’t budge at all.

My wife worked in IT for many years, so I asked her.
“Did you restart it?” “Yes. Several times. Nothing.”
“Did you purge all your old files?” “iOS isn’t big on showing you how to do
that, but I think so.”
“Did you do a full system reset and restore from back up?” “That’s a bit
extreme, isn’t it?”

I did say how nice the new iPhone 6s seem to be and how much she likes hers…
“You’ll want the 6s in half a year, you should wait for that.”
She’s right.

So, I did the full erase and restore to factory settings and then the
restore from backup.
The 16 gig of “other” dropped to 1 gig, and that is probably random stuff I
can’t get rid of.
And, the phone is running faster than it was.

Never did find out what the “other” was, but I’m glad it went away.


Of course there is part of me (the old part) that has trouble with the 16
gig part.
My first hard drive was 20 meg, the size of a big hard cover dictionary,
and when I got it I thought I’d never be able to fill it. (And, I had
owned a computer for several years before I got it, and had been using
computers for more than a decade…)

That means that the amount of “other” data on my phone was more than
800,000 times bigger than that first hard drive.

There is part of my brain that is still saying “how can it be 16gig and
only be taking up ¼ of this thing in my hand? Shouldn’t it be filling a
stadium?”
But, that’s my old brain having trouble with modern tech.

Comments

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the storage now boggles my mind sometimes. It makes me happy though because I am such a hoarder.

[chaquir.livejournal.com]

oh yes, I remember the day we bought a computer and it had 1 Gig! 1 !!!!!! woooooohoooooo we were over the moon having thàt much space!! *snorts*****

[meathiel]

I totally feel you ... my first computer had a 20MB (!) harddisk ...

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Yeah I try not to contemplate the size of storage and the like anymore,
it breaks my brain too easily

[merilune.livejournal.com]

The oldest piece of storage I have is a 1GB hard drive. It's useless but it is fun to show people :)

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

This happened to my daughter's phone .. she had to clear everything off and then restore to factory settings and start all over - Apple said it was something corrupt in her back up she was using.