Expanding Storage on Your Ultrabook

The way I see it, Solid State Drives (SSD) are the future, but we're paying a lot in the present.  Most ultra-thin laptops today are equipped with 128 GB of SSD at the starting price, which is not enough for even causal laptop users over the course of a few years. But upgrading to 256 GB costs $300 on average. That's too much.

However, there are several cheaper alternatives to expanding your storage without expanding your debt. The  'fashionable' option is #3.

1) External Hard Drive: Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital

• Look on amazon.com and you will find 1 TB external hard drives for $89. That's pretty ridiculous but great for photo/video collector.  There are some drawbacks to consider however.  Firstly, external hard drives are an extra piece of tech to carry around. While their only slightly larger than a cell phone these days, it can still be a pain to download and upload on the go or in a hurry. Luckily, with many externals equipped with USB 3.0 connections, you will spend less time dragging and dropping and more time enjoying your media.  Still, there is something to be said for having everything in one place.  
• Also be weary of durability.  External hard drives suffer from the same problem as any basic hard drive, spinning disks.  Be careful where you place your external when it's plugged in an working. Eventually, the device will break down, but it can break down much quicker because of the moving parts.

2) Flash (Thumb) Drives: Kingston, SanDisk

• Flash drives offer less storage, but are much more portable, can be plugged in on the go, and work on flash memory, so there are no moving parts to worry about.  They are also more expensive in terms of storage capacity.  A 32 GB flash drive goes for $40-50 and a 64 GB flash drive goes for $70-80. Those prices can be cheaper if you don't need a USB 3.0 flash drive, which only work with computers that have USB 3.0 ports.

3) Micro SD card with Nifty Mini Drive

• http://theniftyminidrive.com/
• This is by far the most portable and fashionable option to expanding your laptop's storage, specifically Macbook storage.  Many companies offer adapters for plugging in a Micro SD card into a full SD card slot.  But the Nifty Mini Drive, a Kickstarter program, is an adapter that fits perfectly snug into the SD slot, at least for Macbook Pros and Airs. Any other adapter would stick out from the side about 1 cm. That's not much, but it is SO much sexier to have smooth edges and it allows your Micro SD card to truly be a storage expansion device that never has to be removed from the laptop.  

• The Nifty Mini Drive costs $35 and the actually Micro SD card is sold separately,  but you can get that from anywhere.  Amazon once again comes to the rescue with SanDisk 64 GB Micro SD cards for about $60-70.  That means you can double to storage on your Macbook Air by purchasing 2 64 GB Micro SD cars and the Adapter for almost half the price of upgrading the internal SSD from 128 GB to 256 GB (~$170 versus $300).  
• You can even set the micro SD card to automatically back up files regularly so you know important information is safe, even if the laptop is dropped in the ocean (only for 24 hours)!