Isn't the storage in smartphones already an SSD? Isn't the distinction between 'flash memory' and 'an SSD' fairly arbitrary anyway?

Isn't the storage in smartphones already an SSD? Isn't the distinction between 'flash memory' and 'an SSD' fairly arbitrary anyway?

Flash memory has been increasing in size per £ steadily since it was invented. At some point we will have 500GB or 1TB in a smartphone. That's just engineering progress.

The question is we should be asking is 'why?'. Beyond a certain size the problem with data is not keeping it but organising it. I defy anyone to have 1TB of 'stuff' and need all of it to hand, or indeed be able to take me to any one given piece of it if necessary. For example, you don't need all your music on your phone, you just need the music you are likely to want to listen to. That may only actually be 10% of it or less. A dumb device will copy all of your music across and leave you to figure out which bit you need, A smart device will copy only the music you are likely to actually want to play - using some sophisticated algorithm base don the music you've played recently - and present it to you in an easily accessible form.

I pretty much can't abide trudging through masses of data on my desktop, I see no reason at all why I would want to do it on a phone.

Mobile networks are only permitted to use less than 0.1% of the available bandwidth. Why?!

The effects of this scarcity is most noticeable in the spectrum auctions where the operators often need to invest billions of dollars to secure access to specified bands in the available spectrum. In spite of this scarcity problem, recent spectrum utilization measurements have shown that the available spectrum opportunities are severely underutilized, i.e. left unused. This artificial "access limitation" based scarcity is often considered to result from the static and rigid nature of the command and control governance regime.

I prefer to have all of it, because I hate it when I go to listen to a song I haven't heard in ages only to find it isn't on my phone/MP3 player.

If you do that more than once or twice a month, you're very unusual. Most people have basically a 'core' of music they listen to most of the time, plus a smattering of new music that they want to listen to because they've just acquired it. That music gets accessed a lot for a short period of time (say a month or so) then it moves into the general collection of music that gets listened to very very infrequently, if at all.

BTW, anyone who thinks they might need 1TB of MP3/AAC etc? I think you're vastly underestimating how much 1TB of encoded music actually is.

In fact, OK. Let's do some quick 'back of a beermat' maths. Say a CD encoded with a 'lossless' encoded is 300MB. Most people don't do that they do MP3/AAC, which means an album takes 70MB, but let's go for 'worst case'. In 1TB of space you could therefore have 3100 albums or say 43,000 songs. Say an average of four minutes per song and you're talking about 173,600 minutes of music. Or, in more useful units, 4 months of constant music. Or 6 months if we assume you're actually asleep for 1/3 of the day.

OK, so you don't want to listen to your music end to end (who does) but you want to be able to listen to bits of it when you feel like. Can you really remember all 3100 albums? Course you can't. Say then 600 or so artists? Not unless you're willing to spend years training your memory to be able to. I suspect most people at most can remember say 20 or so artists and at most 100 albums. The rest gathers dust.

If you do that more than once or twice a month, you're very unusual. Most people have basically a 'core' of music they listen to most of the time, plus a smattering of new music that they want to listen to because they've just acquired it. That music gets accessed a lot for a short period of time (say a month or so) then it moves into the general collection of music that gets listened to very very infrequently, if at all.

BTW, anyone who thinks they might need 1TB of MP3/AAC etc? I think you're vastly underestimating how much 1TB of encoded music actually is.

In fact, OK. Let's do some quick 'back of a beermat' maths. Say a CD encoded with a 'lossless' encoded is 300MB. Most people don't do that they do MP3/AAC, which means an album takes 70MB, but let's go for 'worst case'. In 1TB of space you could therefore have 3100 albums or say 43,000 songs. Say an average of four minutes per song and you're talking about 173,600 minutes of music. Or, in more useful units, 4 months of constant music. Or 6 months if we assume you're actually asleep for 1/3 of the day.

OK, so you don't want to listen to your music end to end (who does) but you want to be able to listen to bits of it when you feel like. Can you really remember all 3100 albums? Course you can't. Say then 600 or so artists? Not unless you're willing to spend years training your memory to be able to. I suspect most people at most can remember say 20 or so artists and at most 100 albums. The rest gathers dust.

. I suspect most people at most can remember say 20 or so artists and at most 100 albums. The rest gathers dust.