Digital hoarding not dangerous, but a nuisance

Digital storage may be the perfect example of too much of a good thing. External hard drives sold at places like Best Buy and Costco can store up to 5 terabytes of data. That’s half a million times the capacity of the first hard drives in personal computers back in the 1980s.

Nobody needs that much storage. The complete works of Mozart (around 170 CDs) would take up about 2 percent of a 5-terabyte hard drive.

The explosion in storage has its upside: Huge servers in the commercial world are the bedrock of online banking and shopping, and massive online databases let you search for flights and hotels, enjoy music videos on YouTube and watch movies on Netflix.

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Unfortunately, excessive storage also has led to digital hoarding, a condition indicated by having thousands of photos that you seldom if ever look at scattered around the hard drive of your computer, and thousands of unread e-mails languishing in your inbox. You may also have lots of old, unnecessary documents hanging around, and I bet some of the shortcuts on your desktop have gone unclicked for months if not years.

Fortunately, digital hoarding isn’t destructive like traditional hoarding, which can take over your life and fill your home with junk. For one thing, digital hoarding is basically invisible. More importantly, you can search a hard drive for most items with a few keystrokes, an easier proposition than combing through boxes, shelves and drawers.

What’s more, digital hoarding on home computers is declining, thanks to streaming music and online storage services, which eliminate the need to keep — and back up — documents and photos on a computer. And storage services like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud and Dropbox discourage hoarding by limiting the amount of data you can store for free.

Online storage is not without its dangers, however. Most smartphones let you automatically upload every photo you take to the cloud — and that can add up to a lot of take-and-forget snapshots eating up your free storage space. If you have tons of photos you want to keep, consider an online photo-sharing site such as Flickr, Photobucket or Picasa.

Q: I’m thinking about getting a smartwatch. The buzz about the Apple Watch got me going, but then I also saw some good reviews for the new Pebble Time watch. Which one would you recommend”

A: Here’s a basic comparison: The Apple Watch has a brighter display than the Pebble Time, along with several features missing in the latter, including haptic feedback (it taps your wrist for alerts), a speaker that lets you conduct brief phone calls, a built-in heart rate monitor, and the ability to use Apple Pay.

The Pebble Time boasts better battery life (seven days vs. 18 hours for the Apple Watch), can use standard watch bands (the Apple Watch has dedicated bands), works with both Android smartphones and iPhones (the Apple Watch works only with iPhones) and costs less.

Now here’s my recommendation: Don’t get a smartwatch. These things have been around for a couple of years, and new research suggests that the Apple Watch, at least in its first generation, isn’t going to invigorate what has been a tepid market. There just doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to spend hundreds of dollars on a wearable calculator, especially when it requires a smartphone to do anything more meaningful than tell time.

Q: Is stereo dead? I’m an old guy who listened to vinyl records through some pretty nice speakers prior to the digital revolution. I recently purchased a Jawbone Big Jambox that allows me to Bluetooth music from my phone, but there’s no way to “pair” two of these speakers to create a stereo sound system. That can be done with two Mini Jamboxes, but I’m wondering if there are any other large Bluetooth speakers that can be paired.

A: I don’t know of any. Large Bluetooth speakers are meant to fill up a room with sound, and, in answer to your question, stereo may not be dead, but it has a weak pulse. That’s apparent especially in the home theater market, where multispeaker surround-sound systems popular a few years ago have given way to barely stereo sound bars.

That said, you may be able to pump wireless music through your existing stereo system, or directly to your beloved speakers. Look into the Sonos Connect and Connect:Amp at Sonos.com. Sonos products utilize home Wi-Fi rather than Bluetooth, but as with Bluetooth, they can be controlled with a smartphone.