Smarter removable storage management in Windows 10

One of the reasons I’m generally not a fan of adding a microSD card to a smartphone or tablet is because it can quickly become tedious to keep track of where your data is stored, and manage the data effectively. Microsoft offers a solution to that problem in Windows 10 with Storage Sense, and in the latest leaked build–Build 9901–Storage Sense appears to be getting even better.

I wrote about Storage Sense in leaked Windows 10 build 9901 in this blog post:

Many traditional desktop and laptop PCs have 1 TB or more of local storage. Those that don’t can usually be upgraded fairly easily to expand capacity. Newer devices, however, like Windows tablets, hybrid PCs, and smartphones, suffer from both significantly less storage capacity and an inability to upgrade it through any means other than adding removable storage.

One of the challenges, though, is how to use the removable storage intelligently — or more importantly, how can the Windows operating system manage removable storage more intelligently. The Storage Sense feature in Windows 10 addresses this problem, and it seems Microsoft is expanding the scope of Storage Sense in the next build.

Storage Sense itself isn’t new. It exists in the current build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview (9879). However, in its current form, it only allows you to specify the default location for saving new pictures, music, videos, or documents. It isn’t official yet, but Build 9901 of the Windows 10 Technical Preview — leaked over the weekend — shows an additional option to designate a default save location for apps and games.

Why does this matter? Well, as I mentioned above, most tablets and smartphones are severely limited when it comes to onboard storage capacity. The operating system itself takes up a good chunk of space, leaving you with little room for music, videos, photos, apps, games, and other content. Using a microSD card, you can easily add 32 GB, 64 GB, or 128 GB of additional storage. The microSD card is mounted in Windows 10 as an additional drive letter, though, so the tricky part then becomes how to use it most effectively.

Read the full story at TechRepublic: Leaked Windows 10 build 9901 shows smarter Storage Sense.