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As someone who has attempted to use the original Chromebook Pixel as a development machine, I'm glad to see they've added more storage options. The original Pix

As someone who has attempted to use the original Chromebook Pixel as a development machine, I'm glad to see they've added more storage options. The original Pixel had 32GB of storage, and this one offers 512GB. For those unfamiliar with ChromeOS, it allows you to run Linux application using Crouton/chroot, so it really has a lot of potential as a Linux dev machine. However, I ultimately ran out of storage space, and it wasn't worth the time to figure out an inelegant scheme for mounting external storage.

module0000 9y ago
That jumped out at me too, the (much) larger storage options sound great. In my chroot I always have to be very conservative about space, even on a 64GB pixel. Glad that will be a thing of the past with the new sizes.
leggomylibro 9y ago
This is actually a good reason to go with a 3rd-party manufacturer. Almost all non-Google Chromebooks include microSD card slots, so you can get another 128GB of persistently-mounted executable flash for large builds and similar. Google does not want you to use microSD cards. Google wants you to use Google Drive.
- EddieRingle 9y ago
  My Chromebook Pixel LS has an SD card slot. It wouldn't be a surprise if this one also has one.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Oh, nice! It would be great to see them reversing that trend.
  - anjbe 9y ago
    Unfortunately, it’s on an internal USB 2 bus, which makes SD access extreme slow. All the external USB ports are at least 3.0, so I use a slim 64GB flash drive.
    - leggomylibro 9y ago
      Huh, that's king of a weird decision, but I guess it is probably going to be near the USB connectors on the board, anyways. I guess that probably means it's falling back to a normal SPI interface instead of the faster quad-SPI MMC interface? Maybe they don't want to spend one of their chip's QSPI peripherals on storage expansion.
gisenberg 9y ago
When the Chromebook Pixel is configured to run Linux through Crouton/chroot, it displays a warning on reboot and will automatically reflash the machine to stock ChromeOS without intervention. Not a great option if there's a chance someone non-technical will try to use the machine.

module0000 9y ago

That jumped out at me too, the (much) larger storage options sound great. In my chroot I always have to be very conservative about space, even on a 64GB pixel. Glad that will be a thing of the past with the new sizes.

leggomylibro 9y ago

This is actually a good reason to go with a 3rd-party manufacturer. Almost all non-Google Chromebooks include microSD card slots, so you can get another 128GB of persistently-mounted executable flash for large builds and similar. Google does not want you to use microSD cards. Google wants you to use Google Drive.

EddieRingle 9y ago
My Chromebook Pixel LS has an SD card slot. It wouldn't be a surprise if this one also has one.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Oh, nice! It would be great to see them reversing that trend.
- anjbe 9y ago
  Unfortunately, it’s on an internal USB 2 bus, which makes SD access extreme slow. All the external USB ports are at least 3.0, so I use a slim 64GB flash drive.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Huh, that's king of a weird decision, but I guess it is probably going to be near the USB connectors on the board, anyways. I guess that probably means it's falling back to a normal SPI interface instead of the faster quad-SPI MMC interface? Maybe they don't want to spend one of their chip's QSPI peripherals on storage expansion.

gisenberg 9y ago

When the Chromebook Pixel is configured to run Linux through Crouton/chroot, it displays a warning on reboot and will automatically reflash the machine to stock ChromeOS without intervention. Not a great option if there's a chance someone non-technical will try to use the machine.