SSD 64GB MBA storage question.

steve31 said:

Does anyone have a guess as to how much space would be left "out of the box" with Leopard installed? I know I can shave Leopard down a bit with taking out the crap but I cant remember who much space was used up when i first turned on my MB (sold to buy the MBA) THNXS for your input.

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If I remember from when my MacBook was young, think it was about the 30GB used out of the box. I'm up to 60GB used - but that includes a couple of VMs. With Leopard, iLife 08, iWork 08, Office, and the Adobe CS3 suite installed that runs to around 40GB including data. I don't use it for an iTunes library.

So I figure about half the drive will be used from the SSD on the MBA

One thing's for certain. I don't think Boot Camp's going to be possible.

SSDs are definitely the future, but when they get to 128GB I'll start thinking about them seriously. That shouldn't be long now.

MacsAttack said:

If I remember from when my MacBook was young, think it was about the 30GB used out of the box. I'm up to 60GB used - but that includes a couple of VMs. With Leopard, iLife 08, iWork 08, Office, and the Adobe CS3 suite installed that runs to around 40GB including data. I don't use it for an iTunes library.

So I figure about half the drive will be used from the SSD on the MBA

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I believe you are correct...when I first got my MacBook, it showed that it had the total capacity for 232 GB and of that, 209 GB was available, so ~30GB is used by Leopard, iLife, and other standard software.

ls10flpanyc said:

I believe you are correct...when I first got my MacBook, it showed that it had the total capacity for 232 GB and of that, 209 GB was available, so ~30GB is used by Leopard, iLife, and other standard software.

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you got a 250 gig hard drive for your macbook? I'm impressed.

steve31 said:

Does anyone have a guess as to how much space would be left "out of the box" with Leopard installed? I know I can shave Leopard down a bit with taking out the crap but I cant remember who much space was used up when i first turned on my MB (sold to buy the MBA) THNXS for your input.

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64 gb is more like 60gb.

Default Leopard Install is 9gb. I think that includes 2gb of driver.

Yo do the math... I would carry around a 2.5" drive.

dynamicv said:

One thing's for certain. I don't think Boot Camp's going to be possible.

SSDs are definitely the future, but when they get to 128GB I'll start thinking about them seriously. That shouldn't be long now.

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Bootcamp is possible. Probably better on external drive.

128gb SSD is $3000 last time I checked.

250 gig in my MB as well. Got a WD Passport 250 Gb, ripped it out, swopped out the drive, put my old MB drive in.

SSD's are not a mainstream solution yet. Nearly - and premium options like this, and others similar from other manufacturers, are hopefully going to be the catalyst to tip them into the category of mainstream.

Doug

Trim Leopard by removing iDVD/Garageband/etc if you don't use it. Also, the extra language files and printer drivers.

a 250GB drive is not a 250GB usable drive.

you take 93.7% of the advertised total, and thats what you have for usable space.

manufactures like to rip ppl off by saying 1GB = 1000MB which is a complete lie. bytes are not measured in units of 10, they are measured in units of 2 (binary)

2^10 = 1024, so in reality 1GB = 1024MB

a 250GB drive is around 234.25GB usable maybe less after formatting and stuff.

I am using a 64GB SSD on my MBP and the usable size is 59.6GB.

steve31 said:

Thats before the mac os x install right? Also whats your general opinion? Thnxs

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Yes, 59.6GB is the total usable size. If I were to buy a MBA, I would go for the SSD one. 4200rpm HDD is just too slow for me.

What I like the most from SSD:
- fast, really fast (FYI, I am using Mtron 64GB with 100MB/s read, 80MB/s write) - I never time the booting time etc but it's really fast and most applications open instantly
- No more hot palm area above where the HDD resides

watergun said:

I am using a 64GB SSD on my MBP and the usable size is 59.6GB.

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How big a difference has this drive made in terms of battery life? Boot times? App loads? Anything else?

netdog said:

How big a difference has this drive made in terms of battery life? Boot times? App loads? Anything else?

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I don't think I can get significant batt life improvement from my SSD. But honestly I never timed it before and after. And changing drive in MBP is a pain in the back

Boot times - with QS, growl, smcFancontrol, SteerMouse and tons of other startup applications, I can boot Leopard around 20secs.

App loads - just let me know if u have specific apps u want me to test. Just for general ideas: Word 2008 ~ 3secs, Excel 2008 ~ 2 secs, PowerPoint 2008 ~ 4secs and Photoshop CS3 ~ 2secs.