Hi,
I'm looking at buying a new macbook pro, likely the new 13" retina, and would like some help with the storage amount as I want this to be a computer that lasts me a minimum of 5 years given the price.
I use my current laptop principally for internet, media, some microsoft office stuff. Main use is media as I live abroad and have an apple tv, hence consume a lot of films, tv shows, music etc. My itunes library is currently at close to 500GB, but I have recently bought a synology NAS box to hold my itunes library which works reasonbly well and allows me to access media from my ipad and wife's computer as well, though unfortunately not my old apple tv (it's first generation). With the NAS, this leaves my current storage on the laptop at around 75gb.
Initially I was thinking of getting the 512GB (the bigger the better), but the more I think, when will I ever use it given the NAS, and maybe 256 is better suited (or maybe 128).
I also need to purchase an external hard drive to back up my NAS (scared this will fail and with it all my media). Does anyone have advice what is a good one to buy? Something relatively small that will be connected to the NAS and back up regularly (weekly).
Sorry for long post and any help/comments would be much appreciated before I burn a ton of cash.
Thanks,
Les.
A couple thoughts on the 13" rMBP:
1. In terms of horsepower, it's identical to a 13" non-retina, just as the 15" rMBP is identical in terms of horsepower to a 15" non-retina with similar CPU/RAM specs (VRAM disparity on 2.3GHz models aside).
2. In terms of price, a 13" rMBP with 512GB of SSD is $200 more costly than a 13" MBA with the same 8GB of RAM and the same 512GB SSD; you are paying $200 for an extra Thunderbolt port, a faster CPU, an HDMI port, dual-mics, and, of course, the retina screen. However, for roughly the same price as said MBA (which mind you is still around $200 cheaper than said 13" rMBP with 512GB of SSD), you can price out a non-retina 13" MBP with the same CPU as its retina counterpart and with 512GB of SSD and 8GB of RAM. You loose out on HDMI, you get FireWire and Gigabit Ethernet in exchange for the second Thunderbolt port, you get an optical drive (which may be of use to you; if not you can always swap it out with one of those optibay kits, which you can use to put in a second hard drive or SSD [thusly letting you make your own Fusion Drive]. In addition, you can pretty much access and replace storage and RAM to your hearts content at any point (an option not available on any rMBP or MBA). For the same result, you have three 13" machines within the same price range as each other. Not that I'm telling you to consider any one over any other, but it's still worth thinking about.
3. In terms of weight, as Apple has stated, it is lighter than any MacBook Pro that has ever shipped before. If weight is a real concern for you, that's worth considering. However, if you are comparing it to a 2009 15" MBP, any of the three 13" machines will be substantially lighter.
A couple thoughts on rMBPs in general:
1. The only sensible allures to these machines are the display (for which not every app is yet optimized for; if you use a lot of older apps that you know won't ever be updated, this may be something worth considering) and the weight. If a standard fare non-retina unibody 15" MacBook Pro weighs more than you'd like, it's safe to assume that it's not your machine. Personally, I think it's the current sweet-spot of the entire Mac line-up, but that's just my opinion. If these two features are not things you care that much about, then your needs could be more inexpensively served by a non-retina MacBook Pro.
2. The non-retina Unibody MacBook Pros are, very clearly, a design that will likely not see the next refresh given Apple's very vocal stance on the retina MacBook Pros being "The Next Generation of MacBook Pros".
Thoughts on your dilemma, given all of this:
1. If your NAS allows you to have only 75GB of space used on your Mac, that's fantastic. I woudn't limit yourself to only 128GB of local storage, however. I'd at least bump yourself up to 512GB as you never really know what sorts of things you'll have to store locally, as well as what you might need on a long trip. Storage constraints necessitated my last upgrade, and even with a NAS, there's still a ton of stuff that I don't want to be without. But that's just me. If you can get by of 256GB and likely won't need anything more than that for a while, then any of Apple's laptops will serve you well.
2. I agree with the others saying that you ought to consider a 15" rMBP, given that weight is your main concern with the Mac you are upgrading from. A 15" rMBP (let alone any 15" MacBook Pro in general) will likely last you much longer before you run into software requirement limitations than any of the 13" machines likely will. But if gaming, 3D rendering/graphics, or video editing are not things that you care about doing, the extra power will likely be needless beyond future-proofing.
3. If your NAS doesn't have an extra hard drive bay that you can use for redundancy, you should get one that does. If your NAS DOES have an extra hard drive bay and you're using that to get a larger amount of storage, consider replacing your NAS with one that has double the amount of bays as your current NAS so that you can have redundancy. I have a NetGear ReadyNAS Duo v2 that has two 3TB drives (one mirroring the other). The Finder sees one 3TB volume and everything is kept redundant in the event of a drive failure.
4. Really, I'd consider what you want out of whatever machine you're going to get. I think that if your options are 13" MBA, 13" cMBP, 13" rMBP, and 15" rMBP, assuming 8GB of RAM and 256GB to 512GB of storage, the 13" rMBP is probably the worst bang for buck given that you can price out a similar specced 13" cMBP for $~200 less. The 13" cMBP is probably your best bang for buck, but it is the heaviest machine and it does carry the lowest display resolution. The 15" rMBP will likely last you the longest, but it will cost you the most (though if you order one, customizing it with 16GB of RAM is a must as you won't have the opportunity to later and that will affect the longevity of the machine).
5. You'll be happy with whatever you get.