Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

evanrousso

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 28, 2006
267
0
So i cancelled my macbook order and just wnet and bought one from a micro center in my area...I was sick of waiting.

Anyways, I got the standard black with the 80gb hard drive. Here's my question, how come right out of the box almost 20 gb of hard drive space is already spoken for???!!!

As I was loading some music on there I checked the hard drive space just out of curiosity and was surprised to find I only had 45gb out of the 74gb available.

What gives?
 

WildCowboy

Administrator/Editor
Staff member
Jan 20, 2005
18,389
2,825
Yes, the default OS X install size is around 20 GB due to all of the goodies that come with it. Getting rid of unneeded printer drivers, GarageBand and associated loops, and iDVD themes will easily save you 5 GB of space. Using Delocalizer to get rid of foreign languages will help too.
 

bearbo

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2006
1,858
0
evanrousso said:
So i cancelled my macbook order and just wnet and bought one from a micro center in my area...I was sick of waiting.

Anyways, I got the standard black with the 80gb hard drive. Here's my question, how come right out of the box almost 20 gb of hard drive space is already spoken for???!!!

As I was loading some music on there I checked the hard drive space just out of curiosity and was surprised to find I only had 45gb out of the 74gb available.

What gives?
well.. lets see... OS X can use around 7~8 GB, iLife can use around 10GB, iWork can use aroudn 5 Gb, and the other stuff... (well, fine, they might use slightly less than that, but in that range)

and 74-45 ~= 30, not 20, get your math straight.
 

clevin

macrumors G3
Aug 6, 2006
9,095
1
bearbo said:
well.. lets see... OS X can use around 7~8 GB, iLife can use around 10GB, iWork can use aroudn 5 Gb, and the other stuff... (well, fine, they might use slightly less than that, but in that range)

and 74-45 ~= 30, not 20, get your math straight.
iWork is 1.9G in size.
 

bigandy

macrumors G3
Apr 30, 2004
8,852
7
Murka
bearbo said:
oh really? hmm... that makes me why mine is 4+...
The install is around 1.9Gb. After it's first loaded it sometimes bloats and gets to around 3.9 or so. not sure why, but i've seen it two or three times.

The factory install drops *everything* on to your computer, including like 2Gb of printer drivers.

The best thing to do?

After removing the new product from the box shove the installer DVD straight in and just wipe it clean straight away. Install just what you want.

Sorted :)
 

xfiftyfour

macrumors 68030
Apr 14, 2006
2,573
0
Clemson, SC
bigandy said:
After removing the new product from the box shove the installer DVD straight in and just wipe it clean straight away. Install just what you want.
Yeah, I don't even start using a computer til I've done this. It's crazy how much space the factory install takes up!
 

deepy

macrumors regular
Jun 28, 2006
160
0
xfiftyfour said:
Yeah, I don't even start using a computer til I've done this. It's crazy how much space the factory install takes up!


Ahh crap! I just got my macbook all sorted for my daily tasks and now i cant be bothered to do all of this. I only got a 60gb hdd too!!

Why is it that apple advertise windows as needing alot of trial software removal after first being started when osx is worse! winxp only takes up a couple of gig...osx on its own takes more than that.
 

-::ubermann::-

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2006
213
0
in apple.com it says:
''included software, Mac OS tiger''
so i receive something like this with my macbook?
indextop20060424.jpg


or its only loaded in hd, or i have to purchase an expensive copy of the OS to have the cd/dvd whatever, or its a package with OS and tons of optional software like many linux distributions?
 

pianoman

macrumors 68000
May 31, 2006
1,963
0
with your computer you should have received a set of CDs/DVDs. i have 2 DVDs that say "Mac OSX Install Disc [1 or 2]".
 

thugpoet22

macrumors regular
Apr 26, 2005
130
0
New York
If this is your first mac i dont think its a great idea to remove everything right away. Unless you know for certain that you dont want it on there. Apps that come with iLife are really wonderful. Well built and for the most part very useful, depending on your needs of course. I would try everything out, click this play that, spend some time using the app in order to decide if you would actually use it. And then when you've decided that you wont needed then you will always have the option to remove it. But if you do needed those gigs of space for something else than the above options are probably the best to follow.
 

evangelion-01

macrumors regular
Jul 6, 2006
102
0
uninstall all the unneeded lenguages, all the unneeded garage band sounds, uninstall that word demo and finish the job by deleting the printer drivers :).
 

smartalic34

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2006
976
60
USA
is there any way to delete languages without reinstalling? also, can I get rid of everything in Library/Receipts? the receipts take up 160 MB...
 

WildCowboy

Administrator/Editor
Staff member
Jan 20, 2005
18,389
2,825
smartalic34 said:
is there any way to delete languages without reinstalling? also, can I get rid of everything in Library/Receipts? the receipts take up 160 MB...

Monolingual will get rid of those unneeded languages. But pay special attention to the FAQ to ensure that you don't screw up Rosetta on your system. We've had a lot of people on here who have borked their system using Monolingual, and the only way I know of to recover from that error is to reinstall the system (Archive & Install).

Receipts are good to keep around because they help your system and installers recognize what's on your system and what versions they are. In the grand scheme of things, 160 MB is nothing.
 

macaddicted

macrumors regular
Jul 23, 2002
228
0
Down on Copperline...
The short answer? In addition to all the stuff you may need someday during your trip to Tibet (or some other exotic locale) your hard drive never had 80GB of space, more like 74GB.

The dirty little secret of the HD sellers is that the count kilobytes by 1000's and everyone else counts them by 1024's. If I'm doing the math right then a gigabyte of space in the real world takes 1,073.7 MB, not the 1,000 MB the HD makers would have you believe.

My 100GB drive has 92.84 GB capacity according to Finder.
 

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
deepy said:
Why is it that apple advertise windows as needing alot of trial software removal after first being started when osx is worse! winxp only takes up a couple of gig...osx on its own takes more than that.
The only issue for a Mac is HDD space. On WinXP and prior there are tons of software programs installed that are set to open and annoy the hell out of you. And slow your system, and possibly conflict with each other or Windows. When you have something like 3 instant messaging programs all trying to get you to sign up for their service at bootup, it's time to scream and delete.
 

Chundles

macrumors G5
Jul 4, 2005
12,037
493
macaddicted said:
The short answer? In addition to all the stuff you may need someday during your trip to Tibet (or some other exotic locale) your hard drive never had 80GB of space, more like 74GB.

The dirty little secret of the HD sellers is that the count kilobytes by 1000's and everyone else counts them by 1024's. If I'm doing the math right then a gigabyte of space in the real world takes 1,073.7 MB, not the 1,000 MB the HD makers would have you believe.

My 100GB drive has 92.84 GB capacity according to Finder.

Other way around. The HDD makers have got it right, it's the computers that are wrong.

"Kilo" is an SI prefix denoting units of 1000 - it should never have been used for the term "Kilobyte," to do so is an incorrect use of the term but in the early days those extra 24 bytes didn't mean much. Nowadays it's very different.

Computers should either display the capacity of the HDD in true GB (as displayed on the HDD boxes) or use the correct binary term "Gibibyte" GiB.

When you buy a 100GB hard drive, you are getting 100GB (100x10^9 bytes) as this is the correct SI measurement. Computers decide to incorrectly use the term GB and show an apparent ~7% decrease in capacity when they convert the GB to GiB without changing the units.

100GB = ~93GiB but your computer says 93GB which is incorrect.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.