Today is the last day I have to return my 128gb 2019 model MacBook Pro. I love it. I don’t even mind the keyboard. My only concern is will I regret not having more storage. I’m not a power user but would need more storage for photos and videos from my iPhone mainly. A few other programs here and there. No gaming or major video editing. I’ve never used an external drive before but don’t think I’d have any issue using one and seems like a cheaper option. This is my first MacBook so I’m looking to get some advice from the veterans here. Thanks.
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128 GB Enough? (MacBook Pro)
- Thread starter LoveMyPens
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Tough call. There seems to be a new model on the horizon, which, extrapolating Apple's behaviour from the recently released 16" Pro and new Air, will double the base storage to 256GB without a price increase. It's a bit of a gamble, but for me it's worth it as 128GB is very tight, 256GB will be much easier to live with. You might have to wait up to a month for it, though, would that be something you could do without undue stress? If not then yes storing your media and iPhone backups on an external drive will be essential. You would likely still have to do this to a certain extent with 256GB, but it wouldn't be quite the same juggling act. Additionally, is this your only computer? If you have a Windows PC as well with a larger hard drive, you can use iTunes to manage your phone backups and photo library on there (I would of course suggest plentiful backups to external drives with that also!).
It's a juggling act. I have a 256GB iPhone X and a 128GB MBAir. It's not easy and really sucks with photos and videos.
The problem with an external drive is the way Photos works in the file system (very opaquely to me). Maybe I am missing something though.
The problem with an external drive is the way Photos works in the file system (very opaquely to me). Maybe I am missing something though.
I highly recommend getting something with more storage. SSDs tend to not perform at their best if used close to 100% full. Also, the larger your disk, the faster it will be. For these reasons it's best to get as large an SSD as you can afford.
I certainly appreciate the quick responses. Glad I asked as I now feel absolutely certain I need to return this. I do have a windows pc that’s on its last leg but I can certainly wait to see what the 2020 version will be like. I may give the new MB Air a shot while I’m waiting. Thanks again!! 
What do you plan on storing on it?I certainly appreciate the quick responses. Glad I asked as I now feel absolutely certain I need to return this. I do have a windows pc that’s on its last leg but I can certainly wait to see what the 2020 version will be like. I may give the new MB Air a shot while I’m waiting. Thanks again!!
Having enough storage is totally subjective and would change from user to user, as it depends on what you plan on doing with it.
I personally wouldn’t use storage that small, but that is based off of my storage habits.
My wife has a 2012 MBA with only 64GB of storage, and that is more than enough for her.
She has never ran out of space.
After using it for 7 years, she still loves it.
Right now most of my storage is photos as you can see here. If I don’t need access to them all the time do I really need 256 gb? I could also remove them from the ssd and store in iCloud or google photos, right? Just when I thought I had my mind made up.
Right now most of my storage is photos as you can see here. If I don’t need access to them all the time do I really need 256 gb? I could also remove them from the ssd and store in iCloud or google photos, right? Just when I thought I had my mind made up.
You can, but I would always keep at least one physical back up of important things, especially stuff stored on cloud storage.
You can use an external solution for the back up.
Certainly! After seeing your response and looking at what I have stored right now I think this will be plenty. No return for me tonight and I’m feeling pretty good about that. Thanks again everyone.
I use an external for my photos which clears a lot of space on the internal drive. You can set it up so it automatically updates from your phone.
I have quickly realized everyone’s usage is different. I have taken my chances with the 128gb as the return window closed last night. Thank you for your feedback.
Very true, I have a MBA with only a few hundred GB's on it. It depends on what you do with it.
No, it's not enough. I used to split my laptops into a 128GB boot boot and a ~2TB data drive (like the old C: and D: days) - this was to make clean OS installs much less painful. I went to more and more extremes to move things from the boot drive to the external drive, but finally, just the OS an applications and settings wouldn't fit in 128GB. And then I noticed the severe performance issue - MacOS considers the boot volume swap file to be part of RAM! I started getting all kinds of "out of RAM" errors and programs crashing. Finally, I reformatted all my systems so that the "boot volumes" are all 256GB. Of course, that's JUST the boot volume.
Think of it this way - when were 200 GB 3.5" hard drives all the rage in desktop computers? Around 2002 - almost 20 years ago! And that was when Moore's Law's doubling was serious.
My apologies - when I wrote this your post hadn't shown up yet saying you'd made your decision, but sounds like it wouldn't have made a difference. It's funny - there's always been endless talk of the user who doesn't need anything on his laptop - basically Microsoft Office, Mail, and Safari and that's it. Not even the Photos app. I always thought that was a myth - that those people don't really exist - that everyone does something serious with their laptop. But recently, I actually met someone who really didn't use anything but Office and Safari! So at least there's proof that such people are real. Of course, those people typically don't buy Macbook Pros - they tend to buy Macbooks and Airs and such. The plus side is people like that save a TON of money on laptops and they can move to any OS with ease. Interestingly, I found that the same people also don't have a ton of apps on their phone - more than on their computer, to be sure, but not that many. They basically live a technology free existence. Pure, relaxing Zen.
Think of it this way - when were 200 GB 3.5" hard drives all the rage in desktop computers? Around 2002 - almost 20 years ago! And that was when Moore's Law's doubling was serious.
My apologies - when I wrote this your post hadn't shown up yet saying you'd made your decision, but sounds like it wouldn't have made a difference. It's funny - there's always been endless talk of the user who doesn't need anything on his laptop - basically Microsoft Office, Mail, and Safari and that's it. Not even the Photos app. I always thought that was a myth - that those people don't really exist - that everyone does something serious with their laptop. But recently, I actually met someone who really didn't use anything but Office and Safari! So at least there's proof that such people are real.
Of course, those people typically don't buy Macbook Pros - they tend to buy Macbooks and Airs and such. The plus side is people like that save a TON of money on laptops and they can move to any OS with ease. Interestingly, I found that the same people also don't have a ton of apps on their phone - more than on their computer, to be sure, but not that many. They basically live a technology free existence. Pure, relaxing Zen.
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No, it's not enough. I used to split my laptops into a 128GB boot boot and a ~2TB data drive (like the old C: and D: days) - this was to make clean OS installs much less painful. I went to more and more extremes to move things from the boot drive to the external drive, but finally, just the OS an applications and settings wouldn't fit in 128GB. And then I noticed the severe performance issue - MacOS considers the boot volume swap file to be part of RAM! I started getting all kinds of "out of RAM" errors and programs crashing. Finally, I reformatted all my systems so that the "boot volumes" are all 256GB. Of course, that's JUST the boot volume.
Think of it this way - when were 200 GB 3.5" hard drives all the rage in desktop computers? Around 2002 - almost 20 years ago! And that was when Moore's Law's doubling was serious.
Whether it is or isn’t, it’s too late now. As mentioned above, I past the rerun policy yesterday. I’m confident I’ll make it work, relatively pain-free.
I’ve moved all my files and photos to the cloud and use far less than 128GB. But I also only get my phone and iPad with 64Gb and don’t come close to using it
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have a 64gb iPhone as well and not close to maxing out so that should be a good sign.
I just sold a 2019 MacBook Air with 128 GB to someone. She was concerned about the storage because she had hundreds of GB but the price I was offering (friend of a friend) was good. So she took it, and moved her photos to iCloud, and just stored thumbnails. Works well for her, and now her photo library takes only a couple of GB.
Now I'm thinking about it. I have a 1 TB iMac, but my Photos library is now 400 GB and is only getting bigger. An alternative would be an external drive but formatted APFS since it doesn't seem to work on a NAS.
If I am looking at an external drive I should probably know what that last sentence means.
Not only is this my first Apple computer but first external hard drive. Never backed up my PCs for some reason. Thankfully I never lost anything. I’d imagine that would quite a change going from 1 TB to 128 GB.
NAS is Network Attached Storage. Basically a box of disks for storage on the local network in the house/office. The box has its own operating system, which is usually Linux-based. iTunes music works just fine on a NAS, even though my NAS is formatted with the Linux-friendly ext disk format. Most of my documents are on the NAS as well. However, Photos libraries do not work at all this way. Thus I have my Photos library locally on my iMac which is formatted in the APFS format.If I am looking at an external drive I should probably know what that last sentence means.Not only is this my first Apple computer but first external hard drive. Never backed up my PCs for some reason. Thankfully I never lost anything.
I’d imagine that would quite a change going from 1 TB to 128 GB.
If I were to move my Photos library to an external drive, I would set it up as an APFS formatted drive physically attached to the Mac.
The reason I had not moved Photos to iCloud was because the last time I tried it I had some serious issues, which could lead to lost data, and which prevented certain features from working as I had hoped. I also didn't want to pay the monthly fee for 1 TB storage for the rest of time. My understanding is the issues have been worked out now, and the pricing for 1 TB storage is more reasonable now.
BTW, I have several backups. The important files on the NAS are backed up nightly to a local drive attached to the NAS. In addition, the important files on the NAS are backed up over the network to yet another NAS physically located on the other side of the house. And occasionally I will make an external backup on a hard disk and put that in the safety deposit box I get with my banking plan.
Well apparently Best Buy extended the return policy again and I now have until May 31 to return. With the new 13” Pro being announced I’d say it’s a no-brainer for me to exchange.