2015 MBPr more RAM or Drive space?

[streetfoldsfive]

Hey all,

so i'm about to buy a refurbished 13" Macbook pro retina from 2015. I'm between two different i5 versions. they're both 1269, but one has 16GB of RAM but 128GB of SSD space. The other one is the same price, but has 256GB and 8GB of RAM.

I have a pretty powerful iMac and this device will mainly be a device to browse web, take notes, do some photoshop and iMovie work. Which would be the better route to go? Its hard because I figured I could get an external drive, but can't upgrade ram.

 

[T5BRICK]

8GB of RAM will work just fine for your usage. I'd go for the one with the 256GB SSD.

 

[streetfoldsfive]

8GB of RAM will work just fine for your usage. I'd go for the one with the 256GB SSD.

Thanks for the input. Having a difficult time deciding

 

[TechZeke]

Thanks for the input. Having a difficult time deciding

16GB of RAM is useless if you never use it. In this case, having a larger SSD is going to be far more immediately useful than more RAM. Not to mention the fact that other than VMs, any real photo video editing work that requires more than 8GB of RAM won't run well on the 13" rMBP anyway. You have an iMac for heavy lifting anyway.

 

[streetfoldsfive]

16GB of RAM is useless if you never use it. In this case, having a larger SSD is going to be far more immediately useful than more RAM. Not to mention the fact that other than VMs, any real photo video editing work that requires more than 8GB of RAM won't run well on the 13" rMBP anyway. You have an iMac for heavy lifting anyway.

That's what i'm leaning towards. What is making me nervous about the RAM is people saying that I won't be able to upgrade it and my device will struggle in the future.

Even on my imac I don't hit 8GB of RAM so I probably will stick with 8GB.

 

[TechZeke]

That's what i'm leaning towards. What is making me nervous about the RAM is people saying that I won't be able to upgrade it and my device will struggle in the future.

Even on my imac I don't hit 8GB of RAM so I probably will stick with 8GB.

There are plenty of devices still sold today with 4GB of RAM. RAM usage has pretty much stagnated. If you aren't even hitting 8GB on your main machine, then 8GB of RAM will be more than plenty for your rMBP even if RAM usage does increase. By the time 8GB actually becomes too little, you will probably want a new computer anyway.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

That's what i'm leaning towards. What is making me nervous about the RAM is people saying that I won't be able to upgrade it and my device will struggle in the future.

Even on my imac I don't hit 8GB of RAM so I probably will stick with 8GB.

Remember that there are Macbook Airs with 2 GB of RAM so Apple will probably do their best to optimize their software for those laptops. It wasn't until the 2014 models did 8 GB of RAM become standard on the 13" models so it seems safe to be using 8 GB of RAM for the duration of this laptop's lifespan.

 

[TechZeke]

Remember that there are Macbook Airs with 2 GB of RAM so Apple will probably do their best to optimize their software for those laptops. It wasn't until the 2014 models did 8 GB of RAM become standard on the 13" models so it seems safe to be using 8 GB of RAM for the duration of this laptop's lifespan.

That's another point, too. While Soldered RAM gets a lot of flak, it actually forced developers and Operating Systems to be more efficient with RAM - If RAM usage was increasing at the pace 10 years ago, A computer would be useless in a couple years unless you bought the max amount of RAM at the time of purchase.

 

[streetfoldsfive]

That's another point, too. While Soldered RAM gets a lot of flak, it actually forced developers and Operating Systems to be more efficient with RAM - If RAM usage was increasing at the pace 10 years ago, A computer would be useless in a couple years unless you bought the max amount of RAM at the time of purchase.

Thanks! I pulled the trigger and went 8GB with larger SSD! Thanks for helping me out