A Quick Reinstall Question

When a hard drive is formatted the actual space available is usually far less than what is says on the box. This is true for any format used to format the drive. So with a 120GB hard drive you are actually probably only getting about 110 usable GB. Hope that helps.

 

1) 120Gb is in manufacturer measuring. It's probably nearer 112-114Gb in OS/real measuring.

2) The themes for iWeb, iMove and iDVD take up masses of space. Probably around 4-6Gb!

 

So you had a brand new MBP, got it home, and reinstalled the OS...
Which part of "out of the box" didn't you get?

Anyway- 18 to 20 GBs sounds about right- 2 things are at play hand here- the fact that 120GB is not 120,000 MB (each GB is 1024), so when a manifacturer tells you 120, they mean more like 111.
Anothing thing is the OS, with all the drivers, with iLife, and all the software you'll want- about 10 sounds about right.

Welcome. This is a whole new world.

 

It's now Newer than New!

I've never understood the rationale behind stripping functionality out of the Mac for the sake of a few gigabytes of (very cheap) mass storage, especially printer drivers, especially on a notebook. You never know where you're going to be the next time you need to print something.