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Add flash memory or buy more recent Air?

carizma22

carizma22

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 27, 2005
57
1
Houston, TX
Hi Everyone:

I have a late 2010 Macbook Air - the one without thunderbolt and therefore, apparently, no way to get audio when hooked up to a TV. I have only 120GB flash memory and I am down to 5GB. This is my only computer. There is no room on my backup hard drive to move stuff off the Air, because what is taking up room is music and photos. And I am worried too that if I move these off the Air, they won't be on my iPhone or iPad any more. Am I right about that? That's another question, sorry.

I could increase the flash memory to 240 with an Otherworld Computing card, which would solve the space problem. But it wouldn't solve the lack of audio when I try to attach the Air to my TV.

So I am in a quandary. Should I just add memory or buy a more recent Air? I've been reading the posts about how the 2013 Air is as good as the 2014 and the 2015 is not much different. But to buy a 2013, I would probably pay about $500 more than for memory. Please give me some convincing reasons for buying a newer model.

Thanks
 
Is it worth to you to spend $500 extra to have more storage and have sound going to the TV?
If yes, then do it. You'll have a much newer Air too, not just more storage.
 
What you call memory is usually called storage.

There's one thing to remember about Storage from Apple: it's extremely expensive.

It's also very fast, but like 7/10 files don't need to be on super fast storage.

For example, an operating system? Yes, fast storage is great for quick bootup/wakeup.

But a movie? No. If you're going to watch a 90 minute movie, taking 5 seconds to open it up from your slower external drive is not an issue.

The price of extra SSD storage on a Macbook is usually about $1.55 per gigabyte. But you can buy external harddisks for as little as below 8 cents per gigabyte. And you can use this for all the files you rarely open, but want to store. Movies you're expecting to watch one day, old photo albums etc.

Your storage of photos etc from your iPhone has nothing to do with storage on your Macbook. BUT if you keep the files on your iphone and keep backing them up on your Macbook, then it's going to get full again. Which means you need to back up your iphone files to your external drive instead.

The 2015 model is quite a bit better than the 2013, but for simple webbrowsing (and more) etc the 2013 is more than enough. But buying second hand is a risk, not sure if you can find the 2013 models new anymore. I'd personally buy a cheap, new, 2014 model, with a cheap external harddrive to use as a backup and for long-term storage.
 
2010 MBA/MBP/Mac mini can handle displayport to HDMI adapter with audio, chances are you bought a knock-off without the HDCP chip in the adapter.

As far as upgrading your SSD, personally I wouldn't dump money into an older MacBook Air as Core 2 Duo support may end after Yosemite and it'll only be money down the drain vs buying another external HDD. Figure out how to trim back the "bloat" of disused programs/files/media or budget for a newer MBA.

I agree about looking at battery life, newer MBAs perform at their rated battery life, 2010 MBA/MBP used fuzzy testing methods. Also on the 13" MBA you could always use a MicroSDHC in a low-profile card adapter to have extra storage, 2011 and newer Macs the SDHX reader is on the PCIe bus which allows faster read/write.
 
try a nifty drive, you can add a micro-SD card and have up to 128Gb extra storage. I think there is one for the MBA 2010 as well.
Nifty drives (there might be others as well btw) don't stick out of the half-SD slot, they are aluminum just like the rest of the body and mine is working perfect.

Buying new is an option, but expensive, and your current Macbook air could keep on going for another year. Or two, or three.
OTOH if you want to spend money, the new Macbook (12") that is coming is really nice as well :D
 
Get a newer one. Your MBA is old enough at this point that your battery will probably start going, if it hasn't already, so even if you're good with the upgraded storage, you'll end up replacing the battery down the line and that will eat into your $500 savings. You might as well get a newer machine, which will get you a fresh(er) battery, more battery life overall due to Haswell, the ports you want, and the storage you want.
 
flur said:
Get a newer one. Your MBA is old enough at this point that your battery will probably start going, if it hasn't already.You might as well get a newer machine, which will get you a fresh(er) battery, more battery life overall due to Haswell, the ports you want, and the storage you want.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this and all the other answers from others who posted in reply.. I think if I buy anything it should be a newer model of Air. I am leaning towards new rather than used, so I need to decide whether to buy the newest model or the 2014. It seems like there's not much difference between them. Clearly I need more storage - now I know what to call it :).

But what about ram. When I got my 2010 I uppped the ram from 2 to 4. Is there any need to up the 4 to 8? I mostly do word processing but I often have several programs open ant the same time like Mail, Safari, Adobe Pro and Word and several pages and documents open in each program. Guidance please.

Thanks so much in advance.
 
Last edited:
Abbara said:
Your storage of photos etc from your iPhone has nothing to do with storage on your Macbook. BUT if you keep the files on your iphone and keep backing them up on your Macbook, then it's going to get full again. Which means you need to back up your iphone files to your external drive instead.
Click to expand...

I found the other thread about RAM so need to rehash it here. But I do want to ask about what Abbara said here. 1. If there is no connection between my Air and my iphone regarding storage of photos why was it that when I deleted something on my recently uploaded photo stream on my Air, it disappeared on my phone. Is that because it's really all on the cloud. Or was Abbara talking about albums stored on my Air.

2. And how do you back up an iPhone to a hard drive without iTunes?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help with this, even though it's not really the key question I posted or even specific to an Air.
 
carizma22 said:
Hi Everyone:

I have a late 2010 Macbook Air - the one without thunderbolt and therefore, apparently, no way to get audio when hooked up to a TV. I have only 120GB flash memory and I am down to 5GB. This is my only computer. There is no room on my backup hard drive to move stuff off the Air, because what is taking up room is music and photos. And I am worried too that if I move these off the Air, they won't be on my iPhone or iPad any more. Am I right about that? That's another question, sorry.

I could increase the flash memory to 240 with an Otherworld Computing card, which would solve the space problem. But it wouldn't solve the lack of audio when I try to attach the Air to my TV.

So I am in a quandary. Should I just add memory or buy a more recent Air? I've been reading the posts about how the 2013 Air is as good as the 2014 and the 2015 is not much different. But to buy a 2013, I would probably pay about $500 more than for memory. Please give me some convincing reasons for buying a newer model.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Not sure about the sound; isn't there a headphone socket?

Could you not add memory without the need for your own TRIM enabling, b y adding a Transcend SD card (this is the one approved for your model of computer)?
 
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julianps said:
Not sure about the sound; isn't there a headphone socket?

Could you not add memory without the need for your own TRIM enabling, b y adding a Transcend SD card (this is the one approved for your model of computer)?
Click to expand...

I can't use the Transcend card because my Air is an 11" and doesn't have an SD card slot.

I had my Air at the Apple store. I asked them about the sound; even their most knowledgeable geek couldn't hook it up to a TV with the apple adapters. On the other hand, I have connected it to a projector and shown a movie to a class with success, audio and video, using the headphone socket, using something like this (I don't know what you call this kind of cable): http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...T&cid=262075&lid=4742361&acd=1230980794501410, so I am sure it can be done.

Actually another problem with the 2010 Air is its connectivity to wireless printers. I routinely have to print to such a printer at work, and although our IT guy has set me up to be able to do it multiple times, it routinely fails with the message that printer is not connected, although it always is, so I end up having to use a USB printer cable. Maybe this is not the fault of the laptop, but I suspect that the newer Airs have more effective wireless connectivity.

All of the problems I have can be worked around, clearly, but they are beginning to annoy me and slow me down. So I am trying to find solutions. Buy something new now or add storage and put up with the other irritations. At some point, the 2010 will not be able to run the next generation of the OS, but even then I could keep going.The question is at what point do I upgrade. I bought my iPad Air six months before the iPad Air 2 came out, but I needed it when I bought it and I love it. I don't regret not waiting. I suspect the same will be true of the Macbook Air. I could wait longer and see what changes are coming to the series, or buy a 2015 or a 2014 now. Still wondering.
 
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I am confused by the missing audio problem, OP. Are you saying that you want the audio carried over the same HDMI port as the video? And why wouldn't you just use a USB sound card to hook your MBA to your TV?
 
Xeem said:
I am confused by the missing audio problem, OP. Are you saying that you want the audio carried over the same HDMI port as the video? And why wouldn't you just use a USB sound card to hook your MBA to your TV?
Click to expand...


I have a VGA port not a thunderbolt and it is my understanding that VGA doesn't carry audio. I don't know what an USB sound card is, but I also don't have a USB slot on my TV. It is an older Sony Bravia.
 
carizma22 said:
I have a VGA port not a thunderbolt and it is my understanding that VGA doesn't carry audio. I don't know what an USB sound card is, but I also don't have a USB slot on my TV. It is an older Sony Bravia.
Click to expand...

Ah. USB sound cards come in many forms, but they all do the same thing: output your Mac's sound through a USB port. This one will stereo output sound via optical toslink or analog 3.5mm:

http://www.turtlebeach.com/product-detail/sound-cards-accessories/audio-advantage-micro-ii/31

Used in conjunction with one of these, it can combine with a 2010 Macbook air's MiniDisplayPort output to create an HDMI output that carries both audio and video:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042802&p_id=6331&seq=1&format=2
 
I'm going to buy a new one

Thank you everyone for your input on my question. I am now much more educated about the choices I have, and on hearing that a tax refund is coming my way, i have decided to buy a new MBA 11". I will probably have other questions., which I will post from time to time, and I will lurk as I have been doing since 2005!
 
Last edited:
I think I am going to trade my current MBA in to Powermax to reduce the price of the new one. I don't need two MBAs and I don't want to try to sell it on Ebay or somewhere else. I have had a good experience with Powermax in the past. Bought my refurbished Power Computing Apple clone back in the 90s. It lasted me for years until I bought a Titanium Powerbook, also from them. After that it has been laptops all the way to my Macbook Air. Just love my Apples.
 
flur said:
Get a newer one. Your MBA is old enough at this point that your battery will probably start going, if it hasn't already, so even if you're good with the upgraded storage, you'll end up replacing the battery down the line and that will eat into your $500 savings. You might as well get a newer machine, which will get you a fresh(er) battery, more battery life overall due to Haswell, the ports you want, and the storage you want.
Click to expand...

New OEM battery: 30-50 bucks (only) :p
 
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