Any buy 128gb and happy?

[lambertjohn]

If you have good internet then most of your stuff can be stored on the cloud if you're going to be using smallish documents, spreadsheets, etc. If you're going to do VMs or large video/images then maybe 256 would be better.

But what do you do when you take your computer somewhere where there's no internet? The cloud is garbage. It's not secure and it's not dependable. Just get a Samsung T5 portable SSD. 500GB for $90 on Amazon. About the size of a pack of matches. All your files with with you ALL THE TIME. Always.

 

[honestone33]

The "System" portion on my 2015 rMPB SSD takes up 141.94GB. Maybe it's time for a fresh install.

That seems like a lot. Maybe some disk cleanup is needed.
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But what do you do when you take your computer somewhere where there's no internet? The cloud is garbage. It's not secure and it's not dependable. Just get a Samsung T5 portable SSD. 500GB for $90 on Amazon. About the size of a pack of matches. All your files with with you ALL THE TIME. Always.

Or just get a "bare" SSD, like the Samsung 500 gig 860 EVO:

SAMSUNG 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E500B/AM)

Upgrading your PC with a Samsung SSD is the most economical way to breathe new life into an aging PC. The 850 EVO reads, writes and multi tasks at incredible speeds, enhancing boot up speed, application loading and multi tasking performance. It's more than an upgrade, it's a complete transformati...

www.amazon.com

and install inside an Orico enclosure:

ORICO USB 3.0 to SATA III 2.5" External Hard Drive Enclosure for 2.5 Inch 7mm-9.5mm SATA HDD/SSD Tool Free [UASP Supported],Black(2189U3)

ORICO USB 3.0 to SATA III 2.5" External Hard Drive Enclosure for 2.5 Inch 7mm-9.5mm SATA HDD/SSD Tool Free [UASP Supported],Black(2189U3)

www.amazon.com

Right now, that price for the Samsung 860 EVO is high, but with Black Friday coming, it should be much less expensive, probably around $60 to $65.

But, that's an excellent price for the Samsung T5 500 gig portable:

SAMSUNG T5 Portable SSD 500GB - Up to 540MB/s - USB 3.1 External Solid State Drive, Blue (MU-PA500B/AM)

The Samsung T5 Portable SSD has the latest in Samsung V-NAND flash memory technology. Its portable design, blazing fast transfer speeds of up to 540 MB/s, shock resistance, and secure encryption make it the best portable SSD on the market. Shockproof aluminum exterior-can withstand accidental dro...

www.amazon.com

It could well be on sale during Black Friday.

 

[tarsins]

But what do you do when you take your computer somewhere where there's no internet? The cloud is garbage. It's not secure and it's not dependable. Just get a Samsung T5 portable SSD. 500GB for $90 on Amazon. About the size of a pack of matches. All your files with with you ALL THE TIME. Always.

Until you lose that tiny little box.

I appreciate your point but the Cloud is not garbage.

 

[pshufd]

Until you lose that tiny little box.

I appreciate your point but the Cloud is not garbage.

This is why I prefer an SD card over USB drives or drives that use a cable. I can just leave the SD card in the laptop all the time. I did this with my old 2008 MBP - used an ExpressCard SSD that was flush and used it as my boot drive until I replaced the HDD with an SSD. What would be cool is a very small USB-C device that you could insert that was almost flush with the laptop.

My company has a policy that you can't put work product on public clouds so all work product has to either be on the local SSD or the internal cloud. Our internal cloud doesn't have a lot of services so I put everything on my local SSDs.

 

[0906742]

I got 128GB MBP 2019 (1.4GHz version) about three months ago and I'm happy with ssd space. I currently have about 93GB free (just hour ago updated it to Catalina 10.15.1). I was afraid Catalina would take much more ssd space than Mojave did, but turns out it takes about the same or even little less. I'm doing very basic stuff with my MBP without much additional softwares installed, so looks fine to me and I really could not justify Apple prices for larger ssd, those are not just from this world when you see what separately sold ssd drives cost...
I guess larger ssd would have been useful in the future at some point, but I honestly don't expect these machines really last for many years in normal use anyway, so I rather buy new basic version every two years than pay double or even more and try to struggle with that one for 4-5 years. Basically if trying to get that you likely need to count at least one or more battery replacement etc. on top of initial cost.

 

[Imsuperjp]

I rather buy new basic version every two years than pay double or even more and try to struggle with that one for 4-5 years. Basically if trying to get that you likely need to count at least one or more battery replacement etc. on top of initial cost.

That makes sense and I never thought of it that way!

 

[0906742]

That makes sense and I never thought of it that way!

Exactly. If the options were not priced astronomically and batteries would last for many years then it would make some sense to consider that option, but not with current pricing. IMHO.

 

[honestone33]

This is why I prefer an SD card over USB drives or drives that use a cable. I can just leave the SD card in the laptop all the time. I did this with my old 2008 MBP - used an ExpressCard SSD that was flush and used it as my boot drive until I replaced the HDD with an SSD. What would be cool is a very small USB-C device that you could insert that was almost flush with the laptop.

I have always been quite happy with using external drives. And with the links I provided above for the Samsung 860 EVO SSD and the nice, slim Orico enclosure, that works out quite well, especially when we travel.

My company has a policy that you can't put work product on public clouds so all work product has to either be on the local SSD or the internal cloud. Our internal cloud doesn't have a lot of services so I put everything on my local SSDs.

That is actually my personal policy also. I will never, never use the cloud (nor anything similar) for storing my information. Why risk a loss?

 

[TokMok3]

Looking for a laptop for school. Costco will have the 2019 Macbook Pro 128gb on sale for $999 next month. I know 128 gb is small but curious if anyone who went with the 128gb is fine with the limited storage

Not enough space, you will need at least 256 GB. Also a 256GB is a faster than a 128GB.

 

[honestone33]

Not enough space, you will need at least 256 GB. Also a 256GB is a faster than a 128GB.

Folks need to remember that in a laptop, 256 gig is actually 252 gig, and 128 gig is actually about 122 to 123 gig.

And yes, 256 gig (again, actually 252 gig in a laptop) is much, much better, as such an amount 1) can accommodate several large downloads, and 2) will have a good amount of free space, which is always good.

 

[0906742]

Not enough space, you will need at least 256 GB.

Says who? I haven't seen any problem with space with my 128GB. Sure it won't be enough after several years but by that time this notebook is going to be obsolete anyway. IMHO.

Also a 256GB is a faster than a 128GB.

I bet you cannot tell the difference other than what you see in benchmarking software!
Honestly I have seen that many times that once you go from HDD to SSD the difference is biggest but between SSD's it became negligible in real life. For example I upgraded my Windows desktop SDD from old sata2 based drive to PCIe/NVMe kind that is about ten times faster than the old one in benchmarks I honestly cannot tell the difference in everyday use, other than when copying very large files. The difference between 128GB and 256GB MBP SSD is only few tens of percentages in benchmarks.

 

[honestone33]

Says who? I haven't seen any problem with space with my 128GB. Sure it won't be enough after several years but by that time this notebook is going to be obsolete anyway. IMHO.

I fully understand where you are coming from, and in my case, there have only been a couple of instances where I needed the extra amount of space afforded by the 256 gig (ahem, 252 gig) SSD. As it is, most of the time I am only using about 70 to 75 gig of each of my 256 gig internal SSDs. Of course, I make a concerted effort to do daily and weekly cleanup of both of my Macs.

Also, I thus have plenty of free space just about all the time, which is always good. I just want to have the extra space just in case I want to download several large files.

 

[TokMok3]

Says who? I haven't seen any problem with space with my 128GB. Sure it won't be enough after several years but by that time this notebook is going to be obsolete anyway. IMHO.


I bet you cannot tell the difference other than what you see in benchmarking software!
Honestly I have seen that many times that once you go from HDD to SSD the difference is biggest but between SSD's it became negligible in real life. For example I upgraded my Windows desktop SDD from old sata2 based drive to PCIe/NVMe kind that is about ten times faster than the old one in benchmarks I honestly cannot tell the difference in everyday use, other than when copying very large files. The difference between 128GB and 256GB MBP SSD is only few tens of percentages in benchmarks.

OP wants the computer for school, he might take a programming class, might want to play with Xcode and to install that it will take at least 10GB, he might like music and that at least will use 15GB for a small collection of 1000 songs (mp3) recorded at 256kbps to 320kbps. OP might want to download some videos, ebooks, photos... 120GB will be gone and by empirical experience I can tell that the less space you have available in your SDD drive the slower it gest and the machine starts to choke... Been using computers for 35 years.

I forgot to mention installing windows in a virtual machine, that will take a lot of space... Specially I f your are a student some times you need windows.

 

[honestone33]

OP wants the computer for school, he might take a programming class, might want to play with Xcode and to install that it will take at least 10GB, he might like music and that at least will use 15GB for a small collection of 1000 songs (mp3) recorded at 256kbps to 320kbps. OP might want to download some videos, ebooks, photos... 120GB will be gone and by empirical experience I can tell that the less space you have available in your SDD drive the slower it gest and the machine starts to choke... Been using computers for 35 years.

I forgot to mention installing windows in a virtual machine, that will take a lot of space... Specially I f your are a student some times you need windows.

Well stated, and definitely accurate! And even with 256 gig, it would still be wise to purchase a 500 to 512 gig external SSD, and use it for 1) backups, and 2) storing larger files.

 

[gregorcic]

128GB and few cloud services (iCloud and Dropbox) works fine for me and my needs.

 

[0906742]

Also, I thus have plenty of free space just about all the time, which is always good. I just want to have the extra space just in case I want to download several large files.

I personally would not pay extra 50% more to have lousy 128GB extra space in case I ever happen to need it.
I mean those bargains OP mentioned rarely have the same discount for higher specsed models. So you may end up needing to pay 1500 instead of 1000 if you insist having 256 insted of 128. That additional 500 buys you a bag full of external drives that are much bigger.
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OP wants the computer for school, he might take a programming class, might want to play with Xcode and to install that it will take at least 10GB, he might like music and that at least will use 15GB for a small collection of 1000 songs (mp3) recorded at 256kbps to 320kbps. OP might want to download some videos, ebooks, photos... 120GB will be gone and by empirical experience I can tell that the less space you have available in your SDD drive the slower it gest and the machine starts to choke... Been using computers for 35 years.

I forgot to mention installing windows in a virtual machine, that will take a lot of space... Specially I f your are a student some times you need windows.

Yeah, but all that can be dealt with just purchasing additional usb-c ssd drive. those are dirt cheap compared to what is the difference between 128 and 256 or bigger built in ssd in MacBook. But that is just me. Not all probably see it that way feasible option.

 

[Imsuperjp]

I personally would not pay extra 50% more to have lousy 128GB extra space in case I ever happen to need it.
I mean those bargains OP mentioned rarely have the same discount for higher specsed models. So you may end up needing to pay 1500 instead of 1000 if you insist having 256 insted of 128. That additional 500 buys you a bag full of external drives that are much bigger.
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Yeah, but all that can be dealt with just purchasing additional usb-c ssd drive. those are dirt cheap compared to what is the difference between 128 and 256 or bigger built in ssd in MacBook.

What about $200 more? Costco will have the 256 model on sale for $1200 11/7.

 

[Isamilis]

If you don't plan to install windows (in separate partition or VMware / parallels desktop) then you should be fine.

 

[0906742]

What about $200 more? Costco will have the 256 model on sale for $1200 11/7.

That does not sound too bad if you really need the size but I personally could not justify that, it was just over 200 for 128 to 256 update. For the 200 you get much larger external drives if that can be considered option in your case.

 

[honestone33]

That does not sound too bad if you really need the size but I personally could not justify that, it was just over 200 for 128 to 256 update. For the 200 you get much larger external drives if that can be considered option in your case.

But if such a machine is on sale during Black Friday, it would be well worth it.

 

[honestone33]

One other plus for getting a 256 gig model: when it comes time to sell it, it should garner a higher price than the 128 gig model, and also could sell faster.

 

[travelsheep]

My first MacBook Air (2006 or something like that) had 128GB. Was fine for a while. Then it was a fight against space. Always had to clean up and be tidy. Three years later I upgraded to another MacBook Air with 256GB, felt like heaven, unlimited space. Then this became tight. Now on a MacBook with 512GB. Feels so free and unlimited!!

 

[0906742]

But if such a machine is on sale during Black Friday, it would be well worth it.

Maybe if there is a good offer for that. Usually at least here in EU area is so that models on sale are almost always just basic 128GB models and above that are sold at list price, so difference can be even 600-800 more for just 128 > 256 upgrade. Honestly 600 to 800 is a bit high for something that actual cost difference between the parts is few dollars at most (if you check the prices of the separately sold ssd drives).

You realize you can buy an 1TB (1000GB) SSD for just over 100 these days...

Since the battery life is what is it with the MBP you a likely going to need carry a charger with you anyway (if you want to run it for a whole workday and actually do something with it), so why not just "rubber band" a portable SSD drive to charger and then just plug in cables to both of then and roll them over the charger+ssd "package". All you have to do it to plug in 1 additional cable when you are using them.
But that just me.

One other plus for getting a 256 gig model: when it comes time to sell it, it should garner a higher price than the 128 gig model, and also could sell faster.

Maybe sell faster but I don't think you get much more for the models with larger drive due to fact that most peoples realize what is the real worth between 128 and 256 drive.

My first MacBook Air (2006 or something like that) had 128GB. Was fine for a while. Then it was a fight against space. Always had to clean up and be tidy. Three years later I upgraded to another MacBook Air with 256GB, felt like heaven, unlimited space. Then this became tight. Now on a MacBook with 512GB. Feels so free and unlimited!!

I just checked my main Windows desktop I use all the time. It has 256GB NVMe drive and it has 166GB free (237GB total to be exact). But yeah, I have several additional SSD's and HDD's in that machine but basically the 256GB system drive holds all the programs and some of my personal files/email data but I save practically my other work to additional drives anyway.

 

[honestone33]

Maybe if there is a good offer for that. Usually at least here in EU area is so that models on sale are almost always just basic 128GB models and above that are sold at list price, so difference can be even 600-800 more for just 128 > 256 upgrade. Honestly 600 to 800 is a bit high for something that actual cost difference between the parts is few dollars at most (if you check the prices of the separately sold ssd drives).

Understand. Here in the US, the price difference between a 128 gig and 256 gig model is typically between $200 and $300.

You realize you can buy an 1TB (1000GB) SSD for just over 100 these days...

Yeah, I know that, although it is somewhat higher (around $140) for a Samsung model. But again with Black Friday just around the corner, they could be cheaper.

Since the battery life is what is it with the MBP you a likely going to need carry a charger with you anyway (if you want to run it for a whole workday and actually do something with it), so why not just "rubber band" a portable SSD drive to charger and then just plug in cables to both of then and roll them over the charger+ssd "package". All you have to do it to plug in 1 additional cable when you are using them.
But that just me.

Actually, in addition to my charger, I again use those slim Orico enclosures with my SSDs, and they can actually fit inside my shirt pocket.

Maybe sell faster but I don't think you get much more for the models with larger drive due to fact that most peoples realize what is the real worth between 128 and 256 drive.

I think these days folks are looking for larger internal storage, and thus the 256 gig model will bring a higher price, although maybe not as much higher than the initial difference between the two models. But if one times it right, one can sell their 256 gig machine at the same time the one they want to buy is on sale. Not always the case, but certainly possible.

 

[0906742]

Understand. Here in the US, the price difference between a 128 gig and 256 gig model is typically between $200 and $300.

Yeah, it is pretty much the same 200-300 in our currency with list prices, it is just that models on sale are almost always only 128GB basic versions that causes difference to spread that huge I mentioned.

Actually, in addition to my charger, I again use those slim Orico enclosures with my SSDs, and they can actually fit inside my shirt pocket.

Yeah, I know, I have a Samsung T5 and it is so tiny it can fit in any pocket but I was thinking more about practicality with my idea. Grouping the two together and then rolling the cables over the "bundle" would give a hassle free use with only 1 additional cable to plug in when using it.

I think these days folks are looking for larger internal storage, and thus the 256 gig model will bring a higher price, although maybe not as much higher than the initial difference between the two models. But if one times it right, one can sell their 256 gig machine at the same time the one they want to buy is on sale. Not always the case, but certainly possible.

Could be. It remains to be seen how long they can keep up with this pricing model but I can definitely understand why, because nearly all the extra price from update price difference is pure profit. Surely other NB makers have this soldered SSD/RAM/CPU thing too going on and it actually has many real benefits due to increased reliability compared to socketed versions.