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Any buy 128gb and happy?

128 is fine for most! I have 256 15" and only using 100mg right now and have 30,000 photos 100 videos, 24,000 emails, office suits and more!
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PlayUltimate said:
128GB is too little if you have music and photos. My wife and daughter both have them and we had to get card slot memory expanders. But new Mac laptops do not have card slots. :-(
www.amazon.com

Transcend 256GB JetDrive Lite 330 Storage Expansion Card for 13-Inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display (TS256GJDL330)

The Jet Drive Lite series is specifically designed for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina display computers. Transcend's Jet Drive Lite expansion cards are a quick and easy way to gain the additional space you need without adding any bulk to your MacBook computer. Simply insert Jet Drive Lit...
www.amazon.com
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Not sure how that can be too little see my response below I would consider my self having more photos than usual.... and not problem for me!
 
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All excellent points, 0906742. However, there are times (and somewhat "frequently") when I have seen 256 gig models of machines on sale for very good prices.

And yes, it seems that for laptops, SSDs are now soldered to the motherboard, making it just about impossible to do any kind of SSD upgrade yourself.

Even the recent models of the venerable Mac Mini no longer allow RAM upgrades, and possibly upgrades for SSDs. As it is, I will be looking to purchase a 2018 Mac Mini model somewhat soon, given that my late 2012 model (really like it, as the processor is a Core i7, it has numerous ports, and with the 256 gig Samsung 840 Pro SSD that I installed myself (yes, actually 256 gig!) and the 8 gig of RAM (again, installed myself), it is fast enough) will not be compatible with the next version of the Mac OS.
 
Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 allows user to upgrade the SSD. Very surprising.
 
Lakersfan74 said:
If you have to upgrade you bought the wrong one. lol
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Not necessarily true. If one initially purchased a configuration that it their current needs, and also "some" future needs, then all well and good. Later on, when one needs more (like a larger SSD and/or more RAM), if one can upgrade such parts on their own, again all well and good.

The trick, of course, is being able to "accurately" anticipate one's future needs. That of course is not always easy.
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Howard2k said:
Or your needs changed.
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+1000! Exactly.
 
I value having my iTunes library and Photos available on my computer as I don't trust iCloud to not wreck things as they both go back over 15 years at this point, and together they're almost 128GB alone.
 
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I simply could not be content with 128 GB in a laptop. Except apps everything would be stored on an external drive. I’d need a fair bit of overhead for temp files. A 4K video extraction alone can use over 40 GB. Operating with an external drive all the time I may as well buy a mini or desktop.
 
honestone33 said:
Cool. Did you do any disk cleanup, either before or after the installation? Disk cleanup before (assuming you migrated/copied needed items from a backup) is always wise.
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I made an attempt using an app I found called Disk Drill, but it seemed like it wasn't really doing much, so I backed up my bookmarks, downloads, and any non-cloud docs, made a bootable Catalina USB stick, rebooted, erased the drive, and fresh install. Catalina is mostly working great, but that's a topic for a different forum.
 
pshufd said:
I have 2014/2015 MBPs and they have the SD slot. The 2014 has a 512 GB SD-card (cheap storage). It's good enough to store videos as far as performance goes. When the 1 TB SD cards drop in price, then I'll get one of those. I just leave the SD card in all the time unless I need to move files to my other MBP. The SD card does stick out a little but I'm fine with it. There are smaller XD cards that are flush with the side of the laptop but this is good enough for me.
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I have one of these for my Macbook Pro. Makes the card flush, great if you are not constantly removing it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012F8ALBC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1573140219568.jpeg
 
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coach_ditka said:
I made an attempt using an app I found called Disk Drill, but it seemed like it wasn't really doing much, so I backed up my bookmarks, downloads, and any non-cloud docs, made a bootable Catalina USB stick, rebooted, erased the drive, and fresh install. Catalina is mostly working great, but that's a topic for a different forum.
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Disk Drill is used to recover "lost" files. It really does not do much in the way of cleanup.

You can do a good amount of disk cleanup on your own, and also use the (free) excellent program Onyx:

Titanium Software | Operating System Utilities for Mac - OnyX

OnyX is a multifunction utility that you can use to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, perform cleaning and computer maintenance tasks, configure some hidden parameters of many Apple applications, and more.
www.titanium-software.fr www.titanium-software.fr

Just make sure to get the correct version for the OS you are using. I am (of course) still using V3.6.8, since I am using Mojave (I have installed Catalina, OS 10.15.1, on an external SSD, but have not needed to use the Catalina version of Onyx, V3.7, yet).

IN any event, after doing the fresh installation of Catalina (V 10.15.1?), how did you move/copy needed "stuff" from your backup? Also, did you migrate/copy apps, settings, etc.?

One area of taking up disk space is deleted EMails. When one deletes an EMail, it is still on one's disk. They actually need to be permanently removed. Each EMail app has a way of doing that. I use Thunderbird for my EMial client, and it is easy for me to permanently remove deleted EMails.
 
honestone33 said:
IN any event, after doing the fresh installation of Catalina (V 10.15.1?), how did you move/copy needed "stuff" from your backup? Also, did you migrate/copy apps, settings, etc.?

One area of taking up disk space is deleted EMails. When one deletes an EMail, it is still on one's disk. They actually need to be permanently removed. Each EMail app has a way of doing that. I use Thunderbird for my EMial client, and it is easy for me to permanently remove deleted EMails.
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Thank you for the tip on Onyx. To answer your question, I did not make a backup of the system. I copied off anything in document and any photos to my cloud service. I didn't back up any settings--It was easy enough to set up everything I need quickly on Catalina, so it's really a fresh start. I did spend a little time setting notifications, screen scaling, dock, launchpad, etc., but that didn't take more than a few minutes.

I use Outlook 365 for email, so I am sure there's a large cache file somewhere on the disk. Even with all that fully set up, I am still only at 10.7GB of "system" so I'm feeling very good about it!

Unrelated to my disk space issue, but relevant to the thread, my wife picked up the $999 MBP at Costco with 128GB of storage, but will be returning it since the 256GB one is now on sale at Costco for only $200 more. Yes, $200 for 128GB more storage is expensive, but after syncing her cloud files, she's only got about 30GB free on the 128GB unit.
 
Appreciate the detailed reply. I had been using Office 2016 for a number of years, including Outlook 2016. But I subsequently had a serious issue with Outlook 2016, and hence I 'dumped" Office 2016, switched to Thunderbird as my EMail client, and LibreOffice as a worthy alternative to Office 2016 (except of course LibreOffice does not contain an EMail client). I am very pleased with that decision.

Yes, Onyx is a very good product, but it's only a partial solution. You really need to start making backups to an external device. While Time Machine is OK, either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner is better, as either of them make a bootable backup. Also, it would be wise to make the effort to do as much disk cleanup on your own, and also considering investing in a commercial disk cleanup/maintenance/repair program. I use TechTool Pro, and I am quite pleased with it. In fact, I have ben using the combination of Onyx, TechTool pro, and SuperDuper! for a number of years, and both of my Macs are "lean, mean, and clean".

Regarding your wife's initial purchase at Costco, that's a wise move on her part. While $200 might seem high for an extra 128 gig of space, that's (most likely) the best sale you'll see. However, even with the extra space, she should also do disk cleanup, backups to an external device, and using products like Onyx and TechTool Pro.
 
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