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Buying a new MBA. 128GB + external, or 256?
- Thread starter 6-0 Prolene
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Lugging an external around everywhere defeats the purpose of owning an MBA. A 256 ssd internal for me is good middle ground , enough for apps and media.
I really want the 512GB, but the price is almost impossible to justify. Problem is that I have about 280 GB of apps and data on my Macbook right now, which is what I would be migrating from.
I also rarely use my Macbook any place where it would be easy to plug in any external drives to.
I also rarely use my Macbook any place where it would be easy to plug in any external drives to.
Can you split your data from your application by using a SDXC card or a USB stick for the data?
Personally I have 6 extra 32GB SD card that I bought for my Canon Rebel T3. I intend to use them as removable storage with my MBA 13" when it gets here. They even come in a nice, flat, plastic holding case. Those combine with a couple of 32GB USB stick will complement the internal 128GB SSD which comes in it.
I've gotta figure out how much space I actually NEED. How much space will be taken up by Mac OS plus Parallels and Windows 7?
I currently only have Windows software so that's what I'll be loading to start. It includes MS Office, Photoshop, Lightroom, CuteFTP, Teamviewer (free version), Firefox, plus a few other fairly small programs. Any thoughts as to how much space I'm looking at grand total? I'll add my data total to this number to see if I need 256GB or if 128 will suffice.
I currently only have Windows software so that's what I'll be loading to start. It includes MS Office, Photoshop, Lightroom, CuteFTP, Teamviewer (free version), Firefox, plus a few other fairly small programs. Any thoughts as to how much space I'm looking at grand total? I'll add my data total to this number to see if I need 256GB or if 128 will suffice.
Yep, I went back and fourth time and time again on this very issue. I ended up going for the 128Gb W/ 8Gb RAM. The RAM was something that was holding me back from Air originally, so the extra $100 for the upgrade isn't part of the $300 for the 256Gb version.
For me I'm going the other way and getting away form big 1Tb+ spinners. I know it's small and not cheap, but an external 128Gb SSD is the same money as the upgrade, doesn't require a power cord, small enough {0.4"h x 2.7"w x 4.35"l}, and I would have to believe more secure than a traditional hard drive.
I don't play games, I don't down load movies, everything I have seen in the Mac OS is more than able to perform my tasks of photo editing and video editing. I'm also moving away from holding on to stuff that is not going to be used. Photos are a great example. I have so many bunk photos on my PC. What for? I only use the crops. The rest are junk files taking up space. Just like raw video. Hours and hours that I might never look at again after I make the first video clip and post to youtube.
New way of thinking for me. Load it, work it, save the finished project to external, and dump the rest.
For me I'm going the other way and getting away form big 1Tb+ spinners. I know it's small and not cheap, but an external 128Gb SSD is the same money as the upgrade, doesn't require a power cord, small enough {0.4"h x 2.7"w x 4.35"l}, and I would have to believe more secure than a traditional hard drive.
I don't play games, I don't down load movies, everything I have seen in the Mac OS is more than able to perform my tasks of photo editing and video editing. I'm also moving away from holding on to stuff that is not going to be used. Photos are a great example. I have so many bunk photos on my PC. What for? I only use the crops. The rest are junk files taking up space. Just like raw video. Hours and hours that I might never look at again after I make the first video clip and post to youtube.
New way of thinking for me. Load it, work it, save the finished project to external, and dump the rest.
I'm in the same camp. I've got so many
excess pictures it's ridiculous. I probably only want 1 out of 5 of them -- at most. And video? Holy moly. I've got 60GBs of unedited AVCHD video that can probably be edited down to 10GBs. I need to start being much more particular about what I save, and much more proactive about editing/cropping/deleting, etc.
That was great advice.
I just looked on newegg, and I could get a 64GB SD card for ~ $50. Not bad at all. 320GB of storage. They are slower but also way cheaper and easier to carry. For storage of work related file,photo,music they do fine. I wouldn't run a vim from one of those though.
How much does OS X by itself occupy? And with a handful of software packages installed, like iWork, Microsoft Office, Xcode and Adobe CS5/6? Is it possible to keep software in an external drive?
According to Apple, OS X requires 8 GB of space. CS6 require 2 GB of space. iWork 1.2 GB.
I had this same dilemma and settled on the 128 GB HD 13". I wouldn't consider myself a power user by any means. Most of my HD space is eaten up with pictures and music. For that reason, I went with the 128 drive and with the money I saved I purchased a Synology DS212j. I have several devices that could use the storage and having a means to backup data reliably made more sense than the 256 GB drive.
I'll certainly keep my media library on external storage if I have to, I'll be filling the internal disk basically with software for OS X, a couple of virtual machines, and eventually a boot camp partition to play a couple of games. Do you think that justifies getting the 256 GB SSD?