Getting by with 128 GB

[danray]

Practically speaking, how do you use a small SSD? Assuming you're going to have a larger external drive (at least when you're not traveling), what goes where?

For myself, I imagine I would put my media on the external drive and my applications on the SSD, but what about everything else? Is there a practical advantage to storing Word documents on a faster drive, for instance? And what about splitting up your iTunes library between the two — I'd hate to be without my music when I'm on the road, but would this be more trouble than it's worth?

 

[markus843]

I have a big budget (i've always had ) and I replaced my 500 gb hdd with a 128gb solid state drive, and Im using a 64gb sd card also with that, and I manage to get by pretty good .

 

[dissdnt]

I have no clue how i'd get a long with 128. I hardly manage with 256.

BUT i'd at least sign up to itunes match if you have a big library. Then you can just stream it anywhere and save a lot of storage.

And yah off load most stuff on an external. Apps local etc.

 

[iScreamSanWitch]

Practically speaking, how do you use a small SSD? Assuming you're going to have a larger external drive (at least when you're not traveling), what goes where?

For myself, I imagine I would put my media on the external drive and my applications on the SSD, but what about everything else? Is there a practical advantage to storing Word documents on a faster drive, for instance? And what about splitting up your iTunes library between the two — I'd hate to be without my music when I'm on the road, but would this be more trouble than it's worth?

I have a 5 yo macbook and still have half of the original 120 Gb HDD space available on it (I bet I could get that down to around 20-30gb used if I cleaned it up).

The secret? I use NAS for storage. I mostly use the laptop at home, but can access the files externally if needed (prefer this over the cloud option). For music on the go I use Spotify. So far, I've never needed an external drive when I'm on the go, so the decision to go for 128Gb SSD came very easy for me.

 

[CatsTide]

I use a 1TB Lacie. It's about the size of a deck of cards.

 

[markus843]

I use a 1TB Lacie. It's about the size of a deck of cards.

Deck of cards?

 

[CatsTide]

Image

Deck of cards?

LMAO..dang you're quick

 

[markus843]

LMAO..dang you're quick

 

[shznit]

I'm on my third 128GB MBA, never even came close to running out of space and that's with a 40GB Windows 7 partition. Everything is stored on the nas and I stream my music and movies, and work gave me a 500GB external in case I need to copy some big stuff.

The extra cost of the 256GB upgrade buys a lot of spindle storage which you can combine with an old pc and make a server.

That said, 256 would allow for more VM disks but I'm not paying an extra $300 to get it.

 

[Fultonpics]

thought about this quite a bit due to 'apple' ssd pricing. i do photo work and can easily store on portable drives and manage the itunes side down. but i realized i didn't want to be always paranoid, so ended up stretching to the 256 option on my 15rMPB.

my base apps (adobe suite, office, etc) and a small itunes/iphoto library easily take me over 100g's. when working, i can throw on 10 gbs of photos. I still back up, but only need one drive when I travel. my new 13rMBP came with 512g since i wanted a hefty windows partition. also nice to load a movie or two up for a long economy class flight.

 

[throAU]

Depends what you use the machine for, how much media you have, whether or not you have a NAS to store stuff on and how willing you are to have data unavailable when you're not at home or plugged into additional storage (like an external drive).

I need >200gb for what i store on my machine, and have a NAS for a lot of stuff too.

My iphoto library is 60gb alone, for example... if i want to carry that with me on internal storage, its half gone already...

 

[CausticPuppy]

I'm using about 14gb of the 128gb SSD on my current MacBook Pro.

All of my media is stored either on my Mac Mini or my NAS. I won't need to put much on my laptop except applications, and occasionally a small Aperture library which would be merged with my main library on the mini and then deleted from the laptop.

I've done the usual space saving tricks like running DiskDiet and disabling safe sleep (which would be a moot point on a laptop that boots in 12 seconds)

 

[zakee00]

I toiled with this question for a long time before deciding to spring for the 512GB option. I was considering a 13" MBA w/ 512GB vs a 15" rMBP with 256 for the same price because I figured, what's the use of a brand new computer without much room to grow? I was upgrading from the 250GB white MacBook in my sig.

My iTunes library is 100GB (and growing), and while Spotify is nice, it doesn't have everything, and the interface leaves much to be desired. I have another ~60GB (and growing) in photos. Previously I split my library into photos that I'm keeping merely for family history's sake and ones that I care about more, and offloaded the family ones to an external, but now I have room for them on my SSD, which is nice. I also wanted a non-anemic Boot Camp partition that I could install some games on. I allocated 100GB to that, and it's already down to 20GB (plus you have to leave some space for the swap file and such).

Of course you *can* cut down your storage requirements by deleting music/games/photos etc. It's about whether you *want* to or not, and how much money that's worth to you. How useful is that insanely fast/reliable flash storage when you're offloading all of your stuff to an external hard drive? I also like to keep my computer and external backup drive in separate locations, god forbid my backpack gets stolen, and having <512GB would force me to tote it everywhere.

This is all coming from a spoiled college student whose family subsidized his computer, but also from a technophile that values storage capacity. This era of computing is a transitionary one where we are forced to pay a premium to maintain the same level of digital comforts that we're used to.