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How much "real" Free Space on 512 rMB ?

1

10-Dee-Q

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 10, 2006
511
32
Bandung, West Java, Indonesia & Singapore
Hi, so I just bought the M5 rMB 2016 that comes with 512 GB storage
i haven't installed anything on in yet, but when i checked the storage it says , 479.42 free of 498.95
and it is used by Apps ( 8.31 GB) , Other (8.06GB) , Audio (1.67GB) , Photos (1.95GB) , Movies (46.6MB)

the problem is that i haven't used it at all , this is the first time i turn it on, is that normal ? and that "Others " that consumed 8,06GB out of my storage ? thank you.
 
did you enable any iCloud related items (iCloud Drive, mail, notes, calendar, etc)?

Keep in mind the OS does take a couple of gigs and the iLife/iWork apps are also preinstalled.
 
How large is the SSD in Disk Utility? The top level, not the Macintosh HD volume.

Does Apple still have that borderline misleading practice of not accounting for NAND over-provisioning in their marketing and specifications, meaning 512 GB isn't actually 512 GB?
 
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10-Dee-Q said:
the problem is that i haven't used it at all , this is the first time i turn it on, is that normal ?
Click to expand...

Totally normal. A new Mac out of the box will have about 20GB of space used for the OS, iWorks, and iLife apps and that is about what you are showing. Nothing to worry about.

That Other is everything that does not fall into the remaining categories, like the OS itself. No problem there either.
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JTToft said:
Does Apple still have that borderline misleading practice of not accounting for NAND over-provisioning in their marketing and specifications, meaning 512 GB isn't actually 512 GB?
Click to expand...

Yep. My 128GB flash storage on my rMBP has about 120GB of usable space.
 
If you are concerned about running out of space in your new rMB, you might want to consider purchasing an external SSD such as Samsung's tiny T-3 (which comes in various capacities up to 2 TB) and use that to keep stuff that you want to have on hand but don't necessarily need right on the machine itself. When back in December I decided to go from a 2012 iMac with 1 TB HD to a 512 GB rMBP I realized that there were going to be things that I still wanted to have available, and the best solution for me was to use an external SSD as a supplementary drive (different from my external drives that I use for backing up the machine). Even for travel the T3 or its predecessor, the T1, takes up little space and you've still got everything with you if you need it.
 
I know there are several good brands out there, but I happened upon the Samsung T1 first and really liked it, and then when the T3 came out (the T1 is now discontinued) I picked one of those up as well. I definitely would recommend going with an external SSD as opposed to an external "platter" drive. Much faster! Some people pick up an SSD drive and then put it into the external drive housing themselves; I have not tried that, though.
 
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10-Dee-Q said:
hi, thank for the suggestions, by the way is there any other recommendations for portable external SSD other than the Samsung ?
Click to expand...
I use this external USB enclosure with a Samsung EVO SSD and it works well. Nothing at all wrong with the T3 setup Clix Pix mentioned either, but usually putting together your own with an enclosure and SSD is a little cheaper is all.
 
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JTToft said:
How large is the SSD in Disk Utility? The top level, not the Macintosh HD volume.

Does Apple still have that borderline misleading practice of not accounting for NAND over-provisioning in their marketing and specifications, meaning 512 GB isn't actually 512 GB?
Click to expand...
It's not just NAND over-provisioning. It's also the fact that the advertised capacity is in one kind of 'base' and the system's representation is in another.

Even on a normal HDD, a 2TB disk is not 2TB.

To answer OP, there is nothing to worry about.
 
Sheza said:
It's not just NAND over-provisioning. It's also the fact that the advertised capacity is in one kind of 'base' and the system's representation is in another.

Even on a normal HDD, a 2TB disk is not 2TB.

To answer OP, there is nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...
You should go read the thread JTToft linked in post #5.
 
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Sheza said:
It's not just NAND over-provisioning. It's also the fact that the advertised capacity is in one kind of 'base' and the system's representation is in another.

Even on a normal HDD, a 2TB disk is not 2TB.
Click to expand...
- Nope. Of course my response and question deal with something a bit different from what the OP was concerned about.
Both the advertised capacity and OS X's representation is base 10. It's advertised as 512 billion bytes, but it's actually only 500 billion bytes.

A normal HDD, like every SSD in the world except for Apple's, matches exactly what's advertised.

But yes, read the thread.
 
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I believe the answer you're all looking for is "loads".
It has loads.
Until it's full, and you have to start deleting old ****.

Just like your bank account, only in reverse.
Loads, until it's empty.
 
Storage is measured is multiplum of 1000 (SI-units), while memory is measured in multiplum of 1024 (binary). Some apps might incorrectly report the size of storage in multiplum of 1024. When dealing with Gigabytes that error becomes 1-(1000^3/1024^3) = 0.0686 ==> roughly 7% and 512GB becomes 477GB
 
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Significant1 said:
Storage is measured is multiplum of 1000 (SI-units), while memory is measured in multiplum of 1024 (binary). Some apps might incorrectly report the size of storage in multiplum of 1024. When dealing with Gigabytes that error becomes 1-(1000^3/1024^3) = 0.0686 ==> roughly 7% and 512GB becomes 477GB
Click to expand...
- Correct. Though that doesn't apply at all here.
 
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