I am looking at buying a late 2013 rMBP 13" with i5 2.4 (TB to 2.9) and 8 GB RAM for college next year. I am on a strict $1,300 budget and need to know if a 128gb SSD will be enough to run and store Parallels, a few casual games, MS Office Docs, 1000+ songs, and maybe some homemade music videos. A rMBP with base cpu, 8 gb ram, and 128gb ssd with my education discount is $1,289 and is affordable. But, is the 256gb ssd model with the 8gb RAM and same base cpu a better value at $1,399? I hate to admit it but I love instant gratification and usually buy things out of excitement, not wanting to wait and save for a better deal.. Do you think another $100 for twice the amount of storage seems like a good use of extra time and money? Or is the 128gb SSD plenty for my needs? I want this laptop to last 4 years and I dont mind an external SSD or HD but I dont want to depend on them to run parallels or play games.. Please give me some insight!
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I need help! rMBP ssd question!
- Thread starter Baylor2014
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DiCaprioAngel
macrumors 6502a
For some, 128GB would be plenty, but if I were you, I'd go for the 256GB option, it's a safer bet for the future because you will end up accumulating a lot of files, etc (which you could also store on an external drive, but since you said you didn't want to fully depend on them 24/7, I would say go for the 256GB storage). It's better to spend $100 more and know that you have enough storage to fulfill your needs than to end up buying the lower option and regretting it later. In the end, however, it all depends on your preferences and what you could afford. This is just my opinion on what you've stated.
128 GB is plenty of storage as long as you keep the media content out of the equation. Either you go for the SSD upgrade or you get yourself an external HDD.
You'll run out of space very fast on a 128GB SSD.
To be on the safe side, go for a 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM (4GB is too little these days. Considering memory requirements increase over time, it's always better to buy more than you need today).
atticus27
macrumors regular
I'd spend a little more and get the 256 model with more Ram, since neither are upgradable it'll make it more future proof. parallels is nice, since you don't have to partition the drive it won't take away X amount of space at once. It'll do it as you need it. 128 seems small for both OS's (and if you are gonna use it for 4 + years you might regret getting the small ssd version.
simon48
macrumors 65816
Actually the SSDs are replaceable and OWC has been working on making some third-party replacements for the late 2013 models for quite a while and I believe they have replacements for the earlier rMBP models.
Go in for the 256 gb it will help you with the home videos. The 128gb will run out fast for 100$ more you have a great deal.
You should be able to do with 128Gb for those needs, with some planning and discipline. However, the $100 extra is well wort investment in this case.