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256GB should be bare minimum if you're going to use it for serious work and store data on there.
 
Down graded from a 2011 pr 500 gb to 128 retina. Bought a 256 gb usb hard drive from amazon made a cover, and am happy with it so far. also depends what you are keeping on your computer. movies etc just go into a time capsule or usb so do pictures. in short makes sense for me as i realized i keep too much junk on my computer, with this i am more organized.
 
It depends. If you're doing 3D work you are going to need Xcode, the modeling tool like Maya, Photoshop for the textures, space for the graphic assets project files, music and sound effects files.

128GB will probably be ok for installing the software onto the machine but you will want a SD card or micro SD card drive that fits flush in your MacBook's SD card slot. Keep in mind they are not as fast as the SSD but they are not as bad as a spinning drive.

Is the laptop going to be your only machine or are you going to have another machine like a desktop to work from? You might be able to use network storage.
This is what I was going to suggest. 128GB could be fine, but I would highly recommend something like the Nifty MiniDrive and a 128GB microSD card. You can get both for less than $100 and it would double your storage, and you can always get bigger capacity ones later on to get even more storage. I wouldn't run any apps off of it, but it would be perfect for music, photos, and videos.

You also wouldn't have to get one right away. You could buy the 128GB MacBook now and upgrade if and when you start to run low on storage.
 
This is what I was going to suggest. 128GB could be fine, but I would highly recommend something like the Nifty MiniDrive and a 128GB microSD card. You can get both for less than $100 and it would double your storage, and you can always get bigger capacity ones later on to get even more storage. I wouldn't run any apps off of it, but it would be perfect for music, photos, and videos.

You also wouldn't have to get one right away. You could buy the 128GB MacBook now and upgrade if and when you start to run low on storage.

Thats exactly what i have in mind.
 
Do you think if I get a USB 3.0 flash drive that the speeds will be almost as fast as the SSD in the MBP or will a SD card be faster than the flash drive. The flash drive may also be better to transfer storage since almost all PCs have USB but they may not have SD card slots.
If you do some googling, you'll see that a drive like the jet drive, or most USB3 flash drives, is going to be more than ten times slower than the 2015 rmbp when it comes to read/write speeds.

The mbp ssd will be several times faster than the fastest usb3 flash drives on the market.

There are flash drives (costing a few hundred pounds) which can come roughly within say 5x the speed of the rmbp ssd, but you are looking at buying some exceedingly expensive flash drives, still only to get one fifth of the speed.

Transfer rates of 100mbps (a tenth of a gigabyte) don't actually transfer at 100mbps, unless you are transferring one large file, like a film. If you have thousands of photos and misc files that you are backing up, read/write speeds will fall far, far below the claimed 100mbps figure.

Id use something like a jet drive, as a super sleek, minuscule, removable time capsule. But if there are a few tens of gigabytes of data which need to be updated, you are looking at hours (not minutes) of transfer time.

To actually use and work from anything which read/wrote at 100mbps, compared to the latest apple ssd drives which (I think) can transfer data at 1400mbps, you'd think they would be 14 times slower, but many usb flash drives write at half the speed they read at.

So you might (depending on what you have) end up in a scenario where you're machine runs 20 times slower.

Use this chart to buy the best usb flash drive you can afford.
http://usb.userbenchmark.com
Hope the link helps.
[doublepost=1457459049][/doublepost]Oh, and if you have a lot of music and are lucky enough to own a 128GB phone, which you sync with your laptop, you're really looking at 256 GB minimum these days, as that still only equates to 128gb left for the laptop and its files. (unless you keep your phone largely empty, meaning you can't shoot lots of video and sync it without deleting it all)...
 
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Actually it's not a joke in my opinion, it's keeping everything Apple and by that I mean that it eliminates 3rd party memory, SSD modification which you already know. But we make it you buy it, we offer you the opportunity to change some specs and thats that.



Lol... Apple just wants you to spend $$$$
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Good information, debating between a 128 & 256 SSD on a 13" rMBP main use programming python and some web work based my decision off some of the authors whose books I read. I do not store anything on the internal storage other than the OS and what applications I use for programming. Keep everything in the cloud, portable HD, USB Memory.


Lol the cloud.... Because I trust Google, Microsoft, Apple , Dropbox or etc..... Yeah...... Ok. Good luck. Personally I will continue to keep all my files locally stored.
 
Why are you bothering about saving money, only to have a problem that would be solved by spending later on aftermarket accessories? Just buy the 256GB and be done with it.
In 2013 I bought a 13" Air 4/128, and it felt too tight a lot of times. If I bought a rMBP 8/256 back then, I wouldn't even remotely consider an update by now.
And yes, when your SSD is half full, it WILL slow down to a crawl. When you're used to high performance, any step back will be noticeable. And 128GB is too tight if you have to store any sort of file locally.
Using an SD card as a secondary drive, always plugged in? That's slower, less reliable, and one more thing always sipping your battery. Just get real and buy the 256GB if you still have to choose.
 
I bought the 128GB and a bit regretted it at first as I had wanted the 256GB initially. Anyway, a year later and I still have lots of space left over. If it is more of a personal stuff than you don't really need to worry as everything is on the cloud nowadays. I have no music files and movie files in my rMBP. Nonetheless, if a lot of program installation is needed, best bet is getting a 256GB.
 
Lol the cloud.... Because I trust Google, Microsoft, Apple , Dropbox or etc..... Yeah...... Ok. Good luck. Personally I will continue to keep all my files locally stored.
With Microsoft and Dropbox your files are stored locally, and the cloud which I think increases the data safety, i.e., data exists in multiple locations. I can't speak for Google or Apple because I don't use either one for my cloud storage (other then .mac email)
 
Lol... Apple just wants you to spend $$$$
[doublepost=1461709034][/doublepost]


Lol the cloud.... Because I trust Google, Microsoft, Apple , Dropbox or etc..... Yeah...... Ok. Good luck. Personally I will continue to keep all my files locally stored.
lol another cloud boogeyman caution

Encrypt your data before you upload to the cloud. Problem solved.

Good luck recovering your data after a fire consumes all your hard drives.
 
lol another cloud boogeyman caution

Encrypt your data before you upload to the cloud. Problem solved.

Good luck recovering your data after a fire consumes all your hard drives.




Cloud boogeyman? Because a fire couldn't do exactly the same thing to the servers wherever the cloud is..... Or perhaps you want to look up to what happened to Microsoft and Danger with the T-Mobile Sidekick servers around 2008?



Also you're assuming I would have a fire which I haven't in my lifetime....
 
With Microsoft and Dropbox your files are stored locally, and the cloud which I think increases the data safety, i.e., data exists in multiple locations. I can't speak for Google or Apple because I don't use either one for my cloud storage (other then .mac email)



You're files are always stored locally but the reason to use the cloud is to back it up..... I rather use a 500gb HDD than use the cloud. Local storage always trumps cloud storage since you can control it and plus you don't have potential agencies snooping around your private data.
 
I've been using a 128GB Macbook pro for about 7 months now. I still have about 70GB free. Most of my files are stored on flash drives, but i still have a VM in Parallels stored on the SSD itself.
 
I have a 256GB but I have a NAS at home so almost everything lives in the NAS. I went with 256 just in case, but I really have very little data on here. Although, if I planned to install Windows at some point maybe the extra space would be useful?
 
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I have a 256GB but I have a NAS at home so almost everything lives in the NAS. I went with 256 just in case, but I really have very little data on here. Although, if I planned to install Windows at some point maybe the extra space would be useful?

I've managed to use Bootcamp on a 128GB HD. So i gave it about 1/2, 60GB. I mean you should be fine as long as you don't have a lot of files.
 
I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro that I use strictly as a "travel" and "relaxation" computer. That is to say, I don't keep my important files on it. A few years ago I replaced the internal HDD with a 160gb SSD.

After six years of usage, I'm still using only about 35gb of total space (OS, apps, data).

I believe when it's finally time to replace it, 128gb will be all I need. 256gb at the most!
 
There's a pretty significant jump in r/w between 256 vs 128. I recommend the 256
 
The speed jump is irrelevant unless you have something that needs it.
You wont see the increase in normal day to day usage between the two.
 
Lol... Apple just wants you to spend $$$$
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Lol the cloud.... Because I trust Google, Microsoft, Apple , Dropbox or etc..... Yeah...... Ok. Good luck. Personally I will continue to keep all my files locally stored.

Sounds more like your paranoid
 
Since the new MacBook Pros will most likely be redesigned this year, do you think they will at least upgrade the base model to 256GB. They upgraded iPad base model to 32GB from 16, so is the rMBP going to get the same treatment?
 
Who knows what the base SSD size in the new MBP will be? I suspect it will be 128GB, but it maybe 256GB.

I find it incredibly unlikely it will be 128GB. Apple hasn't increased the minimum since it introduced the 13" rMBP, so they're due for a bump. Meanwhile, the first gen retina MacBook, which was introduced after the last update to the 13" rMBP has 256GB. There's no reason for Apple to continue having the rMB have more minimum storage than the rMBP.
 
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