Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is 256Gb worth it over 128gb?

H

hk1777

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 1, 2014
7
0
Hi, I plan on ordering my First mac soon, and i know a little bit about them, but im mostly a PC guy and know quite a bit about things Hardware wise, but i know Apple hardware wise tends be a bit different because of OSX with Optimization and whatnot.

But anyway i plan on buying a 13" macbook pro w/ retina and im not entirely sure if its worth the Extra $200 for the 256GB over the base model. I can Easily use an external HDD if needed, but i plan on Dualbooting/Using Whatever to Run windows on it too, for some of my lighter games that dont run on OSX and want to know if i would have enough space to do so with a 128Gb model.
 
If you want to dual-boot, I would definitely get the 256GB version. Windows will need 60+GB on its own if you want to install stuff.
 
I think with windows under bootcamp 128gb will be a bit tight.

I would stay away from win however. I just installed it on a mba and the win8 experience is horrible.
 
Well my Gaming desktop and Currently Possibly dying laptop both Run Windows, which is another reason why i plan on dualbooting, so i can maintain some sort a familiarity and also for things like most of my games on Steam that dont have OSX support.
 
hk1777 said:
Well my Gaming desktop and Currently Possibly dying laptop both Run Windows, which is another reason why i plan on dualbooting, so i can maintain some sort a familiarity and also for things like most of my games on Steam that dont have OSX support.
Click to expand...
My opinion is that running games on a macbook is a bad idea. But it will keep your legs warm during winter. ;)

I personally strongly dislike windows, but its somewhat tolerable on desktop PCs.
On macbooks on the other hand its just terrible.

Why not save the $$$ get yourself a gaming rig and any cheapass laptop?
 
Meister said:
My opinion is that running games on a macbook is a bad idea. But it will keep your legs warm during winter. ;)

I personally strongly dislike windows, but its somewhat tolerable on desktop PCs.
On macbooks on the other hand its just terrible.

Why not save the $$$ get yourself a gaming rig and any cheapass laptop.
Click to expand...

Because i already have a Gaming Rig, I only plan on playing light games on the macbook anyway, because i full well know that the Intel Iris is fairly crap GPU wise, but still much better than the hd 4000, which i know can run at least minecraft at 60FPS.
 
Actually, looking at my current usage, i think im just going to go all out and buy the 512GB one. because i currently use close to 300Gb on my laptop.
 
hk1777 said:
Because i already have a Gaming Rig, I only plan on playing light games on the macbook anyway, because i full well know that the Intel Iris is fairly crap GPU wise, but still much better than the hd 4000, which i know can run at least minecraft at 60FPS.
Click to expand...


You'd be surprised with the intel iris. I tested out a 13" rmbp before deciding I want a 15" rmbp and I could play WoW and Diablo pretty easily. It's no dedicated card but if you don't mind playing at lower graphics or don't play super intensive graphic games you'll be okay. The intel iris pro on the 15" is quite a bit better than the iris in the 13". Just some food for thought!
 
kupkakez said:
You'd be surprised with the intel iris. I tested out a 13" rmbp before deciding I want a 15" rmbp and I could play WoW and Diablo pretty easily. It's no dedicated card but if you don't mind playing at lower graphics or don't play super intensive graphic games you'll be okay. The intel iris pro on the 15" is quite a bit better than the iris in the 13". Just some food for thought!
Click to expand...

Funny you mention that, i just saw the 15" Refurb with 750m, 512Gb ssd and 16GB ram for just over $2k and i think im just going to buy that instead of using a student discount on a 2014 model.
 
Is 256Gb worth it over 128gb?

hk1777 said:
Funny you mention that, i just saw the 15" Refurb with 750m, 512Gb ssd and 16GB ram for just over $2k and i think im just going to buy that instead of using a student discount on a 2014 model.
Click to expand...



I bought the same refurb this afternoon after returning my low end base 15". Can't beat the refurb price! :)
 
And just as a data point, Mac OS alone will take 10-20GB depending on how much RAM you have. The more RAM the larger the swap and sleep images will be.
 
hk1777 said:
Because i already have a Gaming Rig, I only plan on playing light games on the macbook anyway, because i full well know that the Intel Iris is fairly crap GPU wise, but still much better than the hd 4000, which i know can run at least minecraft at 60FPS.
Click to expand...

60FPS? Try 100. On my 13" 256GB 2.4GHz i5, I pull 100 fps on MC.
 
hk1777 said:
Hi, I plan on ordering my First mac soon, and i know a little bit about them, but im mostly a PC guy and know quite a bit about things Hardware wise, but i know Apple hardware wise tends be a bit different because of OSX with Optimization and whatnot.

But anyway i plan on buying a 13" macbook pro w/ retina and im not entirely sure if its worth the Extra $200 for the 256GB over the base model. I can Easily use an external HDD if needed, but i plan on Dualbooting/Using Whatever to Run windows on it too, for some of my lighter games that dont run on OSX and want to know if i would have enough space to do so with a 128Gb model.
Click to expand...

How light are the games? Could be worth considering the entry 15" as that would get you Iris Pro for the games, as well as the 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. I'm certainly not saying this is a must, but if your wanting to game on Windows and feel that it could get larger that casual games the Iris Pro would at least guarantee you would be fine in the future.

And if that isn't an option, I'd say go for the 256GB. You shouldn't fill up a SSD to the brim so unless you plan to use the external HDD for apps and games for Windows and not have a lot on OSX, 256GB is best.

All of the above is just my opinion, I'm not one of those people that tell you that you will need 64GB of RAM to web browse or such ;)

----------
mfram said:
And just as a data point, Mac OS alone will take 10-20GB depending on how much RAM you have. The more RAM the larger the swap and sleep images will be.
Click to expand...

Very important point.

----------
hk1777 said:
Actually, looking at my current usage, i think im just going to go all out and buy the 512GB one. because i currently use close to 300Gb on my laptop.
Click to expand...

If your spending that much money on a 512GB 13", why not get the entry 15" and an external HDD? Just throwing the idea out there. You would get much better performance on bigger games, as well as a quad core processor and larger screen.

Again, just an idea, not telling you that you need it. Just asking if you would prefer that.
 
For your money and requirements, a refurb 2013 15" with a 256Gb SSD and quad i7 would be a better option. You could possibly even get a brand new 2014 15" Macbook Pro if you shop around for discounts.
 
I think 128GB is just too meager, I'd recommend the 256GB at a minimum
 
Simply, Yes.

I have 256gb rMBP and I have partitioned 128gb for OS X and another 128gb for Windows.

Works great that way.
 
Skylitfly said:
Simply, Yes.

I have 256gb rMBP and I have partitioned 128gb for OS X and another 128gb for Windows.

Works great that way.
Click to expand...

That's basically how I have mine setup, it gives me the best of both worlds.
 
maflynn said:
That's basically how I have mine setup, it gives me the best of both worlds.
Click to expand...
since noone us answering my boot camp question.
How do you get the trackpad to work in windows?
Tap to click, left click tap, scrolling?
 
Meister said:
My opinion is that running games on a macbook is a bad idea. But it will keep your legs warm during winter. ;)

I personally strongly dislike windows, but its somewhat tolerable on desktop PCs.
On macbooks on the other hand its just terrible.

Why not save the $$$ get yourself a gaming rig and any cheapass laptop?
Click to expand...

It's not that bad on a MacBook. As long as you don't use 8. Windows 7 works.
 
cjmillsnun said:
It's not that bad on a MacBook. As long as you don't use 8. Windows 7 works.
Click to expand...
the UI is akward like in the beginning of computers.
Since its a mac the drivers don't all work and everytime it restarts everything is different.
 
Meister said:
since noone us answering my boot camp question.
How do you get the trackpad to work in windows?
Tap to click, left click tap, scrolling?
Click to expand...

With the bootcamp drivers and the bootcamp agent once in windows.
 
I'm currently using an aftermarket 250GB SSD and I can't say I'd be comfortable with much less and especially not with a 128GB SSD. I don't even dual boot, the closest I get is an Ubuntu Virtualbox VM.

I don't even had that much raw data on the machine, the by far biggest thing being my iTunes library, but with all of the programs that I use and only a few games (currently The Swapper, Papers Please, XCom: Enemy Unknown and The Stanley Parable) I'm already using over 161GB of space.
 
Meister said:
i installed the drivers from the thumb drive.
How do you get into the bootcamp agent?
Click to expand...

You should have an icon in your taskbar that looks like this. Right click it and snoop around.

taskbar-bootcamp-icon.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back