Is 40GB HD enough on Mac mini?

[AAPL_to_$100]

I'm going to pick up a Mac mini this week when my local Apple Store gets their shipment. I was going to settle on the 1.25/40GB model but I'm wondering how much free HD space I'll have after loading Adobe Elements 3.0 and my iTunes library which is rather small at about 300 songs.

Eventually I think I'll end up getting Mac Office. Why doesn't Microsoft let me buy the upgrade to Office if I have a licensed copy of Office for Windows? Full Mac Office version is $350. Apple needs to add a capable spreadsheet to iWork so I can competely rid myself of any and all Microsoft apps.

So back to the original question, will 40GB be enough? I don't plan to use the Mac mini for anything more than I've said here, just email, web surfing, iTunes, minor photo editing, and letters and spreadsheets.

 

[solvs]

40GB should be fine for that. There are always external drives if you need more, but the software doesn't take up that much space. Especially if you don't use iDVD or GarageBand. The Mini comes with AppleWorks though, so you may not need Office. It has a basic spreadsheet app. Quicken for Mac too. And TextEdit is no Word (or Pages even), but it reads most .doc and .rtf files. If you need more, you could always get the Student and Techer version of Office for Mac for about $150 if you know a student or teacher. Microsoft won't do cross-platform upgrading because it's M$. That's just how it is. Adobe sometimes will.

 

[northen]

I'd say 40GB is fine I get by with 30GB on my iBook, but the again, I primarily use it for school purposes. You'll be surprised how much data you can stuff on even 40GB

If you have problems with the space and want lots of movies and music, get a cheap, external drive (USB2/FW) later (when you have the money) which will work nicely

NeoOffice/J is fine, too, as is OpenOffice, and both will edit and write Microsoft-format files