Is a 120 gig HD too small?

[MikeyTree]

I'll be buying a new MBP next week, but I'm trying to decide what to buy. If I order from the online story, I'll pay 6% sales tax, but if I drive 45 minutes to the Apple store in Delaware, I can buy a standard model tax-free. So I'm deciding between the lower model and the higher model.

Would the 120 gig hard drive in the lower model be too small after two or three years? I use it mainly for media, writing/editing music, and digital photography. My current computer is 5 years old and had a 40 gig HD, and in less than a year after getting it I was regretting not getting a larger drive.

 

[iBookG4user]

You can always use an external hard drive to hold anything too large to put on the internal hard drive. I have an 80GB hard drive in my MacBook Pro and I filled it, so I got a FireWire external hard drive and put everything like my iTunes library and all the files that I don't need with me at all times on that. I find that my system works pretty well if you run out of storage space. That said, I'm getting the high end 15" MacBook Pro when I get a new one next week hopefully.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

You can always use an external hard drive to hold anything too large to put on the internal hard drive. I have an 80GB hard drive in my MacBook Pro and I filled it, so I got a FireWire external hard drive and put everything like my iTunes library and all the files that I don't need with me at all times on that. I find that my system works pretty well if you run out of storage space. That said, I'm getting the high end 15" MacBook Pro when I get a new one next week hopefully.

Agreed. The thing to ask yourself is, how much space do you really need when you're out and about with your laptop? Its far more advantageous, imo, to get an external hard drive and keep most of your data on that. 120GB is *more* than enough for pretty much every application and all your music and documents that you could dream of, as well as having loads of space left over for movies etc. If you do have more storage requirements, you can easily store all that on an external hard drive when at home and copy over what you need as and when you need it.

I'm guessing that for the amount you'll save by not having to pay the sales tax, you could get a 750GB external HD.

 

[curiosa863]

Before the new updates, I had justified 120 on the basis of 7200 rpm. Thinking to myself that I would just use an external for most stuff anyways. With the new revision, i plan on upgrading the high end 15.4" to a 7200 160GB. If you have so much media that you are going to need an external regardless... I could see someone still getting a 120

 

[iSee]

I have a 120GB drive in my MBP and it is painful. I'd get more space.
I know, I know, external drives, blah, blah.
But I have a nice large convenient hard drive and it isn't convenient enough.
Plus, backing up two hard drives is deeply, deeply painful.

So, splurge on the larger hard drive!

Also, hard drive performance is better when the drive is emptier. I'm not sure exactly where the line is, but keeping it less than 2/3 - 3/4 full has a noticeable effect on performance.

 

[mopppish]

What kind of files do you work with? I've got the 120 and it's currently half full. That's with 30GB of itunes music, several GB of audio apps and samples, full Tiger install (minus the languages), and random school crap. I do my audio recording to a firewire external, but other than backups, that's ALL I put on an external.

 

[thekiller]

120 gb is way too small...

 

[wako]

it wouldnt be too small if you all stopped downloading so much porn 😉



but yeah, it is too small 🙄

 

[myjellyass]

In my opinion, you can never have too small a HD. You will, eventually, fill it up and it'll become a weekly chore to rake through your hard drive finding things that can be thrown out. Almost every time I have bought a new computer has been to boost my hard drive capacity more than anything else. Think big.