MacBook storage sizes

[CatherineVeraGat]

How much storage do you have on your MacBook?

I'm leaning towards the 512GB SSD on the Macbook 12-inch that I'm buying soon. I think I can make 256GB SSD work.

I'm going to do some
- Light to Heavy web browsing
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
- Light 2D/3D rendering (CAD rendering)
- Light architecture programs (Designing floor plans, or designing some parts of houses.)

What amount of storage so you think that will work for me?

 

[chscag]

Go for the 512GB if you can afford it. Nowadays, 256GB is about the bare minimum for a MacBook or MacBook Pro. And since the storage in the MacBook is soldered it can't be updated later on.

 

[kschendel]

I have 256 Gb on my rMBP (late 2013) and I'm using a bit over half. That's with about 3000 photos (in Photos) and a fairly small amount (a few gig) of music. There's a couple dozen gigabytes of "work" stuff on it. I'm pretty good about cleaning older stuff off of the computer and I think without periodic purging I would have filled it up. I suspect that you could get started with 256 Gb, but you might fill it up in a couple years if you're doing a lot of work with photos. At that point you'd have to move stuff to an external drive, which is unlikely to be as fast as the internal (although if it's full speed usb 3.0 it wouldn't be too bad).

I agree with chscag, get 512 Gb unless you simply can't afford it, or unless it will be practical to just replace the computer after a couple years.

 

[gnasher729]

Go for the 512GB if you can afford it. Nowadays, 256GB is about the bare minimum for a MacBook or MacBook Pro. And since the storage in the MacBook is soldered it can't be updated later on.

Keep in mind that you can get a 128 GB USB-C flash drive from less than £35. Which is fine for many people who just want to keep their music or videos with them on a computer used for work. (Flash drives have quite low write speed, but then you would fill them once only).

 

[theluggage]

How much storage do you have on your MacBook?

I think the equation is different for Laptop vs. desktop.

For a desktop (or a MacBook that seldom leaves the desk) its no bother to add external storage, and with USB3 or Thunderbolt available, external storage is acceptably fast.

For a laptop, however, its awfully nice to have everything you need built in, so I'd get as much internal SSD as your budget would bear.

My current MacBook is an old-school one with upgradeable storage: a 500 GB SSD system drive and the original 750 GB spinning rust drive replacing the optical drive. If I were getting a MacBook I'd prefer 1TB if possible - but could live with 512GB and some externals in the absence of cash. I've got a shedload of research videos that eat up space, though, and I also use Parallels to run Windows which creates quite large virtual disc files, which is why I couldn't live with 256GB.