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OSX on 120Gb SSD
- Thread starter rctneil
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OS X install size should be around 10GB. Depending on the amount of RAM you have, the system sleepimage will add more to that.
How much documents/media do you have in total? Do you absolutely need to have them on the machine, or can you offload some to an external HDD?
BTW, it is desirable to leave some free space on SSDs (20-25% is recommended), to let the SSD controller have breathing room for its operations.
How much documents/media do you have in total? Do you absolutely need to have them on the machine, or can you offload some to an external HDD?
BTW, it is desirable to leave some free space on SSDs (20-25% is recommended), to let the SSD controller have breathing room for its operations.
If you manage it right it's more than large enough.
I recently moved to a 250GB SSD, and I only have my essentials on it, along with my rather large dropbox folder and it's more than sufficient.
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A standard OS X install, plus the iLife and iWorks apps uses abut 20GB of space. A 120GB SSD is more than large enough.
As stated in my OP, my Documents, Music, Movies, Pictures are all stored on an external 3TB drive. Only stuff local is Desktop, OSX itself and Applications. My current Applications directory is 22.73Gb. My iMac has 12Gb ram and I will be doing a fresh install of OSX to the SSD when Mavericks becomes available.
I will be installing the SSD in an external enclosure and connecting to the iMac.
So, OSX + 12GB sleepimage + swap files & system caches should still be under 25GB. Add ~25GB apps & appdata to that, and you're still looking at under 50GB. 128GB should be plenty.
As others have said maybe 10GB. Will 120GB be enough? It all depends on what applications you install. For me, /Applications is 70GB. Only 1 GB is stuff that comes with OS X. Allowing for 10 to 20% free space, I would be pushing it on a 120GB disk.
I have a 120gb SSD and it's plenty of space for me. I keep most of my important files on my external HDD though.
Consider getting a wireless router that has a USB2/3 port on the back of it and it support HFS+ or better yet a NAS with iTunes Server in it.. This way you can put a HFS+ external on it and then follow the steps in the blog post How to move an iTunes library to an external drive. Now with a NAS (with iTunes Server in it like from Synology) you could setup to be accessible outside your network.
It's possible, but here are things that made life difficult when I had a boot drive that small:
* iTunes album art. Even if your music is on an external drive the artwork stays in the main iTunes folder on the boot drive.
* iOS Apps. Same thing with apps that auto download to iTunes. You can manually erase them, but what a pain.
* Caches. It feels like every fool program just loves to eat up GB after GB of space. Sifting through that folder would often save me 20 GB of saved space. Another big pain to deal with.
* All of the things that can be fixed (like moving Garage Band loops to the external drive and re-linking them) but take up lots of time to Google and figure out. You'll eventually figure them all out after hours or work and annoyance.
* Photostream: The stream photos are saved into iPhoto, but the stream ITSELF is also on the disk. So you permanently have an "extra" 1,000 photos on your boot drive for no reason.
* The photos that sync BACK to iOS devices and Apple TVs from your iPhoto library. iPhoto creates smaller versions for your iPhone to save space. Great for the iPhone! Bad for the Mac boot drive that keeps the full sized photo AND the smaller version. You know, in case you want to sync your iPhone and then your iPad. It keeps the small ones around in case that happens. This folder constantly grew to 20-40 GB for me if I didn't keep an eye on it.
* RAM swap. I have 24 GB of RAM, don't ask me why OS X loves to keep growing and growing the RAM swap on my SSD, but it sure loves to! Restarts fix it, but once again, what a pain.
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I have a 240 GB SSD now and I consider 200 GB to be my new minimum threshold for a boot drive. I'll never go smaller than this again.
This is a good time to mention Daisy Disk for anyone dealing with this kind of stuff. It's been a lifesaver for me.
* iTunes album art. Even if your music is on an external drive the artwork stays in the main iTunes folder on the boot drive.
* iOS Apps. Same thing with apps that auto download to iTunes. You can manually erase them, but what a pain.
* Caches. It feels like every fool program just loves to eat up GB after GB of space. Sifting through that folder would often save me 20 GB of saved space. Another big pain to deal with.
* All of the things that can be fixed (like moving Garage Band loops to the external drive and re-linking them) but take up lots of time to Google and figure out. You'll eventually figure them all out after hours or work and annoyance.
* Photostream: The stream photos are saved into iPhoto, but the stream ITSELF is also on the disk. So you permanently have an "extra" 1,000 photos on your boot drive for no reason.
* The photos that sync BACK to iOS devices and Apple TVs from your iPhoto library. iPhoto creates smaller versions for your iPhone to save space. Great for the iPhone! Bad for the Mac boot drive that keeps the full sized photo AND the smaller version. You know, in case you want to sync your iPhone and then your iPad. It keeps the small ones around in case that happens. This folder constantly grew to 20-40 GB for me if I didn't keep an eye on it.
* RAM swap. I have 24 GB of RAM, don't ask me why OS X loves to keep growing and growing the RAM swap on my SSD, but it sure loves to! Restarts fix it, but once again, what a pain.
---
I have a 240 GB SSD now and I consider 200 GB to be my new minimum threshold for a boot drive. I'll never go smaller than this again.
This is a good time to mention Daisy Disk for anyone dealing with this kind of stuff. It's been a lifesaver for me.
You're asking if your vehicle will fit in your garage but don't tell us what you drive? Drive space is easily calculated. What do you get by with now?
Then please provide full disclosure before asking.
I have exactly that size of SSD in my iMac and it's more than enough for OS X (7GB) + most apps (45GB).
However, I keep my home folder, iTunes Media folder, Steam folder and some bigger games in my HDD or RAID array...it's always recommended to keep 10% of your SSD empty anyway.
You're asking if your vehicle will fit in your garage but don't tell us what you drive? Drive space is easily calculated. What do you get by with now?
Then please provide full disclosure before asking.
Here is the content of my OP:
rctneil said:
Small White Car said:
Again, how much room do you currently use now? In Gigabytes.
Why is this so difficult for you to convey?
No problems here with my 120GB KingstonV300 SATA 3 SSD.
At the moment I have 38GB free but usually I have around 50GB free.
Currently I have 11GB of 1080p video from my vacation which I plan to upload to my 3TB Server then delete it from my computer.
I keep on the SSD my small (40GB) iTunes library, documents and important school files.
I keep my photos & videos (huge Aperture library - 35GB) and other music (about 200GB) on my server.
Running OS X Mavericks GM.
Also, I've disabled the system sleep imagine and Time Machine local snapshots via terminal.
At the moment I have 38GB free but usually I have around 50GB free.
Currently I have 11GB of 1080p video from my vacation which I plan to upload to my 3TB Server then delete it from my computer.
I keep on the SSD my small (40GB) iTunes library, documents and important school files.
I keep my photos & videos (huge Aperture library - 35GB) and other music (about 200GB) on my server.
Running OS X Mavericks GM.
Also, I've disabled the system sleep imagine and Time Machine local snapshots via terminal.
