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Can anyone confirm if this is true? I know the speeds on the 256 are a little better, but will it really make any practical difference?

Larger SSDs are faster, but everything is relative. Would you notice the actual speed difference, probably not.

I'd opt for the 16GB of ram, since you cannot upgrade that in the future. At least the removable SSD opens the door to possibilities down the road.
 
Can anyone confirm if this is true? I know the speeds on the 256 are a little better, but will it really make any practical difference?
What Hieveryone wrote is not true.
For real world usage the r/w speed differencen between 128gb and 256gb is irrelevant.
 
Can anyone confirm if this is true? I know the speeds on the 256 are a little better, but will it really make any practical difference?

This has been covered in a number of threads:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1684627/

and on other sites:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/129167/how-fast-is-256gb-to-128gb-on-mid-2013-macbook-air

Yes, the 256GB is faster, but the 128GB read speeds are better than any SATA SSD and the write speeds should be comparable or better than most other small SATA SSD and probably similar to a 2012 (or early 2013) Retina Macbook Pro.

It can also depend on whether you end up with Samsung or Sandisk, but coming from a 2009 MBP you'll think it's extremely fast.

Only you can decide if you want to pay more for larger and faster.
Most people would only notice the difference in benchmarks.
 
Using lots of VM's is one reason to max out the RAM on the new machine, as each VM will require a minimum fixed amount of RAM and you can't change that, but the calculation will be simple - you know how much RAM you need and you wouldn't need to ask. For other applications, like word processing, email, browsing etc., and even some pro level tools such as photo/music/video editing software, the system will just adjust according to usage and page out the inactive ones to swap file. Yosemite is pretty good at this and I still run a 2007 Core2Duo MBP with 4GB of RAM with many of those applications open at the same time and don't notice any disk thrashing. 8GB is plenty enough for most usage now and for the foreseeable future. If you want to max it out at 16GB "just to be safe", then knock yourself out and by all means, it's your money. Who am I to say otherwise.

But know that investing your money in a larger capacity SSD is going to give you far less headache down the road. Yes you can always go for external storage, but having to remember which files were saved to which portable hard disk is difficult, and given Apple's iLife apps and ecosystem, having your music/movies/TV show library and photo library on anything other than your host internal SSD is asking for a lot of inconvenience - iTunes and iPhoto will of course let you choose where you put your libraries, but not having your external drives on hand when you need them is such a hassle, and I speak from experience. You can probably save your space-hogging video files somewhere, but even if you have just a very modest photo library, the giga-bytes will eat up disk space FAST. If you plan on relying on external drives a lot, why not just get a desktop computer like an iMac or something.
 
I had a 128 GB Haswell Air that I upgraded to 256 GB PCI-E SSD so its not impossible...and yes I got it on eBay. Doesn't change the fact that they are easy to install.

Here is one for $220 http://www.ebay.com/itm/256gb-SSD-f...?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item4191764fd4

Then you sell your 128 GB and cut the cost in half...

I hope you never need warranty service, because you have voided the Apple warranty by carrying out an "unauthorized modification."
 
Can anyone confirm if this is true? I know the speeds on the 256 are a little better, but will it really make any practical difference?

No, it's absolute nonsense. The 128 is blazing fast. The difference between them is purely academic unless you are routinely transferring terabytes worth of data.
 
I was the poster. If you have an issue were you really need service you could buy a 128 GB. ( I honestly don't think they would notice unless they had to format it for whatever reason.) Again the point is he has the option years down the road when he probably won't have apple care to upgrade his machine.
 
if it helps. Just recently acquired 16GB, 256GB,

I have to say, I can confidently load up VM machines without having to worry. And I haven't been proven otherwise.

I load up VM ware like nothing, no lag or effect on the overall performance.

Right now, on a mission to see how much she can take. I plan on loading multiple VM's on it and opening **** loads of tab on the host side. See what happens. - I'll keep you posted.
 
From reading the described usage scenario, I would recommend the 256GB model with 8GB of RAM.

Consider that a 2014 MacBook Air does very well with 4GB of RAM thanks to OS X's memory compression and the very fast performance of the PCI-E SSD. I've used one extensively at work with a lot of apps running, memory pressure up to 50-60% and it hasn't really felt much slower. Sure, it pages out like a bastard, but that's where the fast SSD comes in!

I feel that 128GB is not enough storage for any semi-serious user, especially if you have a decent music collection, photo library and maybe a small collection of films and TV shows.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, there are still no third-party SSD upgrades for Late 2013/Mid 2014 MacBook Pros. OWC (one of the most reputable Mac upgrade manufacturers) certainly does not.
 
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