You need a little research into why write speeds will never sustain 1GB/s a 256GB drive.
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Thinking of getting a MBA M1 but..
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I’m not sure I follow? All I know is my Photos libraries absolutely fly on the Samsung T7.
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That's advertised and assume all blank blocks in the SSD's NAND chips. There is a whole explanation as to why the 1GB/s write speed will not be sustained. In short, once blank blocks are gone, write speeds fall tremendously down due to having to zero out previous "junk" data before writing new data.I’m not sure I follow? All I know is my Photos libraries absolutely fly on the Samsung T7.
For what's it's worth, I have the 8 GB model. I run the ARM version of Debian Linux in UTM just fine. It's very fast, and that's with Brave open with a bunch of tabs, Signal, Telegram and other stuff. 8 GB on the M1 goes a long way. You will be very surprised.
I say go for the 8 GB, you have 14 days to return it and get the 16 GB, but I bet you don't need it at all. The M1 is much better with 8 GB than the Intel macs.
Yup, same here. I don't know why people think they need 16 GB with an M1. Only if you are doing heavy video editing and that sort of thing. My macbook air flies, and I had the M1 Mac mini with 8 GB and it was super fast too.
Oh, yes, that much I know. Nothing in this world is forever, including SSD’s, RAM etc. No, I don’t need it to write that fast all the time. It’s like car manufacturers advertising fuel economy, most people believe it’s real life data.
But to try stay on topic. My thinking is to not fill my SSD’s up too much, both the internal and external. This should allow better swapping, if necessary, with 8RAM.
So again, if you are doubting, just get the 8/256 and an external for more space, or use the clouds.
If you don't fill the 256GB SSD, then you can have space for garbage collection algorithm to help out. However, usually you find 256GB filled pretty quickly.
I have 8/256 and wish I sprung for 16. Yes 8 will be fine for most things most of the time, but when it's not, it's a real bummer. Considering the extra cost per month over the lifetime of the machine is minuscule, it's absolutely worth it IMO.
The thing is 8Gb unified memory is pretty much equivalent to 16Gb on a Windows Intel Computer...have had no issues with 8 Gb Unified memory..
just buy any model based on your usage pattern:
1. Office work, university, etc 8GB of RAM is fine
2. Video and heavy load photo editing 16GB of RAM is preferable.
FYI, I bought 16/512GB model because I was upgrading from 8/256 2019 Macbook Pro. I might sometimes edit video on Macbook air, as it is very well equipped for that type of work, so that was basis of my choice and higher price was not a barrier. If I had bugdet constraint, I might choose the basic version as well. FYI, 8GB RAM version also edits 4k video streams just fine. More RAM will not also accelerate your workflow, M1 speed is already very high (both single and multicore); it will reduce pressure on swap and inbuilt memory NVME, so it will function a bit longer. But at the end, M1 manages workflow very well, better than Intel versions.
PS. Any RAM selection will serve you fine.
1. Office work, university, etc 8GB of RAM is fine
2. Video and heavy load photo editing 16GB of RAM is preferable.
FYI, I bought 16/512GB model because I was upgrading from 8/256 2019 Macbook Pro. I might sometimes edit video on Macbook air, as it is very well equipped for that type of work, so that was basis of my choice and higher price was not a barrier. If I had bugdet constraint, I might choose the basic version as well. FYI, 8GB RAM version also edits 4k video streams just fine. More RAM will not also accelerate your workflow, M1 speed is already very high (both single and multicore); it will reduce pressure on swap and inbuilt memory NVME, so it will function a bit longer. But at the end, M1 manages workflow very well, better than Intel versions.
PS. Any RAM selection will serve you fine.
8GB is plenty. You can edit videos no problem and have multiple tabs open/progems with no issues. I've had a MacBook Air base M1 since it launched. It won't hold you back at all. 16gb is nice but if you find a solid deal on the 8 no issues. I also suggest looking at the Apple Refurbished store and save some coin.
I find the Excel interface fine on both, but the other thing to watch out for is if you need add-ins for Excel. Some of these are Windows only - e.g. to access Microsoft Dataverse.
People need to stop spewing crap like this. RAM is a physical component of the computer, if an app needs to write something to RAM then it needs the same space on macOS and Windows. Yes, RAM management is better on macOS, but saying stuff like this is just plain wrong.
No... The OS behaves differently, but apps still need memory.
People comparing 8gb on their old computers vs the M1 have no idea what their talking about. Yes 8gb on intel chips sucks. 8gb on Air can do movie editing and photo editing no problem.
I have the 8GB 512GB MBA, and continuously use about 2GB Swap, and always hover in the yellow memory pressure. In a year of using this computer, I have only experienced 1 or 2 slowdowns ever.
I traded up to a Space Grey 16GB, 1TB 13" MBP only because I'm selling my Intel 16" MBP, and M1 8GB MBA for the higher RAM and 1TB Storage to consolidate those 2 computers. I don't feel like I need 16GB, but it's nice knowing I won't live in the yellow memory pressure forever, and the 1TB drive gives me much more comfort and overhead.
All that to say, 8GB is probably fine for 80-90% of everyone who uses these computers.
I traded up to a Space Grey 16GB, 1TB 13" MBP only because I'm selling my Intel 16" MBP, and M1 8GB MBA for the higher RAM and 1TB Storage to consolidate those 2 computers. I don't feel like I need 16GB, but it's nice knowing I won't live in the yellow memory pressure forever, and the 1TB drive gives me much more comfort and overhead.
All that to say, 8GB is probably fine for 80-90% of everyone who uses these computers.
Agreed. I have been rocking the same model you are getting for a while now. You'll love it.
I have 150gb of photos/videos and not much else, don't see it growing too much more as a lot of that is old video I have converted from DVD. $320AU difference between 256 and 512gb, worth it? My 24" iMac is 512gb and have used 200gb but would not be doing a back up from it, just download photos/videos from iCloud mainly, rest of use will be mail/messages/safari bookmarks.
Worth it? It depends on your needs. But also take into account the fact that these devices are not able to be upgraded later.
Usually, I always say get the highest storage your budget allows. That is if you intend to keep all data internally. Otherwise, you can use external storage.
ram has nothing to do with processing speed, having more ram doesn't make things go faster. i got 20 tabs open and i hit 14 gig easy with 3 gig on swap. AS can get as fast as it wants, it doesn't magically shrink down how much memory an app would take up. in fact, as apps gets increasingly more complex coding, the ram utilization would only increase.
its not pointless, plenty of folks have heavy internet usage that isn't cpu intensive but would need the extra rams to keep all the apps or tabs open. plenty of students would find it useful to keep tabs open for citation while drafting research than closing it and opening it just to keep the ram pressure green.
i made the mistake of getting a 8gb mba during graduate school and had to go through the hassle of selling it and buying a 16gb during the semester cause i listened to folks preaching the base ram is enough.
Are there any actual experts showing real life issues with 8gb on the M1 Air? Such as multiple web tabs open and slowdown.
Tired of listening to different consumer opinions here about this. No one seems to be able to agree. All sounds like BS.
I’ll have multiple tabs on with one or two being heavy websites for things like web design or Canva. Then working spreadsheets and on Teams at the same time. It’s heavy stuff to others that’s ‘light’ (which is wrong) because it’s not video editing.
I want to see an expert prove that 8gb is enough for this style of stuff.
Tired of listening to different consumer opinions here about this. No one seems to be able to agree. All sounds like BS.
I’ll have multiple tabs on with one or two being heavy websites for things like web design or Canva. Then working spreadsheets and on Teams at the same time. It’s heavy stuff to others that’s ‘light’ (which is wrong) because it’s not video editing.
I want to see an expert prove that 8gb is enough for this style of stuff.
Nah, they are using magic fart to work from nothing. Thats why the comptuter is called Macbook Air.
All the experts say that 8GB is fine for most people.
16 > 8 in rare occasions where you export multiple 4k or 8k streams. But they put the slight advantage to software that’s not optimized. The export time differences is like 30 seconds to a couple minutes. For day to day, no noticeable differences.
32 = 16GB. No noticeable differences in benefits from going from 16 to 32gb of ram. 16 gb is good for 99% of users.
64 - 128 is unnecessary for 99.99% of users.