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What's normal for Hard Disk Space use?

G

Gilvisto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 25, 2008
18
0
First off, Hello! My name is Gil and I've been reading these forums for quite some time before I became a member. I recently just purchased a beautiful 13'' 2.4GHz Macbook, and I now realize why people love them so much.

I'm never going back... ever.

With that being said, I was hoping you fine fellows could help me figure out what to do about a newfound problem. See, on my old windows desktop, I had 80GB of space and that was enough. I thought that 160 GB was almost excessive on my new laptop, but with my new Macbook came my opportunity to use a rather glorious program known as Handbrake. I am now copying my DVD library to my iTunes library, and am consequently running out of space faster than anticipated. Now, as of this moment I have used 75 GB, I have 70 some left. Twenty GB is music, another 20 is movies. That means my other programs take up around thirty five GB on my drive.

A) Is that a normal use of space for a macbook?
B) Is there a way to upgrade my memory?
C) Is an external hard drive the best way to go in my current state?
if so,
D) Which External Hard Drives have you had the best luck with? It seems like most of the models I'm looking at are either PC only or don't have very good reviews...

Thank you much!
-Gil
 
Lol, Im am in a similar place. I have a 250gb Western Digital Passport. I LOVE that thing. I have over 135gb of movies on it and it runs perfectly.

Also, when it comes to handbrake, make sure you set it up so it looks good on you macbook, but not too big (it'll save on space) about 1gb a movie should be big enough.

Edit: Buy.com seems to be a good place to pick these up. I think some 250 version are at $99
 
i realize this is a little off topic but how long does handbrake typically take to rip a dvd i use it and love it but it seems to take a long time to copy a dvd
 
Apple-Man23 said:
i realize this is a little off topic but how long does handbrake typically take to rip a dvd i use it and love it but it seems to take a long time to copy a dvd
Click to expand...

Umm, converting a dvd is two part; ripping and encoding. Handbrake does the encoding process, not ripping. Anywho, I have yet to do encoding on my MB. I do it on my pc with an AMD 6400x2 (3.2ghz) still take about and hour or more depending on the size of the file. Most ripping software will rip it in about 10-20 min.
 
I use Handbrake to rip and encode... most movies are about 1-1.5 GB, depending on length. It takes about thirty minutes less than whatever the run time on the movie is. (my battery's first real test was ripping Singin in the Rain to iPod format... it barely made it. ha ha).

So, how much can I fill up on my book and how much should I leave open?

Thanks for your help,
-Gil
 
Gilvisto said:
I use Handbrake to rip and encode... most movies are about 1-1.5 GB, depending on length. It takes about thirty minutes less than whatever the run time on the movie is. (my battery's first real test was ripping Singin in the Rain to iPod format... it barely made it. ha ha).

So, how much can I fill up on my book and how much should I leave open?

Thanks for your help,
-Gil
Click to expand...

...Never new handbrake came with a ripping option.
 
the best hard drive i would suggest is westen digital then fantom drive then iomega. truthfully i wouldnt go past western digital. reliable, never had a prob out of any of their drives ever. ive been using their drives since '99. never failed me. im about to get their 1TB fire wire drive. with all the music, movies, and programs i have i could fill it easy. and i dont even edit video anymore lol. if anybody dont know how, i can tell you what i found on making an external drive work like your main HD
 
Yeah for sure that's normal. Check out simpletech drives, they sell them at costco and they are really reliable. Also it's called hard drive space, memory is more used for RAM. Check out newegg.com too for hard drives, best prices in the world.
 
alternate option?

just a suggestion, i just got a 320gb 7200 rpm for my macbook pro. Replacing the drive in your macbook is a piece of cake, and this would double your memory. You could also look into one of the 500gb laptop drives coming out soon. then a big external is not needed and you can have everything internally. Put your current internal in a firewire enclosure, use it for time machine on your important system folders.
my 2 cents
 
i am in this guys similar state,however i have an external. I was wondering if i buy a larger hd and install it, wouldnt that void my apple warrenty not useing apples hd?
 
Honestly I don't see HOW people need that much space unless they torrent.

I have 1 TB in externals (750gb + 250gb) and a 500gb and 160gb computers. However, I torrent and seed quite heavily and am an digital media pack rat. Most people on average use would use 100gb or less.
 
foshizzle said:
Replacing the drive in your macbook is a piece of cake, and this would double your memory.
Click to expand...

That actually sounds great, but like okrelayer said, wouldn't that void the warranty? I'm really scared of messing anything up, lol...
So, to get a straight up new HD, would newegg be my best bet?

Thank you all for your help,
-Gil
 
to keep from voiding any warranty youd have to have the installation done by somebody authorized by Apple, frys, micro center, and i think best buy are authorized. also you can look up 3rd party companies in your local area that might be authorized as well.
 
okrelayer said:
i am in this guys similar state,however i have an external. I was wondering if i buy a larger hd and install it, wouldnt that void my apple warrenty not useing apples hd?
Click to expand...


I researched this and replacing the HDD on MacBooks will NOT void the warranty. I upgraded my HDD today from an 80 gig to a 160 gig. The HDD is placed in the same area as the RAM and is easily accessible and changeable. As long as you don't damage the hardware than there should be no problem with warranty issues should you need it worked on in the future.
 
Hey

I've got a lot of HD room but I for some reason it really annoys me when for whatever reason I lose little by little everyday...right now I have 19.98 then it goes up to 20.00 without me downloading anything. It's getting on my nerves, I'm always deleting stuff like saved imovie projects or garageband etc..

yeah...I have a problem with that..:mad: I want it to stay low
 
There's no "normal" usage for hard disk space.

I have 160gb in my MBP, and it's almost always 60-75% full.

I also have 2 backup hard drives -- a Western Digital 500gb and LaCie 750gb. I don't believe any hard drives out there are PC only. You can always format a hard drive to HFS using Disk Utility.

I don't use Time Machine or anything to back up really. I just drag and drop whatever I want to back up (movies, videos, music, etc.) and delete it off my laptop. I can see where Time Machine would come in handy, but I've gotten so used to backing up manually that I have my own little filing system that's become almost a habit. Because I have two hard drives, I keep the important things (documents, pictures) on both hard drives, just in case one fails.

If you do research on external hard drives, you will see a lot of people saying their drives fail and all their data was lost. I truly believe this is a very small but vocal number of external hard drive owners out there. Of course if your drive failed you'd be pissed and go everywhere and post about it. Is that number more than, say, 1%? Doubt it. I've never had a problem with any of my 2-3 dozen hard drives over the past 10 years.
 
At The End Of The Day There Is No Such Thing As A More Reliable Make Of Hard Drive. Last Year I Bought At The Same Time A Western Digital Scorpio For My Macbook And A Seagate FreeAgent Pro External For My G5, And Funnily Enough Both Failed About A Year Later Within A Week Of Eachother. The Good Thing Is They Both Have Great Warranties - The Western Digital Had a 3 Year Whilst The Seagate Had A Five Year.

In My Opinion, You'd Be Better Off Getting An External Rather Then Replacing Your Internal - More Storage For Less Money, Especially If You Are Storing Films On It, And As Films Are The Type Of Thing You Only Watch Once In A While, Unlike Music, It Does Not Really Make Sense To Have Them Permanently Stored On Your Portability Drive (... Unless You're One Of "Those" People :p )

Speaking Of Externals, Any PC External Drive Will Work With A Mac, You Will Just Need To Reformat It With Disc Utility. Personally, I Prefer Firewire Over USB, But This Is Just Me. If You Have Cash To Splash You Could Also Buy A Wireless Router And Connect The Hard Drive To That, So You Could Access Your Files From Anywhere In The House Wirelessly, Since You Are Talking About A Portable Computer.

Hope This Helps,

Barney
 
Phillyzero said:
Honestly I don't see HOW people need that much space unless they torrent.

I have 1 TB in externals (750gb + 250gb) and a 500gb and 160gb computers. However, I torrent and seed quite heavily and am an digital media pack rat. Most people on average use would use 100gb or less.
Click to expand...

Hey Philly,
I Would Have To Disagree With You There. What With Apple Making It So Easy These Days To Rip Your Entire CD Collection And Stuff Like That A Lot More People Are Using Up More Hard Drive Space Then Before.
I Mean, Fair Enough, Business People, Journalists, Writers etc Would Not Need That Much For Their Work, But A Lot Of People With These Kind Of Jobs I Know Also Like To Carry A Fair Amount Of Music With Them When "Being Creative" ( Their Word, Not Mine :) )
That, And The Fact That You Can Now Download TV Episodes And Films From iTunes And Other Services Is Meaning That 100gb Is Not As Rosy As It Used To Look ( Man, I Remember My Mum Buying Me A 120MB ( Yes, Thats MegaByte !) Drive For My PC, After I Said To Her It Would Take YEARS To Fill :rolleyes: )

As For Me, I Work In Digital Video And People In This Industry Know That You Can NEVER Have Enough Hard Drive Space :-D
 
The maximum disk space that can be used by the MacBook and still be at top speed and defragmented is 90% of the drive's full capacity. For example, with a 160GB disk, 16GB should be free for defragmenting and full speed.

And McDughf, you don't need to capitalize every word in the post.
 
changing the macbook's hardrive will not void the warranty, and it is supported by apple. Go to their website and search for the manual on how to remove it and install a new one. (yes, apple's website has this). The macbook pro however, user replacement is not supported but you can do it as long as you do not damage anything in the process (in this case the warranty is void).

Also, look at OWC's hard drive cases. They have nice ones. I purchased an empty, two drive sata case (firewire), then bought two 500gb drives from newegg.com, put them in there. Newegg has really great prices on internal drives, and with 750gb drives at about $120, i'd go for two of those if I did it again. The reason I purchased an empty drive enclosure is that I wanted to have the ability in the future to upgrade the drives. Some, but not all, of these pre-built externals have (easily) replaceable drives.
 
Well, I just bought a Western Digital 500 GB My Book, Newegg was having a sale... I'll keep you posted on how it works.
Thank you all for your help!
-Gil
 
i have a quick question. I'm getting a Time Capsule soon for backup and then as an external drive. But we're going to use it for 3 Mac's. My MacBook, my sisters iBook (60GB HD) and my dads MacBook Air (80GB HD). I read somewhere then when you do your first backup with a computer, it erases everything first off the Time Capsule. Does that mean if i backup first, and then my dad try's backing up, that all my data will then be erased, or am I misunderstanding?? Thanks! 
 
thecoard said:
And McDughf, you don't need to capitalize every word in the post.
Click to expand...

Hey Coard,
Sorry About That, Old Habits Die Hard ( And Dammit If I'm Not Doing It Again!!!!! :D )

I have been told about this before by members of the forum... Been doing it for about twenty odd years so it kinda feels strange not hitting the shift key after every space tap - I Guess if I ever make ransom notes though, you'll know its me!:p

Barney
 
I'm looking to get an external hard drive to keep my 10,000+ songs on and 200+ videos on. The question I have is if I kept them stricly on the external hard drive would I beable to listen to them in iTunes on my MacBook? Would i beable to sync them to my iPhone without needing them on my computer? And what size hard drive would you reccomend and where swould be the best place to get it from?
 
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