Windows user. New to mac. 256 or 512 GB SSD?

[Mohamed Kamal]

Do you think 256 gb would cause an average user to run into issues especially given the no upgradability?
I know the question is kinda vague but this is more of a “tell your own thoughts and experiences” kind of question, and I’ll try to figure out what would suit me best.
I’ll probably use an external drive for anything that i can use it for, but for some stuff, I can’t (apps, stuff i use daily, some room to download the occasional movie or two, or download files before transferring them to my external drive, some free space so the system won’t slow down.. etc.).
what do u think the experience would be like? Would I run into a limit and regret not spending the extra 200$?

 

[gnasher729]

Do you think 256 gb would cause an average user to run into issues especially given the no upgradability?
I know the question is kinda vague but this is more of a “tell your own thoughts and experiences” kind of question, and I’ll try to figure out what would suit me best.
I’ll probably use an external drive for anything that i can use it for, but for some stuff, I can’t (apps, stuff i use daily, some room to download the occasional movie or two, or download files before transferring them to my external drive, some free space so the system won’t slow down.. etc.).
what do u think the experience would be like? Would I run into a limit and regret not spending the extra 200$?

It's hard to say how much space you will need, because that depends entirely on your use. My personal MacBook is full with media (tons of music, audiobooks, movies, photos collected over many years) and has a bit over one terabyte of storage _and needs it_.

If you don't do anything using huge amounts of storage, you are fine. If you are prepared to use an external drive anyway, then 256 GB will definitely be fine. Also look at USB flash drives (there are tiny ones that practically disappear in your computer up to 512 GB), SD-cards (up to 1 TB), so you don't have to buy anything that you have to carry separately. The speed isn't great, but you don't need much speed to play videos, for example.

 

[vixster1901]

I'm a believer of keeping all your data together on one drive. Not only is it easier to stay organized. I have seen it way to often that the external drive of data is not backed up and the drive dies. if you take a lot of photos, that adds up as well. Question: is how much data are you using on your current machine? data is data. if you are using 200gbs on a pc, than it will be similar. And if you are using 200gb (just as an example) , then I would say go for the 512 drive. hope this helps

 

[mikethebigo]

Do you think 256 gb would cause an average user to run into issues especially given the no upgradability?
I know the question is kinda vague but this is more of a “tell your own thoughts and experiences” kind of question, and I’ll try to figure out what would suit me best.
I’ll probably use an external drive for anything that i can use it for, but for some stuff, I can’t (apps, stuff i use daily, some room to download the occasional movie or two, or download files before transferring them to my external drive, some free space so the system won’t slow down.. etc.).
what do u think the experience would be like? Would I run into a limit and regret not spending the extra 200$?

Best answer to this would only come if we knew your current usage patterns. How much storage is currently used on your Windows computer?

It depends on how many photos and videos you have essentially.

I personally will not buy less than 512 GB. But at the same time, I'm sitting here with a 1 TB drive that only has 100GB used, and that's with a particularly large photo library stored on it. In this modern age I never really have the need to have music or movies stored on it, everything is streaming.

So, simple answer is, 256 is probably fine unless you can think of a reason you need more.

 

[Six0Four]

I always get the base storage on a mac or iphone. I got 500GB of pcloud storage so i don't see the point in paying hundreds more for storage space on a device.

 

[KrisLord]

For me 256GB is enough as paying extra for an additional 256GB is too expensive and won’t avoid the need for storing stuff elsewhere.

So if you’re going to use external, NAS or cloud storage anyway, do you need a larger device storage?

 

[Mohamed Kamal]

Thank you guys I think what I’m essentially asking is: how much space can I expect to be free after OS/apple apps are installed, and how much space does a typical mac app take?

 

[Bazza1]

Thank you guys I think what I’m essentially asking is: how much space can I expect to be free after OS/apple apps are installed, and how much space does a typical mac app take?

I seem to recall being told that the OS and its included apps take up between 25 - 30GB of space on a new, fresh-out-of-the-box Mac Air. A quick glance at my storage on mine (adding up System, iOS apps, etc) would seem to agree with that.
As for 'typical mac app size', I don't know there's an average size that can be expressed. That's subject to what you want / need to install. For example, on mine, VLC Player is 140 MB, Google Earth Pro is 204 MB and Firefox 428 MB - while Microsoft 365 Word and Excel are over 2 GB each.

Nearly 10 years ago, when I moved to Mac full-time from Windows XP - and that onto an Air - I too was concerned about the amount of storage available. I was used to a large HDD and just tossing everything on it. But in using the Air, I soon realized how much space I actually needed. I'm currently on a 2017 Air with 256GB SSD, and I have literally several hundred documents and PDFs, 30 TV / movies, 1400 tunes, and over 2000 photos (plus several 3rd Party apps) on it - in essence, significantly more stuff on it than I really need to be functional daily - and still have 150 GB free.

Now, I do have a portable external drive (500 GB) - where I stash stuff I don't need all that often, as well as a manual backup of the stuff I noted above (just as an added precaution over Time Machine, or the vagaries of the net and cloud backups), and I do have a few USB drives with various backups on them stashed away (just because I'm neurotic) - but really, all that is accessed so rarely.

Does this help?

 

[Mohamed Kamal]

I seem to recall being told that the OS and its included apps take up between 25 - 30GB of space on a new, fresh-out-of-the-box Mac Air. A quick glance at my storage on mine (adding up System, iOS apps, etc) would seem to agree with that.
As for 'typical mac app size', I don't know there's an average size that can be expressed. That's subject to what you want / need to install. For example, on mine, VLC Player is 140 MB, Google Earth Pro is 204 MB and Firefox 428 MB - while Microsoft 365 Word and Excel are over 2 GB each.

Nearly 10 years ago, when I moved to Mac full-time from Windows XP - and that onto an Air - I too was concerned about the amount of storage available. I was used to a large HDD and just tossing everything on it. But in using the Air, I soon realized how much space I actually needed. I'm currently on a 2017 Air with 256GB SSD, and I have literally several hundred documents and PDFs, 30 TV / movies, 1400 tunes, and over 2000 photos (plus several 3rd Party apps) on it - in essence, significantly more stuff on it than I really need to be functional daily - and still have 150 GB free.

Now, I do have a portable external drive (500 GB) - where I stash stuff I don't need all that often, as well as a manual backup of the stuff I noted above (just as an added precaution over Time Machine, or the vagaries of the net and cloud backups), and I do have a few USB drives with various backups on them stashed away (just because I'm neurotic) - but really, all that is accessed so rarely.

Does this help?

Hmm.. this helps a lot! Thanks.
how does time machine work btw? How much space does it need? Can you put it on an external drive?

I don’t think I’d have more than you put on your device and if after all that you have 150gb free, i think it would be enough for me!
The OS plus all the preloaded apps is 30 gigs? That actually seems great, with 230 gigs free

 

[circatee]

Hmm.. this helps a lot! Thanks.
how does time machine work btw? How much space does it need? Can you put it on an external drive?

I don’t think I’d have more than you put on your device and if after all that you have 150gb free, i think it would be enough for me!
The OS plus all the preloaded apps is 30 gigs? That actually seems great, with 230 gigs free

See this post...

Time Machine backup with 64GB flashdrive

Maybe just me, but I wouldn't waste my time trying to make something work that I'll never actually use. IMHO: ideally you want your TimeMachine backup device to be at least 2x the amount of storage you use, if not 2x the size of the system drive. Remember that TM is a versioned backup, so the...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Phil77354]

. . . how does time machine work btw? How much space does it need? Can you put it on an external drive?

The whole point of Time Machine is to have an independent backup to your primary drive. It requires a separate external drive. I also don't see the point in spending extra money for a SSD to use with Time Machine, it is more common to use a large conventional (spinning disc) drive.

 

[circatee]

I also don't see the point in spending extra money for a SSD to use with Time Machine, it is more common to use a large conventional (spinning disc) drive.

By using an SSD, would it not make the process for Time Machine, that much quicker, or not?
When I think of 5500RPM or 7200RPM drives, I shudder, compared to an SSD...

 

[Phil77354]

By using an SSD, would it not make the process for Time Machine, that much quicker, or not?
When I think of 5500RPM or 7200RPM drives, I shudder, compared to an SSD...

Sure, but transfer speeds when Time Machine is updating is not a big concern. It is operating in the background, and after you first run Time Machine and it gets the full image for your computer, the subsequent backups are simply updating the file and not requiring large amounts of data to be transferred. Or at least that is how I view Time Machine, I don't claim to be an expert in how it operates.

 

[edhchoe]

I am currently using 300 GB.
I am not a YouTuber or a musician or a gamer.
i am just an average Joe with family photos and videos. I don’t have extra iCloud.

 

[Bazza1]

Hmm.. this helps a lot! Thanks.
how does time machine work btw? How much space does it need? Can you put it on an external drive?

I have an external HDD (500GB) set aside for Time Machine. HDD or SSD will do for this - SSD will be faster (and much more expensive), but as the HDD basically just sits on my desk, doesn't get bashed about, and only runs to do backups, its not under a lot of stress. The first backup is the largest, then its just incrementals as things change. I've got 80GB free after two years of Time Machine on this drive - and if it ever does start to get 'full' it will simply start dumping the earliest incrementals.
Any drive will do, it doesn't need to be sold formatted for Mac in advance (usually at a significant price hike) - as you can do that yourself very easily in Mac's Disk Utility. Mine is set as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Then its a case of turning on Time Machine and directing it to that drive.

It's probably worth noting that with Time Machine on, when you are disconnected from your external drive (as one is apt to be on a notebook), it may save it's scheduled backup to your internal drive. I didn't want / need Time Machine to do this and found a note somewhere as to how to turn that off. I seem to recall it being somewhat geeky (using Terminal) - if you feel inclined, that might be worth a Google. Not essential.

I've used Time Machine a couple of times - nothing super technical like software / OS not working, but rescuing a file or two. Still, nice to have a little additional security.

 

[Phil77354]

. . . It's probably worth noting that with Time Machine on, when you are disconnected from your external drive (as one is apt to be on a notebook), it may save it's scheduled backup to your internal drive. . . .

Are you sure about that? I don't think it works that way (but I could be wrong . . . )

 

[KrisLord]

Are you sure about that? I don't think it works that way (but I could be wrong . . . )

It’s a temporary copy, called a snapshot.

Once you then reconnect it’ll backup normally.

Snapshots obviously use storage space but MacOS is clever enough to thin these out to avoid storage issues.

 

[Phil77354]

It’s a temporary copy, called a snapshot.

Once you then reconnect it’ll backup normally.

Snapshots obviously use storage space but MacOS is clever enough to thin these out to avoid storage issues.

Thanks. First time I've heard of that, but my usage is solely my desk iMac so I don't have experience with how this works with laptops. Thanks for explaining.

 

[circatee]

Learning some valuable information about Time Machine.
For my use case, my data will be in the cloud (iCloud and Google Drive, possibly OneDrive, too - since I have a O365 account). And, if the OS has an issue, simply reload. Plus, nothing like a clean install, right?

 

[Bazza1]

Learning some valuable information about Time Machine.
For my use case, my data will be in the cloud (iCloud and Google Drive, possibly OneDrive, too - since I have a O365 account). And, if the OS has an issue, simply reload. Plus, nothing like a clean install, right?

I do backups to iCloud, OneDrive and Dropbox, too - but once you've overwritten something on those, its not as straight forward to get back a file you screwed with inadvertently. Time Machine at least lets you role back to a time when you know a file was good.
Also, the problem I have with cloud storage is the assumption it will always be available when you need it. Not necessarily a sure thing when travelling, or your ISP or the web itself has issues, or there hasn't been some sort of meltdown at your favourite provider. That's why I like local backup storage options.

It's the weirdest thing - the whole point as I remember it for a 'personal computer' was that you were not dealing with a 'dumb' keyboard connected to a mainframe computer accessed somewhere. You had everything you needed locally. Maybe - as in the case of a notebook - in a small'ish package. Now we all seem to be rushing back to dumb keyboards and distant mainframes...