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dorbildam

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 26, 2021
1
0
How much storage is available on the M1 MacBook Air (with a clean install) with the 256GB SSD? And could I upgrade it after I bought?
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,278
13,376
"And could I upgrade it after I bought?"

No.
Impossible.
What you buy it with, is what you have. Forever.

(Well...I suppose one COULD change out the motherboard...)
 
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mlody

macrumors 68000
Nov 11, 2012
1,625
1,236
Windy City
on my system the total available SSD space is 245.11 GB and I think OS itself was taking about 10-15 GB if I am not mistaken, so your usable free space should be around 230 GB on a brand new system.
 
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steve217

macrumors 6502a
Nov 11, 2011
543
844
NC
Like @Fishrrman said, you'd have to swap the mainboard to get more internal storage.

External storage would work pretty well but it pretty much anchors you to a desk.
 

BluAffiliate

macrumors 6502
Feb 16, 2010
376
65
on my system the total available SSD space is 245.11 GB and I think OS itself was taking about 10-15 GB if I am not mistaken, so your usable free space should be around 230 GB on a brand new system.
Wow, thats a relief, because I have a 512GB MBP and iMac and the OS on those takes up 100GB+.
Looks like M1 is way more optimized.
 

Resist

macrumors 68040
Jan 15, 2008
3,003
93
It seems ridiculous that a 256GB SSD loses almost 11GB to the OS, seems like an excess loss of space.
 

Significant1

macrumors 68000
Dec 20, 2014
1,686
780
11 GB is pretty reasonable if you a ask me. That's only like 4% or something.
It will be more, if you also take swap and hibernation files in consideration. If you connect an iPhone and let it take a backup, it will also consume a considerable amount of space. If you plan on using full xcode (not just command line tools) or virtual machines etc. You will quick run out space. Also consider that ssds need at least 10-20% free space for housekeeping to perform optimal and reduce wear.
 

DMG35

Contributor
May 27, 2021
2,528
8,173
Wow, thats a relief, because I have a 512GB MBP and iMac and the OS on those takes up 100GB+.
Looks like M1 is way more optimized.

The OS doesn’t take up nearly that much space on any Mac. What you are seeing is most likely files that have been retained from when you upgraded the OS.
 

BluAffiliate

macrumors 6502
Feb 16, 2010
376
65
It will be more, if you also take swap and hibernation files in consideration. If you connect an iPhone and let it take a backup, it will also consume a considerable amount of space. If you plan on using full xcode (not just command line tools) or virtual machines etc. You will quick run out space. Also consider that ssds need at least 10-20% free space for housekeeping to perform optimal and reduce wear.
I back up my phone to the cloud so this doesn't happen.
 

cosmichobo

macrumors 6502a
May 4, 2006
986
606
I don't know if it's still a thing.... but I'm sure all the numerous built in language files used to take up about 1Gb...

There's apps to remove them. Or - was...?
 

opeter

macrumors 68030
Aug 5, 2007
2,709
1,619
Slovenia
This should work with removing language files from OS X/MacOS/macOS

I tried it with Mojave and it worked for me.

There is also a manual mode (and some commercial applications have the option for doing the same, that Monolingual is doing):
 
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Significant1

macrumors 68000
Dec 20, 2014
1,686
780
I back up my phone to the cloud so this doesn't happen.
Regardless. If you sync itunes/music it will do a local backup unless you go out of your way and disable or cancel it every time. The setting to not backup does not stick. At least that is my experience, but have 1tb so I don't need to worry
 

Jack Neill

macrumors 68020
Sep 13, 2015
2,272
2,308
San Antonio Texas
One thing to keep in mind on the M1's is that Big Sur uses snapshots differently and has a larger recovery. On my M1 Air Big Sur takes up twice as much space and the SSD is 6GB smaller than on my 2020 i5 Air. Both are 512 and the Intel Big Sur install is almost 20Gb smaller.
 
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