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Macbook pro 126GB or 256GB?

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iirantzu

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 8, 2018
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Hi everyone, I'm an student in Junior year highschool and I want my mac to last me throughout university too. I'm going to be storing all of my photos and videos in an external hard drive, but I wonder if 128GB would be enough for all the apps that I'll probably need. Btw I'm studying veterinary science.
Thank you in advance:)
 
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iirantzu said:
Hi everyone, I'm an student in Junior year highschool and I want my mac to last me throughout university too. I'm going to be storing all of my photos and videos in an external hard drive, but I wonder if 128GB would be enough for all the apps that I'll probably need.
Thank you in advance:)
Click to expand...

That will be very tight through university, I would recommend a minimum of 256gb to be honest, especially as you give us no idea of what you are doing at university and whether you’ll need to run vms for Windows only apps etc.
 
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I would say get as much storage as you can afford. However I purchased a 128 GB MBP and spent the difference between that and 256 GB model on a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure an 500 GB Samsung Evo SSD. This works really well and the external disk is so fast I sometimes forget its external. I run Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 VMs from it without any issues.
 
128GB is definitely still doable given how cloud storage solutions have matured, but as others have said, it depends on what you're going to do with it. In my case, it was having space for VMs which made me go for the larger HDD and RAM on my MBP, but even then, external disks are really cheap now, so if you're using it as a desktop most of the time, you can maybe get round it that way.

If you have the money "spare", get a bigger HDD, but if money is tight, I'd only get it if you need it - if you're going to need to be storing big files or VMs and using them on the move.
 
One can "get by" on only 128gb.
BUT... you must be careful about how you manage your storage space on the SSD.
Things like stored movies, etc., -- should go onto an external drive of some kind.

If there's any way you can afford it, the 256gb is probably worth the extra money.

The 512 and 1tb SSD's (at least in the MBPro's) are too pricey to be good values, in my opinion...
 
The current MacBook Pros aren't that much more powerful than the previous-generation with MagSafe connector; I just picked up a mid-2014 13". Those have the benefit of user-upgradable drives, so I would say try find a used one with 16GB of RAM, MagSafe and RAM are going to make the biggest difference in your life, I guarantee someone is going to trip over your power cord and MagSafe means it won't go flying onto the floor, and then you can upgrade the drive in a couple in a year or two if you need to. As a student with regular needs, there is no reason why one of those won't meet your general university needs.
 
iirantzu said:
I wonder if 128GB would be enough for all the apps that I'll probably need.
Click to expand...
How are we supposed to know what applications you will probably need? How is anyone supposed to know whether or not 128GB will be enough for you based on what your probable needs might be at some point in the distant future? You don't even know yourself what you will or will not need, so here's what you should do: roll the dice. odd numbers = you'll be fine, even numbers = you'll need more.

Does that help?
 
Realistically for a main computer 256 is the absolute bare minimum, 128 is doable but only as a machine used purely for your coursework. So don’t count on syncing your phone or otherwise storing media locally or having any apps/games outside of what is necessary for your course. The single exception I can think of is if your course is word/pages; excel/numbers and/or PowerPoint/keynote centric with little or nothing else - then maybe you might just be able to juggle some personal stuff on there as well (though it will be a juggling act for certain).
 
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What's often a really good idea in these situations, is to go to the Apple store (Or wherever you plan on buying it) and chatting to their sales representatives. At least in Apple, they will be able to guide you through these questions and advise you which storage option is best for you.

You could get a 2TB or a 128GB, options exist for people with different needs. But only you know your needs, if you're questioning whether 128GB is enough then might be worthwhile getting 256GB. Seems the most obvious solution.
 
I think for the vast majority of Users who purchase a 128 GB SSD, it eventually becomes a pain in the arse to a point where they start to regret not going for a larger size (keep in mind you really should not use all of the available space on a SSD - the OS needs some space to do its own thing and manage wear.) If you are planning to use this system long-term, and if you are ever going to keep any of your photo/video projects on the local SSD (which you will want to do temporarily if you are editing/working on them because the fast SSD can expedite things quite a bit), then IMO 256 GB is the bare-bones minimum.

It may also be worth checking out what Apps are commonly used in your field - modeling/simulation software can occupy a lot of space.
 
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kreasonos said:
Does anyone know how much space is actually free out of the box on a 128gb MBP?
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Don't remember out of the box, but you can have a functional OS install with the standard macOS applications as well as some third party applications, all in under 30 GB.

That said, if you install other applications and any data on your machine, it's pretty easy to hit 100 GB, and ideally you should have at least 20+ GB free.

For something I plan on keeping for a while, I would recommend 256 GB minimum even if most of your data is stored externally. It makes like a lot easier. Remember, even just iPhone backups can be well over 10 GB.

FWIW, I keep a moderate amount of data on my iMac, and I have 1 TB for my iMac, with over half already used. On my 12" MacBook I don't keep a lot of data on it and I have 256 GB. Often I only have about 60-70 GB on it but sometimes I hit well over 100 GB depending upon what I'm using it for. This is especially true if I am loading up stuff on it for a business trip.

The interesting thing is Apple doesn't even sell a 128 GB 12" MacBook (non-Air, non-Pro). All are 256 GB or more.
 
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EugW said:
Don't remember out of the box, but you can have a functional OS install with the standard macOS applications as well as some third party applications, all in under 30 GB.

That said, if you install other applications and any data on your machine, it's pretty easy to hit 100 GB, and ideally you should have at least 20+ GB free.

For something I plan on keeping for a while, I would recommend 256 GB minimum even if most of your data is stored externally. It makes like a lot easier. Remember, even just iPhone backups can be well over 10 GB.

FWIW, I keep a moderate amount of data on my iMac, and I have 1 TB for my iMac, with over half already used. On my 12" MacBook I don't keep a lot of data on it and I have 256 GB. Often I only have about 60-70 GB on it but sometimes I hit well over 100 GB depending upon what I'm using it for. This is especially true if I am loading up stuff on it for a business trip.

The interesting thing is Apple doesn't even sell a 128 GB 12" MacBook (non-Air, non-Pro). All are 256 GB or more.
Click to expand...
Just out of curiosity, why don’t you back up your iPhone in iCloud?
 
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kreasonos said:
Just out of curiosity, why don’t you back up your iPhone in iCloud?
Click to expand...
Incomplete photos backup and issues with integration in the Photos application of the Mac. The main problem is with Live Photos, by design. I don’t know if it has been fixed yet or not but it was a major issue a while back.

I back up other iPhone stuff in iCloud though.

See here.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7934622

Personally I think Apple’s implementation of this was brain dead and outright dangerous. It wasn’t just that Apple iCloud was incompletely backing up Live Photos. What happened is 100X worse. If you turned on iCloud Sync it would actually DELETE Live Photos. Furthermore, it would convert Live Photos to static photos with the Mac Photos application with no warning and with no way to retrieve the motion portion.
 
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EugW said:
Incomplete photos backup and issues with integration in the Photos application of the Mac. The main problem is with Live Photos, by design. I don’t know if it has been fixed yet or not but it was a major issue a while back.

I back up other iPhone stuff in iCloud though.

See here.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7934622

Personally I think Apple’s implementation of this was brain dead and outright dangerous. It wasn’t just that Apple iCloud was incompletely backing up Live Photos. What happened is 100X worse. If you turned on iCloud Sync it would actually DELETE Live Photos. Furthermore, it would convert Live Photos to static photos with the Mac Photos application with no warning and with no way to retrieve the motion portion.
Click to expand...
Ah ok, that makes sense. Yea drop box converts Live Photo’s to static also. I never thought much about it but that does suck.
 
kreasonos said:
Ah ok, that makes sense. Yea drop box converts Live Photo’s to static also. I never thought much about it but that does suck.
Click to expand...
Google Photos actually preserves everything now, including Live Photos. If you use your Google Drive space, it will be at full resolution, but it's unlimited storage if you accept their image compression.

It has its own problems though, like if you want to download the Live Photos back, although I'm not a good judge of it since I've only just started using it.

Plus, there is no way to turn off showing the "feature" that syncs all deletions from Google Photos with deletion everywhere else. Mind you, I'm not sure that actually deletes anything from the iPhone. Or at least it didn't when I tried deleting a test photo from Google Photos in a web browser on my computer.

The issue with Mac Photos is that the photos would sync fine, and they'd show as Live Photos, but the motion portion simply wouldn't work. There was no explanation for this. It turns out the problem at the time was that turning on iCloud Sync meant it wouldn't work, because iCloud Sync didn't fully support Live Photos at the time. However, what really p!ssed me off was that Apple gave absolutely no warning about this, and either I got my problem, or with others, it simply deleted the files. What the fsck? How could Apple be so braindead. This isn't rocket science. They pride themselves on non-destructive editing, but they write software that happily deletes original files? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. And what's worse, is Apple would not warn you in advance that certain features were missing.

So, what I have taken to doing is saving everything in Mac Photos, but also saving the actual files separately on stored hard drives. Exporting images in Mac Photos is a major pain though, since the program will crash or else the export will simply stop sometimes, if you're dealing with thousands of Photos. Ironically, iPhoto worked much better at this.

If the next version of Photos doesn't handle this better, I'm going to switch to something like Adobe Lightroom, along with my Google Photos backups... which is ironic, since we are a household of Apple hardware.
 
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I personally use OneDrive, as it's integrated with my Windows 10. I can open any Microsoft file (Word, Powerpoint etc) on my phone without installing the apps, right in OneDrive.

But the storage is very limited, 5 GB and up to 15GB if you refer friends.
 
EugW said:
Google Photos actually preserves everything now, including Live Photos. If you use your Google Drive space, it will be at full resolution, but it's unlimited storage if you accept their image compression.

It has its own problems though, like if you want to download the Live Photos back, although I'm not a good judge of it since I've only just started using it.

Plus, there is no way to turn off showing the "feature" that syncs all deletions from Google Photos with deletion everywhere else. Mind you, I'm not sure that actually deletes anything from the iPhone. Or at least it didn't when I tried deleting a test photo from Google Photos in a web browser on my computer.

The issue with Mac Photos is that the photos would sync fine, and they'd show as Live Photos, but the motion portion simply wouldn't work. There was no explanation for this. It turns out the problem at the time was that turning on iCloud Sync meant it wouldn't work, because iCloud Sync didn't fully support Live Photos at the time. However, what really p!ssed me off was that Apple gave absolutely no warning about this, and either I got my problem, or with others, it simply deleted the files. What the fsck? How could Apple be so braindead. This isn't rocket science. They pride themselves on non-destructive editing, but they write software that happily deletes original files? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. And what's worse, is Apple would not warn you in advance that certain features were missing.

So, what I have taken to doing is saving everything in Mac Photos, but also saving the actual files separately on stored hard drives. Exporting images in Mac Photos is a major pain though, since the program will crash or else the export will simply stop sometimes, if you're dealing with thousands of Photos. Ironically, iPhoto worked much better at this.

If the next version of Photos doesn't handle this better, I'm going to switch to something like Adobe Lightroom, along with my Google Photos backups... which is ironic, since we are a household of Apple hardware.
Click to expand...
This is good info thank you. If I move my photos from drop box to Mac photos app on my computer will it convert then back to Live Photo’s? I checked the info on a file in Dropbox that was a livephoto and drop box saved it as a jpeg. So I’m wondering if the livephoto data is still there in the file it just needs to be converted back to a different format?
 
kreasonos asked:
"Just out of curiosity, why don’t you back up your iPhone in iCloud?"

I don't own a smartphone (iPhone or any other brand), and I don't use iCloud (or anybody else's "cloud").

A "backup" that you can't hold in your hand, is no backup at all, in my opinion.
Works for me.
 
Fishrrman said:
kreasonos asked:
"Just out of curiosity, why don’t you back up your iPhone in iCloud?"

I don't own a smartphone (iPhone or any other brand), and I don't use iCloud (or anybody else's "cloud").

A "backup" that you can't hold in your hand, is no backup at all, in my opinion.
Works for me.
Click to expand...
I was specifically referring to iPhone backup so my post was not relevant to you.
 
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