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The White Unibody MacBook has same storage as M4 Air

awshucks

awshucks

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 13, 2023
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Maybe I'm the only person to discover this, but the 2009 Unibody MacBook's base model was a 250GB HDD. Fast 16 years later, 256GB SSD comes with the MacBook Air. Back in 2009, 250gb of storage could go further. But, now that we can comfortably run some pro applications on the Air, that 256gb is used up quickly.

Just noticing.
 
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awshucks said:
Maybe I'm the only person to discover this, but the 2009 Unibody MacBook's base model was a 250GB HDD. Fast 16 years later, 256GB SSD comes with the MacBook Air. Back in 2009, 250gb of storage could go further. But, now that we can comfortably run some pro applications on the Air, that 256gb is used up quickly.

Just noticing.
Click to expand...
This is why they make different storage options. My mom has 256 GB GB and she’s still under 100 GB used. I do understand why people feel the base is too low though.

I think there needs to be one mega thread for “Apple should increase the base storage” and another mega thread for “Apple should increase the base RAM”. I’m sure there’s at least 100 threads on each topic in these forms.

I’m sure the mods would absolutely love the privilege of combining all these threads… Just kidding, don’t ban me 😂
 
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Earlier today I was actually going through some old hard drives in a box that needed to be backed onto something modern. I was surprised the sizes I was finding in there. An Acer from probably 10+ years ago that I had...a cheap model laptop...and that was a 500gb hard drive. When a cheap Acer from that long ago had a bigger hard drive than a 'high end' MacBook does in 2025, there's a serious issue.
 
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delsoul said:
Earlier today I was actually going through some old hard drives in a box that needed to be backed onto something modern. I was surprised the sizes I was finding in there. An Acer from probably 10+ years ago that I had...a cheap model laptop...and that was a 500gb hard drive. When a cheap Acer from that long ago had a bigger hard drive than a 'high end' MacBook does in 2025, there's a serious issue.
Click to expand...
Apparently not since Apple is selling tons of 256GB models.
 
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awshucks said:
Maybe I'm the only person to discover this, but the 2009 Unibody MacBook's base model was a 250GB HDD. Fast 16 years later, 256GB SSD comes with the MacBook Air. Back in 2009, 250gb of storage could go further. But, now that we can comfortably run some pro applications on the Air, that 256gb is used up quickly.

Just noticing.
Click to expand...
Comparing a 2009 HDD to a 2025 SSD is like comparing apples and great white sharks. 2009 i/o was up to 480 Mbps and today's MBA with TB4 gets up to 40 Gbps. Different worlds, not really comparable.
 
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delsoul said:
Earlier today I was actually going through some old hard drives in a box that needed to be backed onto something modern. I was surprised the sizes I was finding in there. An Acer from probably 10+ years ago that I had...a cheap model laptop...and that was a 500gb hard drive. When a cheap Acer from that long ago had a bigger hard drive than a 'high end' MacBook does in 2025, there's a serious issue.
Click to expand...
The only "serious issue" is some folks' failure to grasp the huge differences in the entire computing process 2009 versus today.

Edit: Also note that the MBA is Apple's low end, not ""a 'high end' MacBook does in 2025..."
 
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awshucks said:
Maybe I'm the only person to discover this, but the 2009 Unibody MacBook's base model was a 250GB HDD. Fast 16 years later, 256GB SSD comes with the MacBook Air. Back in 2009, 250gb of storage could go further. But, now that we can comfortably run some pro applications on the Air, that 256gb is used up quickly.

Just noticing.
Click to expand...
True. But SSDs and HDDs are not the same in speed. It’s a night and day difference. You can easily buy an external HDD or SSD and extend Storage. Or, you can pay more for SSD upgrades from Apple
 
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Howard2k said:
Apparently not since Apple is selling tons of 256GB models.
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I think one of the reasons for that is the cost of the upgrade. For 200 US/eur one can buy external SSD with more storage space than Apple internal SSD, but with slower transfer speeds.
 
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Howard2k said:
256GB HDD and 256GB SSD are not the same at all. Same capacity but performance is night and day difference.
Click to expand...

Allen_Wentz said:
Comparing a 2009 HDD to a 2025 SSD is like comparing apples and great white sharks. 2009 i/o was up to 480 Mbps and today's MBA with TB4 gets up to 40 Gbps. Different worlds, not really comparable.
Click to expand...

racerhomie said:
True. But SSDs and HDDs are not the same in speed. It’s a night and day difference.
Click to expand...

Of course it is comparable.

The primary function of STORAGE is to STORE data.

A file consists of the same number of bits regardless of storage media. Sure, speed, reliability and longevity are also important factors, but it is reasonable to expect increased capability over time.

It took years before any iPhone could replace my iPod, because the maximum available storage had dropped to 20%. There was simply no way to fit my music library. The music didn’t care that it could be served faster.
 
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Arctic Moose said:
Of course it is comparable.

The primary function of STORAGE is to STORE data.

A file consists of the same number of bits regardless of storage media. Sure, speed, reliability and longevity are also important factors, but it is reasonable to expect increased capability over time.

It took years before any iPhone could replace my iPod, because the maximum available storage had dropped to 20%. There was simply no way to fit my music library. The music didn’t care that it could be served faster.
Click to expand...
So, for you I guess it’s good to get the $200 upgrade on the Air, or get the $1600 Pro.
 
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Arctic Moose said:
Of course it is comparable.

The primary function of STORAGE is to STORE data.

A file consists of the same number of bits regardless of storage media. Sure, speed, reliability and longevity are also important factors, but it is reasonable to expect increased capability over time.

It took years before any iPhone could replace my iPod, because the maximum available storage had dropped to 20%. There was simply no way to fit my music library. The music didn’t care that it could be served faster.
Click to expand...
I hear what you're saying, and you're not wrong, but it's still not an apples to apples comparison to act like a 256GB HDD is the same as a 256GB SSD. They may both offer the same amount of storage, but the former has notable limitations in not just performance speed, but also size/weight, longevity/durability, power usage, and even noise. Might not matter much for an iPod, but certainly does for a laptop. So to me it seems really disingenuous to be like, "what a scam that Apple has been selling machines with the same storage for decades!" It's an entirely different technology, but the tradeoff is that it costs more for the storage space it offers. In fact, it's a good thing that the cost of SSDs has come down as much as it has, because I recall when the first MBA launched and you had to pay an arm and a leg for an "upgrade" to the 60GB SSD model over the standard 80GB HDD.
 
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Anybody who is turning the conversation into speed comparisons is completely missing the point of the OP. Which is valid. Almost 20 years later in computing terms we have the same storage capacity. Which is wild. Especially when everything increased exponentially in storage now, even basic applications are taking up hundreds of megabytes, movies are huge, games are huge, operating systems are huge, everything is huge. Cyberpunk is something like 70GB alone. So... yeah.

And since you guys brought the SSD into the discussion, the 12" Macbook, released in 2015, had 256 of SSD storage. That was 10 years ago, 10 years!
 
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wave84 said:
Anybody who is turning the conversation into speed comparisons is completely missing the point of the OP. Which is valid. Almost 20 years later in computing terms we have the same storage capacity. Which is wild. Especially when everything increased exponentially in storage now, even basic applications are taking up hundreds of megabytes, movies are huge, games are huge, operating systems are huge, everything is huge. Cyberpunk is something like 70GB alone. So... yeah.

And since you guys brought the SSD into the discussion, the 12" Macbook, released in 2015, had 256 of SSD storage. That was 10 years ago, 10 years!
Click to expand...


And yet, people still buy them. So ultimately it's a strategy that works.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have not had to spend the money on increased storage, but for the majority 256GB is likely fine on an Air. Nobody is buying a 16/256 Air off the shelf to do serious storage heavy work on it. Plenty of people are buying an 16/256 to do general home stuff. Surfing the net, some home media stuff, and using the cloud.
 
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joeblow7777 said:
Actually, their original base MBA was 80 GB HDD storage, and you had to pay extra to upgrade to a 64 GB SSD. So yeah, it's ridiculous to compare the two technologies like they're the same.
Click to expand...
Yep i was referring to the SSD. Apple tried offering only 128 GB SSD but it cost a lot. They reintroduced 64G base model for 999 instead of 1499. Folks need to realize the base model is for price conscious consumers than people of tech forums. I would want as much storage and RAM but base models are for generic consumers.
 
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wave84 said:
Anybody who is turning the conversation into speed comparisons is completely missing the point of the OP. Which is valid. Almost 20 years later in computing terms we have the same storage capacity. Which is wild. Especially when everything increased exponentially in storage now, even basic applications are taking up hundreds of megabytes, movies are huge, games are huge, operating systems are huge, everything is huge. Cyberpunk is something like 70GB alone. So... yeah.

And since you guys brought the SSD into the discussion, the 12" Macbook, released in 2015, had 256 of SSD storage. That was 10 years ago, 10 years!
Click to expand...
Except we don’t have same storage capacity. Comparing storage size of HDD and SSD is not same. I have a 16 TB HDD which cost lot less than my 8TB SSD back up drives. OP could have easily compared 64 GB SSD MBA base model around same time.
 
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