Will 64Gb be enough for my needs?

[Souli]

Hey guys,
I wanted to try out Max OS X for a long time and now that I saw the new MBA I just have to get one. It will definately be the 11" version with 4Gb Ram. The part that I'm unsure about is the storage.
I wanna run OS X and Windows 7 on it to have a comparison but is 64 Gb enough for that?
I use my computers mainly for email, internet, office so nothing fancy. The standard programs that I have installed under Windows are Openoffice, a PDF reader, VLC media player, Ventrilo, Quicktime, Flashplayer and that's about it.
I plan to run WoW on the machine if I take it with me but I will have WoW on a usb flash stick and not on the laptop to save space. Do you think 64Gb should be enough in that case?

 

[ProstheticHead]

First off: Running WoW on a USB stick seems like a terrible idea. That will really cause a lot of slowdown.

Otherwise, if you plan to use very little on each OS, 64gb will be enough.

If you plan to do anything more than the basic of the basic, I'd suggest buying the 128gb model. And installing WoW on the internal.

 

[sparkie7]

Probably not.

Out of the box its going to be circa 49GB. Which ain't much.

Don't know why  bothered with such a small option. Unless you do nothing but excel spreadsheets, word, emails, the 128SSD makes more sense

You mention VLC, so do you plan to have a mini-collection of movies on the SSD? -- if so, it will fill up fast

And.. WOW on flash stick? -- stop dicking around and chuck it on the SSD!

 

[Hellhammer]

Why do you need Windows? All those apps are available for OS X.

Installing WoW to memory stick will work but the loading times will be longer since its bandwidth is smaller.

 

[Souli]

WoW on a Flash stick is only slower for the first launching of the game after that there is not much of a difference. In case there is space on the SSD I will put it on there ofc but if not I won't upgrade just for a game.
Windows 7 should take up around 10 Gb normally. I don't plan to have any movies on the laptop since I only stream videos and music. On my normal machine I only have 2x 80Gb SSDs and that's it.
I don't even know if I need Windows but I never worked with Mac OS X so I dunno if I find something that I normally use that works better under Windows. If this is not the case then there is no need for Windows.

 

[netdog]

Don't know why  bothered with such a small option. Unless you do nothing but excel spreadsheets, word, emails, the 128SSD makes more sense

It allowed them to bring a machine to market for under $1000, and honestly a lot of MBA Mini users are going to just use the machine for browsing, email and maybe word processing or a little iPhoto stuff. 64GB is fine for those folks.

Remember. The MBA is well positioned to be, among other things, a thin client and cloud computer.

 

[sparkie7]

Some fair points on the entry pricing.

But what do people generally do? -- Fill up their laptops with 'stuff' -- like music, movies, photos and home videos, porn and lots of apps.. before they know it's 70-80% full, and thats too much for an SSD to work efficiently, and they start groaning - I shouldda bought the larger one.. yeah..

 

[b11051973]

The problem with the new MacBook Airs is nothing is upgradeable. So, if you think 64 GB might not be enough, go with 128. If you go with 64, then that is what you're stuck with.

I chose 64 because I know that is all I need. I've had MacBooks and PowerBooks for almost 10 years now. I wasn't even using 30 GB of the 250 GB hdd on my last MacBook. I do not use my Mac laptops as my main computer.

 

[BeachChair]

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If you need Windows AND WoW you sure as hell need more than 64 gb.

 

[Hellhammer]

Some fair points on the entry pricing.

But what do people generally do? -- Fill up their laptops with 'stuff' -- like music, movies, photos and home videos, porn and lots of apps.. before they know it's 70-80% full, and thats too much for an SSD to work efficiently, and they start groaning - I shouldda bought the larger one.. yeah..

I bet that people who buy MBA with 64GB use it as their secondary computer, thus they don't have to keep everything in the MBA.

I would be happy if Apple offered 13" MBA with 64GB for 1099$. I have my iMac and four external drives, those store all my stuff. Just enable file sharing and I can access all that data from the MBA, wirelessly of course. If I need to access them while on go, I can turn my iMac into an FTP server, or take an external HD with me if I'm traveling abroad (I couldn't fit all my stuff in 256GB so I would anyway need it, no matter what MBA I got).

You just have to know the limitations of 64GB but for me, it would be fine. I can have some music and photos in it and I would still have several 10GBs of free space

 

[Souli]

thanks guys for the help. I'll go with 64Gb and 4Gig Ram

 

[Keltren]

Running both OSX and Windows7 I'd recommened getting a larger disk, sure you can cut and squeeze either OS so they use less space, but also remember that each will have to be on it's separate 30gb partition - in short you'll be struggling with space all the time, and that'll likely ruin your experience with the machine (especially as upgrading it will be either impossible, or a royal pain at best). In short - having to constantly inch out space is going to be a long drawn out nightmare - and that's even if you keep something like wow on an external stick...


I'm running a Unibody Macbook on a 60gb SSD (Sandforce 1200) - but with only one OSX, a couple of apps and some small games (Braid, World of Goo) - that alone takes up around 17gb - no movies, no music, no photos - I consider the spare 40gb a good size buffer for the stuff I need to move on and off that machine - I'm very happy with this setup but i'd never try to run 2 OS'es on that little space...

 

[hansiedejong]

Windows 7 should take up around 10 Gb normally.

That's not true, if you plan using Windows 7 with BootCamp you will need at least 16GB, so you will only have (49 - 16) 33 GB. That's not much, think about it!

 

[Corbet]

How are people getting Windows 7 on their MBA with no optical drive? Is there a way to install from USB?

 

[shadowbird423]

How are people getting Windows 7 on their MBA with no optical drive? Is there a way to install from USB?

Yep. You need another windows machine to set it up though...