HEY APPLE, NO COMPUTER SHOULD EVEN BE MADE WITH LESS THAN 512GB. 1TB SHOULD BE THE NORM.
This reminds me of the time I was in the customer service line at an electronics store back in early 90’s. The guy in front of me was returning his brand new ‘entry level’ Mac computer. Me, being the Apple fanboy that I am, was concerned and asked is there something wrong with it. He replied, “I spent a lot of money on this computer and within minutes of using it I’m getting out of memory error messages, I’ll be damned if I have to upgrade it on the first day” In this case it was Apple short changing customers on the amount of RAM installed. I agreed with him, that Apple blew it - and he was right to return it. This cost cutting measure only angers and drives away customers. Seems like some things never change.
It's super odd this article neglects to mention that there are several options for understanding and managing your storage usage in: About This Mac > Storage > Manage
For more granular control, sure there are 3rd party apps (Clean My Mac is a great one that will give you a full suite of things you can review and delete), but why not send users to the most basic built-in macOS features first?
Try to get a small external SSD, too. It'll cost you from $80 and up, but you should be able to get an SSD that's larger than your internal drive. In that case, use it for both backup and extra storage.
This is terrible advice. You shouldn't be storing data on a backup drive, because where then is that data backed up? Your storage should be on a separate drive that *also* gets backed up to a directory on your bootable backup drive, so all of your data is backed up at that point.
So out of 1T you have 669G used and that's mostly pics. That tells me you've got too much 'stuff' on your SSD, IMHO. It mounts up because people are almost always poor stewards of storage.
I keep only this years photographs on the MBP. My archive is now close to 2.7TB.
This years photos are what I'm working on for several projects. That's why I want them close to hand even when I'm travelling.
Stuff, especially apps that are not needed get deleted. I have regular culls and have a 12TB NAS for Time Machine backups.
Since I got my Z7 the amount of space needed even for one day out has really climbed. 48Mp sure does use some space.
Each of us has their own style of working. this is mine but it may mean that I delay upgrading to another device for 1-2 years simply because of the price which hurts now that I'm retired.
Can the author comment on what's hinted at here in the comments:
Using/living-with one of those super-small USB keys that barely pokes out of the side?
[I know it's not USB anymore...]
Are those fast enough for apps/video to get back and forth from one of those?
Advantage that they're always there, no cables, etc.
They can't be $149 either or someone would go for the $200 bump to 256GB.
So 256GB for.... $49?
I bought a 128GB USB3 tiny-thumbdrive for $27, but it's not Thunderbolt.
Eric.
I'm using a SanDisk Ultra Fit 256 GB on my Mac Mini's Type A USB port, for keeping Media files.
They're mostly write-once, I don't use the USB drive for editing, since I don't think it'll be fast enough for writing large files (video or image) continually.
Unfortunately I don't think we'll see any equivalent for USB-C anytime soon, since the Ultra Fit drives makes use of the dead space for the orientation tab of the USB-A plug to mount the flash dies, while there is no dead space for the USB-C plug so everything will have to stick out of the port.
Edit: The Ultra Fit is useful for keeping less frequently used Applications as well, the read speed of USB 3.x is quick enough that it doesn't make a lot of difference whether it is run from internal SSD or the Ultra Fit.
Can someone tell me just what % of the SSD should be left empty for best performance? People used to say 25% minimum, but the author here talks about 5 GB, if I understand correctly. Any insights would be helpful. Thanks.
Enable iCloud Music Library and iCloud Photo Library so that music and photos get stored on iCloud and get purged from your Mac when more space is needed. In Photos/Preferences/iCloud preference pane disable "Download originals to this Mac" and enable "Optimize Mac storage". Manage download options in iTunes/Preferences/Downloads pane and also decide whether you need your music and movie files copied from external media to your iTunes Library, only files copied to iTunes Library are uploaded to iCloud. If you frequently use your external media for music and movie playback unchecking "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" in Prefences/Advanced pane may help.
Gaming platforms like Steam and Origin allow to store game libraries on external media, you don't need to store all games on your Mac (Preferences and save files are generally stored on the Mac though).
Life in 128 GB is not painful. We pay a shitload of money to Telco operators for their crappy LTE, spending a few bucks for extra 200 GB iCloud space is nothing compared to LTE’s cost.
So, your solution is to turn a $1,300 computer into a Chromebook? So, what do you do when you don't have WiFi? Pull out your Dell?
Can someone tell me just what % of the SSD should be left empty for best performance? People used to say 25% minimum, but the author here talks about 5 GB, if I understand correctly. Any insights would be helpful. Thanks.
With SSDs, the more the better -- especially over time as the various bytes wear quicker on the small devices simply because they get used more.
I think the author was referring to immediate system performance and having adequate space for paging and temporary files.
Particularly as Apple shifts sales out to third party and online retailers, this practice of putting out a low-ball base price on a non-upgradeable machine that, for many, will prove to be inadequate will backfire on them.
Apple has always prided itself that its products "Just Work" -- (all of the time). And, there are plenty of non-technical people out there who will be attracted to the low price and assume that, because it has an Apple on it, that it will "Just Work" -- and their online retailer is not going to tell them that 128Gb won't work for them for very long and instead they need to cough up another $200 or more for a machine that will meet their future needs and expectations. They won't tell them that, as soon as they load files, apps, music, documents, downloads, movies and pictures, the thing will fill up and become a sleek beautiful peace of very expensive garbage.
They will never forgive Apple for that deception. They won't replace their now garbage MacBook with another. Their next machine will be a Dell.
Apple designers have lived a little too long in the Apple bubble. They need a doused with a bucket of reality.
Particularly as Apple shifts sales out to third party and online retailers, this practice of putting out a low-ball base price on a non-upgradeable machine that, for many, will prove to be inadequate will backfire on them.
Apple has always prided itself that its products "Just Work" -- (all of the time). And, there are plenty of non-technical people out there who will be attracted to the low price and assume that, because it has an Apple on it, that it will "Just Work" -- and their online retailer is not going to tell them that 128Gb won't work for them for very long and instead they need to cough up another $200 or more for a machine that will meet their future needs and expectations. They won't tell them that, as soon as they load files, apps, music, documents, downloads, movies and pictures, the thing will fill up and become a sleek beautiful peace of very expensive garbage.
They will never forgive Apple for that deception. They won't replace their now garbage MacBook with another. Their next machine will be a Dell.
Apple designers have lived a little too long in the Apple bubble. They need a doused with a bucket of reality.
That 128GB SSD will probably not hit write end of life for eight or more years. Yes, even TLC.
Particularly as Apple shifts sales out to third party and online retailers, this practice of putting out a low-ball base price on a non-upgradeable machine that, for many, will prove to be inadequate will backfire on them.
Apple has always prided itself that its products "Just Work" -- (all of the time). And, there are plenty of non-technical people out there who will be attracted to the low price and assume that, because it has an Apple on it, that it will "Just Work" -- and their online retailer is not going to tell them that 128Gb won't work for them for very long and instead they need to cough up another $200 or more for a machine that will meet their future needs and expectations. They won't tell them that, as soon as they load files, apps, music, documents, downloads, movies and pictures, the thing will fill up and become a sleek beautiful peace of very expensive garbage.
They will never forgive Apple for that deception. They won't replace their now garbage MacBook with another. Their next machine will be a Dell.
Apple designers have lived a little too long in the Apple bubble. They need a doused with a bucket of reality.
That 128GB SSD will probably not hit write end of life for eight or more years. Yes, even TLC.
First of all, soldered: it’s possible to de-solder and solder new NAND chips on your board, so technically it won’t end up being “garbage,” but the devil is in the software.
“Upgradability”: I don’t get why some think that old ones are way better. You could only replace the RAM and the drive, and they all have an upper limit — You can’t make your 8GiB DDR2 any bigger or faster, that depends on the memory controller, and can easily maxed out. Granted, it’s not pretty on the Touch Bar, but that has nothing to do with soldered RAM.
Sure, I’d like independent modules better on the SSD, the most important thing here is “optional”. If you can turn your machine to the Apple store or third parties for an upgrade, it will be less of an issue. Having slots doesn’t make your SSD “reliable, useful, more genius” if the internal is locked by the software.
Particularly as Apple shifts sales out to third party and online retailers, this practice of putting out a low-ball base price on a non-upgradeable machine that, for many, will prove to be inadequate will backfire on them.
Apple has always prided itself that its products "Just Work" -- (all of the time). And, there are plenty of non-technical people out there who will be attracted to the low price and assume that, because it has an Apple on it, that it will "Just Work" -- and their online retailer is not going to tell them that 128Gb won't work for them for very long and instead they need to cough up another $200 or more for a machine that will meet their future needs and expectations. They won't tell them that, as soon as they load files, apps, music, documents, downloads, movies and pictures, the thing will fill up and become a sleek beautiful peace of very expensive garbage.
They will never forgive Apple for that deception. They won't replace their now garbage MacBook with another. Their next machine will be a Dell.
Apple designers have lived a little too long in the Apple bubble. They need a doused with a bucket of reality.
That 128GB SSD will probably not hit write end of life for eight or more years. Yes, even TLC.
I'll take your word on that -- I suspect the thing about burning out a small SSD faster might be industry hype to sell bigger drives.
But that doesn't take anything away from the main point that a non-technical person buying a base model Mac on Apple's reputation for quality is still going to be justifiably disapointed and upset when that drive quickly fills up and the machine becomes worthless to them -- and Apple's answer is to 'just buy another one'.
First of all, soldered: it’s possible to de-solder and solder new NAND chips on your board, so technically it won’t end up being “garbage,” but the devil is in the software.
“Upgradability”: I don’t get why some think that old ones are way better. You could only replace the RAM and the drive, and they all have an upper limit — You can’t make your 8GiB DDR2 any bigger or faster, that depends on the memory controller, and can easily maxed out. Granted, it’s not pretty on the Touch Bar, but that has nothing to do with soldered RAM.
Sure, I’d like independent modules better on the SSD, the most important thing here is “optional”. If you can turn your machine to the Apple store or third parties for an upgrade, it will be less of an issue. Having slots doesn’t make your SSD “reliable, useful, more genius” if the internal is locked by the software.
If the base storage were anywhere near max that would be true. But 128Gb is below minimum -- about as far from max'd as one could get.
I could easily and cheaply double, triple or quadruple the storage on my 2014 MacBook.
One important thing for people, who'd thought that you could place your homedir "where ever" like back in the good old days:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203538
If your homedir is not on a boot drive, you'll get ZERO support from Apple in any kinf of macos issues.
Comments
This reminds me of the time I was in the customer service line at an electronics store back in early 90’s. The guy in front of me was returning his brand new ‘entry level’ Mac computer. Me, being the Apple fanboy that I am, was concerned and asked is there something wrong with it. He replied, “I spent a lot of money on this computer and within minutes of using it I’m getting out of memory error messages, I’ll be damned if I have to upgrade it on the first day” In this case it was Apple short changing customers on the amount of RAM installed. I agreed with him, that Apple blew it - and he was right to return it. This cost cutting measure only angers and drives away customers. Seems like some things never change.
About This Mac > Storage > Manage
For more granular control, sure there are 3rd party apps (Clean My Mac is a great one that will give you a full suite of things you can review and delete), but why not send users to the most basic built-in macOS features first?
This is terrible advice. You shouldn't be storing data on a backup drive, because where then is that data backed up? Your storage should be on a separate drive that *also* gets backed up to a directory on your bootable backup drive, so all of your data is backed up at that point.
Any insights would be helpful. Thanks.
I think the author was referring to immediate system performance and having adequate space for paging and temporary files.
Apple has always prided itself that its products "Just Work" -- (all of the time).
And, there are plenty of non-technical people out there who will be attracted to the low price and assume that, because it has an Apple on it, that it will "Just Work" -- and their online retailer is not going to tell them that 128Gb won't work for them for very long and instead they need to cough up another $200 or more for a machine that will meet their future needs and expectations. They won't tell them that, as soon as they load files, apps, music, documents, downloads, movies and pictures, the thing will fill up and become a sleek beautiful peace of very expensive garbage.
They will never forgive Apple for that deception. They won't replace their now garbage MacBook with another. Their next machine will be a Dell.
Apple designers have lived a little too long in the Apple bubble. They need a doused with a bucket of reality.
“Upgradability”: I don’t get why some think that old ones are way better. You could only replace the RAM and the drive, and they all have an upper limit — You can’t make your 8GiB DDR2 any bigger or faster, that depends on the memory controller, and can easily maxed out.
Granted, it’s not pretty on the Touch Bar, but that has nothing to do with soldered RAM.
Sure, I’d like independent modules better on the SSD, the most important thing here is “optional”. If you can turn your machine to the Apple store or third parties for an upgrade, it will be less of an issue. Having slots doesn’t make your SSD “reliable, useful, more genius” if the internal is locked by the software.
I could easily and cheaply double, triple or quadruple the storage on my 2014 MacBook.