Is 128gb of storage enough for Macbook Air 2018

[ILoveZed]

Hi, so from a long time I was thinking of buying a laptop and for some personal reasons I decided to get a macbook. My whole life I have been a PC and android user and I just decided to get a macbook to see the world outside of windows. The macbook air 2018 base model was in my budget and I asked some people in another forum if it's a good idea to get the 128 GB model considering I will be using it for basic stuff like browsing the web, document writing and for projects. Everyone there told me to get a windows laptop. Finally there was a person who told me that it will probably be enough (he was talking from personal experience) if I start storing my heavier stuff somewhere else. I will also probably use it for programming, but not like a main device. I have a pretty decent computer at home and at school. At school we'll be studying programmin on Windows machines. So maybe I will need to be able to boot into windows if I cant use MacOS for programming . Also my mom is using her computer which has about 100 GB of storage and she uses it for construction engineering. She doesn't have big probelms with it and the computer is like 6 years old. The only thing that she does is store the projects she completes on a server in her company. So is a 128 GB macbook air 2018 enough for a student?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

128GB is definitely a decent amount of space. To better understand that, let's break it down as to why. Of the 128GB of overall storage, let's say 28GB will be used by the OS and your primary applications (a total estimate just for illustration purposes). That leaves you with 100GB of storage.

A high-res 4k image stores in JPG format takes about 4.5MB. You can tore 22k images at that size before you run out of space. Documents in general vary in size, but a 100 page word document will take an out 1MB, so that's roughly 100k documents before you run out of space.

As you increase the size of the files you are dealing with, the less of them you'll be able to keep. At this point in time you are likely going to employ an external drive to store that media anyway.

As far as programming goes, from a programmer, there is no such thing as Programming on Windows only or MacOS only. The languages don't care and you can use either to program. As a long time engineer, I definitely prefer macOS and Linux WAY more than Windows.

 

[ILoveZed]

Well I heard things about CMD being different and harder to use than Terminal and that they are used for programming. The people in the other forum told me that. They said that if I use Windows at school it doesn't make sense to use Mac. Also what about long term use of the laptop. Will it survive 5 to 6 years of usage at best?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The command line on a Mac (like Unix or Linux) is 10000000% times better than the Windows terminal, which is truly and utterly crap. Powershell tries to fix that, but totally fails IMO.

Your Windows PC will definitely not last 5-6 years and perform year 2 like it did year 1. A Mac will give you consistent performance over its lifetime without degrading to uselessness.

The ONLY thing you have to keep in mind is that the MBA doesn't have a high power CPU that the MBP has. It has a paltry dual-core CPU running at 1.3 or 1.5GHz. This machine is GREAT for browsing the web, watching videos and basic things. But for any serious work, it is underwhelming.

I had to use a MBA for about 6 months between my two MBPs and found it quite tough to code and have something like a simulator running for iOS.

If you are compiling code, for example, you will find the build times to be quite lengthy.

 

[ILoveZed]

By tough what do you mean? Was it laggy or slow or...?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Apart from the slower CPU, the MBA can only have a maximum of 8GB of memory. The one I was using only had 4GB which is just not enough for what I was doing. So I constantly ran out of memory and had to limit the number of apps I was using. I couldn't open infinite tabs in Chrome, I couldn't run the iOS simulator all the time. I had to strategically open and close applications to ensure I remained below.

CPU/Memory intensive apps will run slowly.

Again, none of these are strikes against the MBA. I was using the wrong machine for the work and it showed. The same work on my MBP with a quad-core CPU and 16GB of memory was completely fine, as expected.

 

[ILoveZed]

Ok, just asking. Thank you for the info. One last thing I want to ask is how does the charger work? I know that there are plug adapters, but I live in Europe and the voltage here is 220. I am probably going to buy it from the USA so is that going to be a problem?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The 2018 MBA uses a USB-C as the the charger connector. The charger block handles 110 to 220v and converts it to the right voltage for the MBA. However, if you buy the MBA in the US, the plug will be US and you will need the different European plug. But that should be the only change.

 

[ILoveZed]

Ok, thank you very much! Thank you for all the help! Now that I know that, I am almost sure I will get a Macbook Air!

 

[pigoo3]

So is a 128 GB macbook air 2018 enough for a student?

The issue isn't so much is 128gig of internal storage enough...the problem is most computer users never want to do any "storage management"...and basically want to store EVERYTHING they ever install or create on the computer:

- every music file they own
- every photo or selfie they take
- every movie they download
- every app they ever install
- etc.

Eventually EVERY storage device (no matter how large) will fill up. Probably the only reason 128gig would not be enough...is if someone actually needed to access more than 128gig of information on a daily, weekly, or maybe monthly basis. Then more internal storage may be needed.

Not saying that having more storage than someone actually needs is a bad thing. But if we're talking budget constraints...where a MacBook Air with 128gig of storage is affordable...but a MacBook Air with 256gig of storage is NOT affordable...then you got to go with the 128gig model!

HTH,

- Nick

p.s. The best way to manage a computer with a more modest size internal storage device (or any computer for that manner)...is to ONLY keep items stored on the computer that the user needs relatively frequent access to. Other items that are not accessed/needed very often can be off-loaded onto an external storage device...and retrieved as needed.

 

[ILoveZed]

Yeah that's very true. For me I find pleasure in deleting something I don't use and to see that I have a lot of free storage. I dont think I'll have any problems with storage now