MBAir - 16gb 500gb drive?

[kaizersozay]

I'm a developer and want to build an uber Mac Book Air. I'm new to the Apple platform however.

I'm discouraged the MacBook Air has only 4gb mem and max 250-ish SSD drive. I need lots of virtual machines for different environments, and yes, 16gb is needed to load the Microsoft Server products like SharePoint for development.

Has anyone tried, is it even possible to replace the built in ram and HD? Can I just buy these and pop em in - yes I realize I'll have to rebuild the machine with a fresh LIon install. Can the Lion OS or the processor in the MacBookAir utilize/see the 16gb memory if you can replace yourself?

This is how I've done things in the PC world forever - is this a pipe dream for the MacBookAir? I'd even settle for 8gb RAM - although that is far from optimal.

Thx for ideas.

 

[chscag]

If you're a developer in need of lots of memory and a large hard drive, you shouldn't even be thinking about buying a MacBook Air. The memory can not be upgraded in the Air. What you buy is what you've got to live with. The flash memory hard drive can be upgraded from a third party supplier but is expensive. Buy a fully loaded 15" MBP instead.

 

[bobtomay]

That's sort of like the gamer who wants to buy that low end rig sitting on the shelf at their local electronics store and complaining that it doesn't have a graphics card in it that costs more than the computer he's looking at.

I can't even suggest you look at the MBP. If you're developing for Windows and will need to have your machine booted into Windows for all that, I'd have to suggest you buy, or better yet, build yourself a nice Windows rig.

 

[kaizersozay]

Well, like I said I'm new to the Apple platform. I have a bad back, and am highly mobile working with clients so just wanted to find out if it was possible.

Apple doesn't support its dev toolkit on Windows for iPhone/IPad development direct to device, so I'll need an Apple laptop. Yet even the MBRs have max 8 gb memory so probably hosed there as well.

 

[bobtomay]

Every current model MacBook Pro can take and use 16 GB RAM as confirmed by multiple 3rd parties - although you'll need 2x8GB sticks in the notebooks.

Check everymac.com to find this info, plus just about everything else you'd like to know about almost any Mac ever made.

 

[kaizersozay]

SWEET! That is awesome to hear.

One last thing - I'm using VirtualBox (open source virtualization from Oracle) for virtual machines. I'll also be doing Windows Phone development too -

I noticed VirtualBox seems to allow USB interaction into the virtual machine. This is new to me - I've used HyperV and VMware in the past, and neither of them that I recall allowed USB or device interaction - although you can share Networks on adapter interfaces.

If I have an MBR with various Windows VMs, can I talk to Windows phone devices through the USB into the virtual machines?

This would be the last block to completetly moving over to the Apple platform. If not VirtualBox, does another virtualization product support this? I've been investigating Parallels - however I've given up after 3 unsuccessful lengthy phone call attempts (and left messages) to get to a live person to get some answers like this.

Thanks for thoughts.

 

[chscag]

As far as I'm aware, both Parallels and VMWare allow USB interaction between the VM and the host.