4GB is just fine for me on my 2014 Air that I just bought. Coming from a 2014 Mac mini with HDD. The SSD vs. HDD is all the difference for me. I just do very basic tasks.
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Resolved Pleasantly surprised by the amount of RAM required
- Thread starter revmacian
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Yeah, the HDD is the real bottleneck on that machine. I can imagine how fast the MBA is going to fly!
The only problem I can see with knowing that I will buy my first Mac laptop in two weeks is.. that it's two weeks away. I have a feeling this is going to be a loooong two weeks!
As I've shared on here before, I've finally come to the realization that everybody loves to overshoot when it comes to buying for their needs to the point of ridiculousness. I was on the iPad forums not long ago browsing the threads about "how much space should I buy?" and literally everybody was suggesting they buy 256 gigs or above. Despite the fact the OP was saying they have super basic needs, the common theme was "yeahhh but it'll add up real quick! And future software updates will take up space and blah blah blahhhh".
Long story short last summer I bought a 12.9 iPad Pro 512 gigs. Thought if I was gonna go all out, why not right? I'm super future proof now! Well after a few months of using it I finally check how much iPad storage I was using. I was only using 20 gigs. Ya know how weird it is to see "20 gigs used and 450 gigs free space"? Knowing how much I paid for it? I was a freaking idiot that should have known better. But because I had the money and people on the forums and reddit made me a little paranoid, I overspent
I stepped down to a 64 gig 10.5 and saved a ton of money. Now I have a base model 2018 MacBook Air and for my non professional needs, am getting by just fine. Ya know why? Because I'm not some super crazy professional video editor that has multiple pro apps open and needs to work with raw files. I also don't play a ton of games and most of my stuff is in the cloud so hard drive space doesn't matter. And the whole "8 gigs of ram will only be good for now. buy 16 for future prooffffff!" Yeah? When? 2 years from now it won't be good? 5? 6? And for what needs? How much will my needs even change? Most likely by the time I'd ever need more than 8 gigs, I'd be ready to upgrade anyway years down the line.
Moral of the story: Buy what you need. More than likely, you need less than you think. If you even have to ask this question, you probably don't need some super powerful rig specc'd to the max. Save the money
Long story short last summer I bought a 12.9 iPad Pro 512 gigs. Thought if I was gonna go all out, why not right? I'm super future proof now! Well after a few months of using it I finally check how much iPad storage I was using. I was only using 20 gigs. Ya know how weird it is to see "20 gigs used and 450 gigs free space"? Knowing how much I paid for it? I was a freaking idiot that should have known better. But because I had the money and people on the forums and reddit made me a little paranoid, I overspent
I stepped down to a 64 gig 10.5 and saved a ton of money. Now I have a base model 2018 MacBook Air and for my non professional needs, am getting by just fine. Ya know why? Because I'm not some super crazy professional video editor that has multiple pro apps open and needs to work with raw files. I also don't play a ton of games and most of my stuff is in the cloud so hard drive space doesn't matter. And the whole "8 gigs of ram will only be good for now. buy 16 for future prooffffff!" Yeah? When? 2 years from now it won't be good? 5? 6? And for what needs? How much will my needs even change? Most likely by the time I'd ever need more than 8 gigs, I'd be ready to upgrade anyway years down the line.
Moral of the story: Buy what you need. More than likely, you need less than you think. If you even have to ask this question, you probably don't need some super powerful rig specc'd to the max. Save the money
Thank you for taking the time to share that. My needs appear to be similar to yours so I'm going to avoid overkill.
I have a 512Gb MBP (as well as my shiny MBA 8/128). Currently, 107Gb is used of which 58Gb is an iTunes music library, which I don't use because of Spotify. So, basically, I use 50Gb.
Light user? Well, I have development environments for six languages. When developing, I mostly develop large scale distributed systems. So, I have all the tooling for that, plus four different database systems. In addition, I have all the usual Apple apps (I delete iMovie and Garageband), plus, because I write books, I have a ton of software to support that activity. Oh yes, I have a full TeX (texlive) install at 6Gb which most folk won't have (so, 50Gb => 44Gb).
Admittedly, I don't have VMs installed at the moment, and they can add up, but that's a specialised thing, and not something I'd do on my MBA.
I bought the base MBA, and I'm very happy with it – so far, touch wood, etc. Usage, to date, is 22 Gb.
Providing you manage your data usage, then most folk don't need anything like 128Gb. For heavy media users – by which I mean those making a living from media and dedicated amateurs – things are different, of course. I've no idea how regular users use hundreds of Gb.
Let me ask ya something. I'm normally a super light user when it comes to my Mac since most of my stuff is in the cloud, but this seems a bit...inflated. It says the system is using 46 gigs. Is that normal?
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fwiw this is my 512gb external "trash" ssd which I use with "i can wipe this any time i want" mentality.
The internal is cleaner, but due to logic pro X content + all plugins also probably has around 100GB of system files. (I don't have an internal now, because i don't have my own mac right now)
I followed the instructions, and ended up with this.
My dock is full.
Of course, if you don't have honking huge monitors, you won't be able to stuff so much stuff into the dock.
On the other hand, a huge monitor is really useful for multitasking-- which tends to align well with a need for more memory.
However, this metric still relies on the idea that computer usage patterns will remain constant. When I replace my computers, I tend to install memory and cpu hungry apps that I couldn't run on my old machines.
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Photos and videos are, in my opinion, things that should be offloaded to an external drive unless they are being used on a daily basis.
Sounds very much like you've made up your mind and are simply looking for validation from others here.
FWIW, in regards to RAM, I'm of the opinion that slightly more is better than slightly less.
In saying that, things are complicated now by Apple's insistence on soldering things in and charging a lot to upgrade at the time of purchase.
Still, if I was buying new, I'd probably drop the extra for 16GB.
I just like the idea of not having to think about it; just focus on my work and let tech get out of the way.
No micro managing for me, thanks.
Personally, I like to have it all on my computer and backed up in the cloud
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It appears to be that way now.
Five to ten years ago I expected to keep this data on board and buying a decent (and not very expensive) level of storage accommodated this. We’re going backwards in some respects.