As technology makes huge strides in producing more stable hardware one thing has become crystal clear, solid state hard drives (SSD) are the way of the future. Apple has only one notebook with a traditional spinning hard drive and it’s likely just a matter of time before they discontinue the MacBook Pro 13in Mid 2012.
The current generation of MacBook provides some great features based on the fact that they have SSDs. Stable data storage is the biggest. Also, the lack of a spinning hard drive allows Apple to produce lighter Macs with less moving parts. The only downside of the SSD is relatively small storage size for the price.
Learning how to manage your internal drive is key when most model’s starting storage is 128 GB. When you purchase a new machine you can write off about 20 GB for the OS and pre-installed applications. This leaves you roughly 108 GB free and that is if you haven’t transferred data from an old machine. People tend to fill the remainder of their drives with media (videos, picture, and music).
If you are transferring data from an old machine, I highly recommend going through your files and getting rid of unused files. Many people have stuff cluttering up their drives and don’t even know it. Duplicate photos, PDFs, old papers, old iOS device backups, and unused applications can fill up your computer unnecessarily.
Another space hog is application installers. I have seen customers have 5 GB of an Adobe Flash Player installers. You can easily find installers by going to the Downloads folder in Finder. Once you are there, sort by file type and scroll through till you find the .dmg files. After you review the installers to make sure you have installed the ones you wanted, you can delete them.
Most people stream their movies and music which also cuts down on the need for internal storage. Yet there are still many people who like to use their media offline. To save on space I highly recommend keeping an external drive. With an external drive you can move your iTunes and Photos libraries off your internal drive. But be sure to back these up as you never want your important data in only one location
With an external hard drive and basic data management you can make a 128 GB drive feel a lot bigger!