hard drive sizes - macbook air

[Loueytb3]

I'm thinking of replacing my completely screwed laptop with a macbook air. I spoke to someone in JL yesterday about them and have discovered that they have flash hard drives, the standard size being 128gb. I can pay more for a larger hard drive (256gb) but I'm not sure whether i need to.

Is 128gb a reasonable hard drive size? I am intending to use it to watch/store movies etc in the future when we are away and I have no idea how big a standard movie is. I have loads of photos but also have an iMac and external hard drive to store those on.

Movies are typically 2-3GB. If all you're going to use it for is, say, watching movies and web browsing then 128GB will probably be enough. If you think it might be used for other stuff at a later date then seriously consider going for the bigger drive.

Saying that, if you had the money to go for maximum memory or maximum hard drive space then I'd go for the memory. First because it will improve performance but mainly because it's impossible to add memory to a Macbook Air at a later date. You can at least (for a stiff price and voiding of warranty) replace the flash hard drive with a bigger one.

Depends on compression, resolution. Some movies can be 900Mb. Average for SD res is probably 1.5GB, double that for HD.

I would go for as big as I could afford if needing to have things with me constantly. If you can access your external storage via the web, then you can stream from it if connections are fast enough, so may not always need to have lots of movies with you.

You might want to think about what your money is actually getting you. The extra 128Gb will set you back an additional £150. You get nothing else extra for that. For that same money, you could buy around 4 Terrabytes of memory. That makes Apple's memory over 30 times more expensive.

I'd get a new laptop if I were you.

Its mainly going to be used for downloading movies/tv shows from sky go and iplayer (e.g. when we go on holiday/away) but they won't be permanently stored on the hard drive). I think 128gb is probably enough as that is a lot of movies to download in one go. I work remotely but its all stored on the virtual server so not on my hard drive. In any case I still have the iMac with loads of memory and an external hard drive as well.

However I'm going to buy it in the states in a few weeks when we go over. The exchange rate is very good at the moment and the difference in price between the two different memory sizes is approx £120. Still a lot of money but as you say, you can't change it later on.

I think I will leave it up to DH to see what he thinks.