MBA 128GB HDD Big Enough for Windows Partition and Reasonable Use?

I am thinking of buying a 13'' MBA with the 128 GB HDD. I would like to install Windows 7 to dual boot via boot camp. My understanding is that this creates a separate partition for Windows 7. Assuming that is correct, is the 128GB HDD sufficient to run both OSX and Windows 7, while keeping room for a reasonable amount of media and games (30-40 GB or so)? The 256 GB is gonna be a bit of a stretch financially. Thanks so much for your help!

 

It depends on how much you set the partition to, and where you primarily want to store your data and run games. After installing some apps and some of my favorite movies on my Air, I've still got 97GB free on the drive. I could easily set up a 40GB partition for Windows 7 and still have plenty of space for OS X.

 

20GB's for OS X and a few programs.
20GB's for Windows 7.
40GB's for media and games.

120GB's(Formatted capacity) - 80GB's = 40GB's extra space.

 

Huh, is 20GBs for each of OSX and Windows reasonable? I have no clue about the size of each OS. Thanks again for the help!

 

Yeah, a fresh install of Windows 7 is around 20GB's. OS X is more like 15GB-20GB's.

If you ad and extra 5GB's to each OS for programs, you still have 30GB's free.

 

I dunno, I think you would be a lot happier with 256 if your budget can afford it. To me 128 is what you need for one OS to run with all of your stuff on it. Some games like Starcraft 2 take up 12gb. You don't really want to deal with running those things off an external, its a pain.

40gb is pretty low to have every program you want for both operating systems. Add in media and you are going to be cutting it close. Especially if you run larger applications. My applications folder in OSX takes up 37gb and I uninstall anything I don't use (I have almost no waste applications). Add in Windows Applications (games and stuff have huge file sizes) and it would be double that.

If you don't have a lot of apps you want to run on either side, you can probably work it out with 2 OS on a 128. But be careful, even Matlab takes up like 4.62 GB on my computer, and I haven't installed a bunch of the add ons and stuff. Most applications are not optimized to take up low amounts of space because the developer assumes you have a 750gb hard drive or something.

For music to conserve space you can run it from a 3rd partition accesible to both OSs, so you don't have to duplicate music files. But you can't do that with applications unfortunately.

 

Here is what I do:

OSX - 45gb - HFS+
Win 7 - 45gb - NTFS
Data - 30gb - ExFat

So I put my home folder, and my windows libraries in the data partition

But sincerely it aint enough space, 45gb formated in NTFS leads me to 40gb of real space, win 7 takes 18, and will grow in size as you use it, due to indexing, restoration points, page files...

In the end Im going to buy a 256gb SSD for me

 

120 gb is the actual size. So I know that both OS's take up around 20 gb, so just split it in half 60/60.

 

I don't see that a Windows 7 partition is going to be very usable for gaming unless (1) you put most of your hard drive in the Windows partition, or (2) you only have one or two games installed at a time. Modern games are big. You need 15 GB of free hard drive space to install the Steam version of Bad Company 2. Starcraft 2 requires 12 GB. Etc.

 

If you have a NAS, home server, or desktop computer, you can keep all your data on it and access it from the MBA via a network share. Then you only need room for apps, games, and a "working set" of files. And since the MBA isn't a great gaming computer, I wouldn't expect you to keep a whole lot of games on it at once.

When I travel, I load up a couple of games, some movies, music, photos, and files I need. A dual boot setup on a 128GB drive ought to leave you about 30-50GB of space for that, depending on how you size the partitions and how many big apps you install.

But if you don't have networked storage, so everything you access either has to be on the MBA or an external HDD, then get the 256GB drive because keeping an ultraportable tethered to an external drive kinda defeats the purpose.

 

Just going to reiterate what everyone says. Go with the 256.

Wouldn't be so much of a problem if parallels worked smoothly, but the fan noise and heat are a bit much.

 

120GB of storage is tough to live with on a dual-boot machine. It would be fine for a single OS machine, but 120GB on a dual-boot machine will make you feel very constrained.

I recently bought a MacBook Pro 13.3" and put a 120GB SSD in it, and used BootCamp to dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows 7 (partitioned 40GB / 80GB) After loading the two OSes, general productivity applications, and two 10GB virtual machines, I only had about 15GB remaining across both partitions. This is not enough scratch space for me to load up a few movies to watch when I travel. I bought a 240GB SSD (partitioned 80GB / 160GB), and haven't ran into storage problems since.

If it were any other laptop, I'd say get the 120GB and upgrade to a 240GB SSD later when prices go down. But it's not quite that easy with a MacBook Air, since there isn't a well-developed market for aftermarket mSATA SSDs. My advice is that if this MacBook Air is something you plan on keeping for a while, then make the investment up front and get a 256GB SSD. You shouldn't ever have to feel like you are constrained because you don't have enough storage space to do the primary tasks for which you use your laptop.

 

Anything with using a Hog like windows is going to take out like 15-25% of your 128Gb SSD.....have fun with that.

 

I guess I don't see what the big deal is. I have a 120GB SSD (not even a 128GB SSD to my capacity is 119GB formatted) with OS X Lion and Windows 7 Ultimate x64 installed. It currently has about 70GB used with 50GB of free space. That includes a 3GB installation of Office 2010 for Windows, Office 2011 for Mac, MATLAB 2011a for both OS's (~5GB each), iWork '09, and a handful of other programs. Granted, all of my media is stored on a 1TB FireWire 800 drive but 50GB is still quite a bit of extra storage when it comes to just programs. Of course, modern games require about 15GB for each title so you have to take that into consideration.

 

That IS the big deal right there.

 

But even with a 256GB drive, by the time Windows and OS X are installed, you are still looking at about enough room to install a dozen games with no other media or anything else extra. So a 256GB drive would even require that a gamer swap titles out even though a good drive would cost 4-5 times more than a good 120/128GB SSD. In the end, an optibay solution would be best so that main programs and each OS could be installed on a 120GB SSD while media and games could be stored on a 1TB drive. That would remove the optical drive and make it an external one but, in the grand scheme of things, no solution is going to be perfect. The OP can either not spend a lot and cycle a bunch of games in an out, spend a lot of money and do that for some titles, or have all the space they need for a bunch of games but have an external optical drive.

 

Sorry to bump an old thread but I want to dual boot OSX & Windows 7 on my 128gb SSD and remove the optical and install a 500gb hdd. Will that function correctly?

 

Yes it should work fine but not in a MBA, the mbp in your sig should be good

 

So what would be the optimal ratio? Should I install apps to the SSD or hdd?

 

a couple vital apps to SSD, the rest on the platter if you can

 

I currently have a hybrid dual booting OSX/W7U - is it possible to clone those images?

 

The problem here is that 120GB is going to feel very constrained. Realistically, you are going to split the space on your 120GB SSD as 40GB / 80GB, or 60GB / 60GB. In either case, you are going to be very limited on space.

Yes, technically, you could install OS on the SSD, and install apps on the mechanical HDD. But that defeats the purpose of an SSD, because your apps are going to be loading very slowly off of a mechanical HDD. I really think you should consider getting a 240GB SSD if you are serious about using BootCamp and dual-booting OSX / Win7.

The only thing that I've found that can do that is Clonezilla.

You need an imaging app that can read both HFS and NTFS partitions, which means that the imaging app needs to be Linux-based. Mac-centric imaging apps don't do the job. And a lot of the Windows-centric imaging apps focus heavily on NTFS.

I think that the absolute latest version of Acronis TrueImage can do it. But the easiest route is to just download the Clonezilla ISO and use that (bonus points for being freeware).

 

Install the operating systems and all apps to the SSD. You should still have plenty of space left over. Keep all media files that you only use for playback on the HDD. If you edit media files, try to do it on the SSD and then move them to the HDD after. For most people that's just photos. For work or school stuff, keep the set of files you're currently working with on the SSD for quick access and put the older stuff you're no longer actively working with on the HDD. Games should generally go on the HDD, but I like to keep the game I'm currently playing on the SSD for fast loading and then move it off once I'm done with it.

 

Is it even possible to install boot camp to a secondary hdd, everything I've read says no.

 

Why would you want to do that? The higher speed of the SSD will benefit both operating systems.

 

2 OS's installed doesn't leave a lot of room.

 

That sounds like a lot of manual file management. Probably not practical for most people.

 

Couple questions, how do I map my Music folder to the hdd, and what format do I need to format my hdd so that both OSX & Boot Camp can read/write to it?

 

exFAT will work under both OS X and Windows (XP through 7) without issues. That will allow both OS's to read and write content to the HDD. I assume you are using iTunes for your music management. Open it up, click on iTunes in the menu bar, and then click on Preferences. Click on the advanced icon and change the iTunes directory to wherever you want. I also recommend putting a checkmark next to "Keep iTunes media folder organized" so that all of your content will automatically be organized there. You can also put a checkmark next to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" so that you don't have to manually add content to your iTunes library (just dragging and dropping media into your library will do the trick and iTunes will automatically organize it).

That is it. Now, if your iTunes library is on your internal SSD, you will have to consolidate your library onto your secondary HDD. You can do that by clicking on File, going down to Library, and clicking on Organize. Use the consolidate option and iTunes will automatically copy (copy, not move) your iTunes library to your new location. You will then have to manually delete the old files. You only have to do that if your iTunes library is already setup and stored in a different location. Otherwise you don't need to consolidate it and can just start adding media.

 

Both operating systems plus all my apps takes up a total of 50GB, leaving plenty of room for other stuff. Besides, the goal should be to put things that benefit most from speed on the SSD, and the operating systems and apps will benefit most.

True, but it's not as bad as it sounds. I usually move a lot of files around right before leaving on a week+ long trip. Otherwise, I don't do much file management. When at home, all my media stays on a big NAS.

 

Install both OS and games on the SSD. Move all of your other files onto a high capacity half height SD card